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Another interesting article showing how some lifestyle factors are linked to CH. However it doesn't really comment around if the factor influences CH or if CH influences the factor.
Quote:| The highest cluster headache severity was found in patients who were older at disease onset, had fewer hours of sleep, consumed fewer alcoholic beverages, and used a larger amount of prophylactic medications. |
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The link between drinking less and CH being more severe is an interesting one. It is probably the opposite of what we'd expect given that CH is a strong trigger for so many. But they try to explain this with:
Quote:| “higher disease burden appears to be connected with lower alcohol intake…[and] is in line with earlier reports of cluster headache patients reducing their alcohol consumption during CH periods.” |
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The prophylactic link is most likely down to if you've severe CH then it is much more likely that you'll be using more prophylactic medications.
Quote:| Compared with non-tobacco users, patients who had a history of tobacco use or who were current tobacco users were slightly older when cluster headaches first appeared (28.5 vs 31.7). |
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Another interesting one. Does tobacco somehow make CH take hold slower, acting as a preventive? Or does CH make it more likely that you get CH, but it takes an accumulative effect from years of smoking to trigger it? Or something else?
Quote:| According to the investigators, patients experiencing cluster headaches with the most severe symptoms often have a greater need and desire to seek specialist help, which could have introduced selection bias into the study population. |
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I strongly suspect that this might have influenced things.