New blood test may help diagnosing and understanding Migraine
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore found a new blood biomarker that is able to diagnose episodic migraine. Women suffering from migraine showed lower ceramide levels in their blood. Ceramides are Sphingolipids (a class of lipids) and play an important role in membrane function, signal transmission and inflammatory processes.
The findings could not only be a new way to diagnose migraine but moreover it could be a new way of treatment.
Migraine is one of the most frequent neurological diseases. Around the world about 10 percent of the adults are suffering of migraine, more women than men. The difference between the genders has most likely hormonal and genetic reasons, neurologists assume. Typically it starts in adolescence. After the 50th year the frequency declines again.
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Karl Ekbom, M.D., Ph.D., of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm: “This study is a very important contribution to our understanding of the underpinnings of migraine and may have wide-ranging effects in diagnosing and treating migraine if the results are replicated in further studies.”