European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - February 23, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 16 the stars and stripes sunday february 23, 1986 migraines linked to food allergies by Sandra Blakeslee new York times new research is lending credence to along debated idea thai food allergies May cause migraines in a majority rather than minority of people who have the headaches. Several studies conducted in the United states and England in the last five years have shown that about 75 percent of migraine patients Are allergic to live or More oods while some patients Are allergic to 20 or More oods. When the patients were placed on diets that eliminated or drastically reduced Contact with such trigger goods their migraine headaches slopped or became less frequent and severe. Despite the gathering evidence implicating food allergies Many specialists Are not fully convinced of their importance and say they Are awaiting More data. Most physician agree that headaches including migraines Are a symptom and not a disease. That is there Are underlying mechanisms that give Rise to the sensation of head pain. Migraines Al Lect one Side of the head with pain lasting from a Lew hours to More Man a week. Between 10 million and 20 million americans experience migraines. Two of the studies used double Blind experimental techniques to verily the relationship Between food allergies and migraines. Great care was taken to assure that patients and doctors taking part in the experiments Weie not swayed by personal biases. Both studies found that migraines were consistently provoked by trigger goods goods the subject was allergic to and not by placebos. They strongly support therefore the notion that the allergy migraine connection is real Lor Many patients. Or. Donald Dalessio a migraine expert at the Scripps clinic and research foundation in la Jolla calit., maintains thai food allergies May be a actor in Only about 10 percent o patients with migraines. He agreed that " Here Are some foods that bother migraine patients with alcohol being the most  but or. Dalessio said there is no known mechanism through which food allergies have been shown to produce migraines. Until the fundamental mechanisms that cause migraines Are understood he said scepticism about allergies is warranted. According to or. Seymour Diamond found of the Diamond headache clinic in Chicago less than 5 percent of his patients Likely suffer migraines because of food allergies. Or. Diamond said his clinic sees 2,000 new patients a year and has an average of 30,000 patient visits a  see people All the time who have undergone allergy testing and  without it being any great  he said. Special diets do not help Many patients. I m not sold on the  researchers involved in the recent studies say however that physicians who treat migraines should keep an open mind. Or. James Breneman was chairman of the food allergy committee of the american College of allergy for 15 years and maintains a private or Allce in Kalamazoo Mich. I am convinced three fourths of migraines Are Tood related or. Breneman said. Those who Are sceptical have not adequately investigated the role of Lood. It is a time consuming process and the less Are sometimes faulty and difficult to do. Bui the tools we use Are showing us there is a much higher incidence of food allergies than previously believed. Or. Own in said migraine pallets lend to be allergic to common food they eat every Day wheat eggs milk and Corn. Moreover these goods elicit a slow allergic response. Substances formed by the immune system in reaction of the foods Are not manlies in blood vessels and other tissues until two or three Days alter the goods Are eaten or. Breneman said. As a result migraine sufferers find it difficult to relate specific foods they eat to headaches they develop. The idea that Toad allergies cause migraines was suggested More than 75 years ago or. Breneman and others said. Ii was fashionable in the 1930s and 1940s to think that food allergies caused Many diseases cause of Cluster headaches is unknown but appears to affect mostly men with similar facial characteristics. Broad Skull Reddish complexion Blue or Hazel eyes deeply furrowed forehead including schizophrenia and multiple sclerosis. As those ideas were discredited however the notion that food allergies cause migraines was similarly dropped. It is Only now being revived by allergists. Neurologists and internists prefer to treat migraines with drugs or. Breneman said because of their different training and Outlook on the Issue. The recent Slud Les showing the Strong link Between Lood allergies and migraines shared certain strategies and results. Researchers first put migraine patients on a hypoallergenic diet Lor one week to four weeks. That is care was taken to not feed the patients any foods that could cause an allergic reaction. In some studies the patients drank liquid astronaut formula foods consisting of simple protein carbohydrates and vitamins. Others ate perhaps Only Lamb Rice and Apple every Day for a month. Some subjects chose to fast for a week taking Only Vitamin and Mineral supplements. The goal in each of the studies was to withdraw migraine patients from a Normal varied diet and from any foods to which they might be allergic. After the migraine patients were headache free on the restrictive diets the researchers slowly reintroduced foods one at a time. The study designs varied but in most cases foods that caused migraine headaches in patients could be singled out. In All the studies however some patients did not respond to the diet therapy. Their headaches continued no matter what they ate or did not eat. Or. J. Egger of the Hospital for sick children in London found that b2 out of 88 children with migraine headaches recovered completely after being placed on special diets most of the children were allergic to several foods. One child who reacted to 24 foods was symptom free on a diet avoiding All 24 substances. Children often craved the foods that provoked their migraines or. Egger reported and tended to eat them in Large quantities. Reactions were often highly specific. Some patients reacted to White wheat flour but not to whole wheat flour. Others were allergic to Bacon but not to pork. One could eat beet sugar but not Cane sugar. Or. Egger s study reported two years ago in the British medical journal lancet is considered one of the Best in the Field because he used the double Blind experimental technique to show the link Between foods and migraines was not imagined by the children. Forty children were fed specially formulated foods made to taste exactly alike. Some formulas contained a food to which each child was allergic and some did not. The majority of children 87.5 percent developed migraines after eating a food hidden in the formula to which they were allergic. In a More recent study reported in last August s Issue of the annals of allergy 43 adult migraine patients were similarly studied by or. Lyndon Mansfield of Texas tech University health sciences Center in b paso Texas. Alter determining food allergies through skin tests a third of the patients improved by a going on special diets. Six were headache free. Or. Mansfield tested seven patients with double Blind food Challenge tests. Subjects swallowed two kinds of capsules sugar pills or capsules containing a food to which they were Al Englc. Five patients developed migraines when exposed to a trigger food. One woman used to eat cinnamon every Day for breakfast or. Mansfield said until she found it was provoking her migraine headaches. Several other studies reported in recent years claim that at least that two thirds of severe migraine sufferers Are allergic to certain foods. Some have theorized that migraines can be precipitated by foods such As cheese and alcohol As Well As in chocolate and Citrus fruits