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. 2022 Aug 24;23(1):108.
doi: 10.1186/s10194-022-01484-y.

Increased risk of all-cause, Alzheimer's, and vascular dementia in adults with migraine in Korea: a population-based cohort study

Kyungduk Hurh  1   2   3 , Sung Hoon Jeong  2   3 , Seung Hoon Kim  1   2   3 , Suk-Yong Jang  2   4 , Eun-Cheol Park  1   2 , Sung-In Jang  5   6
Affiliations

Increased risk of all-cause, Alzheimer's, and vascular dementia in adults with migraine in Korea: a population-based cohort study

Kyungduk Hurh et al. J Headache Pain. .

Abstract

Background: Studies investigating the association between migraine and dementia have reported inconsistent findings. This study aimed to evaluate whether patients with migraine have an increased risk of dementia compared to individuals without migraine.

Methods: We obtained data from the 2002-2019 Korean National Health Insurance Health Screening Cohort. Non-migraine controls were selected using a 1:1 risk-set matching with a time-dependent propensity score. The main outcome was the development of all-cause dementia, and the secondary outcome was the development of each cause of dementia (Alzheimer's, vascular, mixed or other specified, and unspecified dementia). The incidence rate of dementia was calculated using Poisson regression, and the association between migraine and dementia was evaluated using Cox proportional hazards regression.

Results: Among 88,390 participants, 66.1% were female, and the mean baseline age was 55.3 ± 9.4 years. During the study period, dementia cases were identified in 4,800 of the 44,195 patients with migraine and 3,757 of the 44,915 matched controls. The incidence rate of dementia was 139.6 (95% confidence interval [CI], 135.7-143.5) and 107.7 (95% CI, 104.3-111.1) cases per 10,000 person-years in patients with migraine and matched controls, respectively. Patients with migraine had a 1.30 (hazard ratio [HR], 1.30; 95% CI, 1.25-1.35), 1.29 (HR, 1.29; 95% CI, 1.23-1.35), 1.35 (HR, 1.35; 95% CI, 1.19-1.54), 1.36 (HR, 1.36; 95% CI, 1.00-1.83), and 1.30 (HR, 1.30; 95% CI, 1.17-1.45) times higher risk of developing all-cause dementia, Alzheimer's dementia, vascular dementia, mixed or other specified dementias, and unspecified dementia than their matched controls, respectively.

Conclusion: Our results suggest that migraine is associated with an increased risk of subsequent dementia. Further research is warranted to confirm these findings and to reveal the underlying mechanisms.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s dementia; Chronic headaches; Dementia; Migraine; Risk-set matching; Vascular dementia.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Flowchart of participant selection
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Cumulative incidence of all-cause dementia in migraine patients and their risk set-matched controls during follow-up. p-values for stratified log-rank tests < 0.001
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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