Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 May 6:12:1547371.
doi: 10.3389/fnut.2025.1547371. eCollection 2025.

Association between live microbe intake and severe headache or migraine: evidence from NHANES 1999-2004

Rongjiang Xu #  1 , Xiangmin Yu #  1 , Ruonan Zhang  1 , Xiaonuo Xu  1 , Xiaoping Fan  2 , Liang Dong  1 , Jiying Zhou  1
Affiliations

Association between live microbe intake and severe headache or migraine: evidence from NHANES 1999-2004

Rongjiang Xu et al. Front Nutr. .

Abstract

Objective: The pathogenesis of migraine is not fully understood until now. This study was designed to explore whether the intake of live dietary microbes could be used as an auxiliary means for the treatment of severe headache and migraine.

Methods: Data used in this study were came from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) from 1999 to 2004. Participants were divided into three groups according to the dietary live microbe classification system, namely low, medium and high dietary live microbe groups. Weighted logistic regression models were used for statistical analysis.

Results: A total of 13,443 participants were included in the present study. Compared with the low dietary live microorganism group, the migraine OR (95% CI) of medium-high dietary live microorganism group is 0.71 (0.63-0.81) and 0.73 (0.62-0.86), respectively, in the unadjusted model. After fully adjusting for confounding factors, patients in medium-high dietary live microbe group had a lower prevalence of migraine in contrast to those in low dietary live microbe group (Medium OR: 0.79, 95% CI: 0.68-0.93, P = 0.005; High OR: 0.82, 95% CI: 0.67-0.99, P = 0.047).

Conclusion: Our study shows that a moderate-high intake of live dietary microbes is inversely associated with the prevalence of severe headache or migraine.

Keywords: NHANES; cross-sectional study; dietary live microbe; microbiological therapy; severe headache or migraine.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
A flowchart showing the selection of study participants.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Association between dietary intake of live microbes and severe headache or migraine. Crude model included no covariates. Model 1 was adjusted for age and gender, and model 2 was adjusted for gender, age, PIR, race, education levels, marital status, smoke status, alcohol status, hypertension, diabetes and BMI.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Subgroup analyses on the association between different dietary intake of live microbes and severe headache or migraine. Model was adjusted for gender, age, PIR, race, education levels, marital status, smoke status, alcohol status, hypertension, diabetes and BMI. BMI, body mass index; PIR, the poverty income ratio.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Classification and diagnostic criteria for headache disorders cranial neuralgias and facial pain . Headache Classification Committee of the International Headache Society. Cephalalgia. (1988) 8 (Suppl 7):1–96. - PubMed
    1. Waliszewska-Prosół M, Montisano DA, Antolak M, Bighiani F, Cammarota F, Cetta I, et al. The impact of primary headaches on disability outcomes: a literature review and meta-analysis to inform future iterations of the Global Burden of Disease study. J Headache Pain. (2024) 25:27. 10.1186/s10194-024-01735-0 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Steiner TJ, Stovner LJ, Jensen R, Uluduz D, Katsarava Z, Lifting the Burden: the Global Campaign against Headache . Migraine remains second among the world's causes of disability, and first among young women: findings from GBD2019. J Headache Pain. (2020) 21:137. 10.1186/s10194-020-01208-0 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Zhang N, Robbins MS. Migraine. Ann Intern Med. (2023) 176:ITC1–16. 10.7326/AITC202301170 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Nguyen KV, Schytz HW. The evidence for diet as a treatment in migraine-a review. Nutrients. (2024) 16:3415. 10.3390/nu16193415 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources