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Saturday, April 23, 2011

Do Foods Cause A Headache?

By Milos Pesic


Very often people go to doctors' offices because they have recurring headache. The reasons for headache range from various illnesses such as migraine, meningitis, and hypertension. However, in most cases it's stress that causes severe headaches.

Usually, food-induced headaches are characterized by the ingestion of the adverse food. They cause severe pains and they occur in frequent cycles. Lots of people make incorrect assumptions when they think that migraine or tension set off headaches. Actually, they don't even doubt that the cause may be the unsuspected food reaction. Today, about 75 percent of patients with headaches have already experienced some adverse reactions to foods.


Besides, even if a person is insensitive to some kind of food, additives in some other edibles can cause a reaction and a headache as well. Let's see what the most common food offenders are.

Whole milk is itself a cause of headaches in some people; however, milk products are even worse - for example, aged and processed cheese, yogurt, sour cream, chocolate milk and buttermilk. To test whether these products play a role in headaches, consumers should change to low-fat varieties, skimmed milk and imitation sour cream. Such a change is probably beneficial anyway because of lower cholesterol content.

Some kinds of substances such as smoked or processed meats and fish are laced with preservatives and nitrates, and they cause headache. Moreover, a great number of these foods contain cholesterol in high amounts. For that reason, headache-prone patients are advised not to eat bacon, ham, hot dogs, pickled herring salami, and similar products. Freshly baked breads, cakes and doughnuts should be avoided, too.

Beverages which contain caffeine (tea, coffee and cola) are vasoactive, implying that they cause dilation of blood vessels and that may set off headaches. Also, chocolate is vasoactive and it is found to be a prime offender in causing headaches.

Beer, red wine and sherry contain tyramine, a compound that often causes headache. Consumers who are sensitive to these beverages should substitute white wines and consider using alcohol-free beer.

Monosodium glutamate and other flavor-enhancers are frequently associated with headache, therefore, people who are sensitive to these substances should avoid soy sauce, meat tenderizer and seasoned salt. Furthermore, nitrates (commonly added to processed meats) can cause severe headaches as well.

Patients with recurring headaches may obtain relief from experimenting with elimination diets. However, if this approach is ineffective, the doctor may be able to help by establishing a proper diagnosis and prescribing medication, such as beta blockers, that can protect against many common varieties of headache.




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