GLP-1 medication might possess a brand new energy: Easing migraines. In a small, preliminary examine, a GLP-1 drug almost halved the variety of days individuals spent with a migraine in a given month.
The outcomes, offered June 21 on the European Academy of Neurology Congress in Helsinki, Finland, increase the doable advantages of the highly effective new class of weight problems and diabetes medication. These pernicious, debilitating complications are estimated to have an effect on one billion individuals worldwide.
Earlier research have proven that GLP-1 agonists can cut back the stress contained in the cranium, a squeeze that’s been implicated in migraines. Neurologist Simone Braca of the College of Naples Federico II in Italy and his colleagues explored whether or not liraglutide, an older relative of Ozempic and Wegovy, may assist migraine victims. Thirty-one adults, 26 of them girls, obtained each day injections of liraglutide for 12 weeks. These adults all had weight problems and continued to take their present migraine medicines too.
Initially of the experiment, contributors had complications on about 20 days out of a month. After 12 weeks of liraglutide, the typical quantity dropped to about 11 days. “Mainly, we noticed that sufferers noticed their days with headache halved, which is big,” Braca says. Individuals’ weight stayed about the identical in the course of the trial, suggesting that headache reductions weren’t tied to weight reduction.
If the outcomes maintain up in bigger research, they could level to remedies for migraine victims who aren’t helped by present medication. The outcomes can also result in a deeper understanding of the position of stress inside the pinnacle in migraines, Braca says.
The trial, described in Headache June 17, was an early look on the results of liraglutide on migraines; it didn’t embody a comparability group, and contributors and researchers all knew that everybody obtained liraglutide. Bigger trials that embody comparability teams, and maybe individuals with out weight problems, will make clear the drug’s impact on complications.
A brand new class of migraine medication, known as CGRP blockers, has been extremely efficient for many individuals, however they don’t assist everybody, Braca says. “What I want to say to those sufferers is that analysis goes ahead.”
