Photo: Getty Images
FRIDAY, June 10, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Many young people who suffer from migraines have vitamin deficiencies, new research finds.
“Further studies are needed to elucidate whether vitamin supplementation is effective in migraine patients in general, and whether patients with mild deficiency are more likely to benefit from supplementation,” said lead study author Dr. Suzanne Hagler in a Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center news release. She is a headache medicine fellow in the hospital’s division of neurology.
The study included children, teens and young adult migraine patients who were treated at Cincinnati Children’s Headache Center.
A high percentage of them had mild deficiencies in vitamin D, riboflavin and coenzyme Q10—a vitamin-like substance used to produce energy for cell growth and maintenance, the researchers said.
Many of the patients were prescribed preventive migraine medications and received vitamin supplementation if their levels were low. But because too few patients received vitamins alone, it wasn’t possible to determine if vitamin supplementation could help prevent migraines, the researchers noted.
The study also found that girls and young women were more likely than boys and young men to have coenzyme Q10 deficiencies. Boys and young men were more likely to have vitamin D deficiency.
Patients with chronic migraines were more likely to have coenzyme Q10 and riboflavin deficiencies than patients with episodic migraines, the study found.
Previous research has suggested that certain vitamins and vitamin deficiencies may be important in migraine, but studies using vitamins to prevent migraines have yielded mixed results, the researchers said.
The study was to be presented Friday at the American Headache Society’s annual meeting, in San Diego. Research presented at meetings is considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
“The great tragedy of Science — the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.”
“…science consists in grouping facts so that general laws or conclusions may be drawn from them.”
“It is the function of science to discover the existence of a general reign of order in nature and to find the causes governing this order. And this refers in equal measure to the relations of man (social and political) and to the entire universe as a whole…”
“The real value of science is in the getting, and those who have tasted the pleasure of discovery alone know what science is. A problem solved is dead. A world without problems to be solved would be devoid of science.”
“The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanations of complex facts. We are apt to fall into the error of thinking that the facts are simple because simplicity is the goal of our quest. The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, Seek simplicity and distrust it.”
“Science begets knowledge; opinion begets ignorance.”
“Our society, in which reigns an eager desire for riches and luxury, does not understand the value of science. It does not realize that science is a most precious part of its moral patrimony. Nor does it take sufficient cognizance of the fact that science is at the base of all the progress that lightens the burden of life and lessens its suffering.”
“Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one’s living at it. One should earn one’s living by work of which one is sure one is capable. Only when we do not have to be accountable to anybody can we find joy in scientific endeavor.”
“In science the opinions of a thousand are not worth as much as one tiny spark of reason in an individual man.”
“Science makes people reach unselfishly for truth and objectivity; it teaches people to accept reality, with wonder and admiration, not to mention the deep awe and delight that the natural order of things brings to the true scientist.”
“It is a profound and necessary truth that the deep things in science are not found because they are useful; they are found because it was possible to find them.”
“Science is a game… In the presentation of a scientific problem, the other player is the good Lord. He has not only set the problem but also has devised the rules of the game – but they are not completely known, half of them are left for you to discover or to deduce.”
“The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them.”
“No doubt science cannot admit of compromises, and can only bring out the complete truth. Hence there must be controversy, and the strife may be, and sometimes must be, sharp. But must it even then be personal? Does it help science to attack the man as well as the statement?”
“I strongly believe that fundamental science cannot be driven by instructional, industrial and government or military pressures. This was the reason why I decided, as far as possible, not to accept money from the government.”
“Science is not a heartless pursuit of objective information; it is a creative human activity.”
“Science is a self-correcting process. To be accepted, new ideas must survive the most rigorous standards of evidence and scrutiny.”
“Science is founded on uncertainty. Each time we learn something new and surprising, the astonishment comes with the realization that we were wrong before… In truth, whenever we discover a new fact it involves the elimination of old ones.”
“It is curious how often erroneous theories have had a beneficial effect for particular branches of science.”
“Nor must we forget that in science there are no final truths.”
“Of course, if one ignores contradictory observations, one can claim to have an “elegant” or “robust” theory. But it isn’t science.”
“Some people think that science is just all this technology around, but no it’s something much deeper than that. Science, scientific thinking, scientific method is for me the only philosophical construct that the human race has developed to determine what is reliably true.”
“We sometimes forget about the creative part of science. I think you need time to daydream, to let your imagination take you where it can… I’ve noticed among the creative, successful scientists who’ve really advanced things, that was a part of their life.”
“Science, however, is never conducted as a popularity contest, but instead advances through testable, reproducible, and falsifiable theories.”