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. 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.

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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.
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