Are food allergies linked to Migraines?

I was reading another set of posts and saw someone refer to a certain making them have migraines. This is another thing I have not heard. My questtion is simply-Do food allergie trigger migraines?

Faith aka Diana

Hey there,

From what I understand, certain foods can trigger migraines though what those triggers are varies from person to person. If you wanted to find out more about specific triggers, you could try an elimination diet or a food diary. The only trouble with this, is you have to be getting migraines infrequently enough that you can determine with a fair amount of certain that the migraine was brought on by the food and not simply by breathing.

The reaction from eating foods that are migraine triggers are not really considered a food allergy, per se, but food intolerance. In the case of foods causing migraines, there is a large group of people (like me) that get migraines from eating certain types of foods. These foods are typically high in tyramine, which act as a trigger for migraines when eaten in large enough quantity. Tyramine is a vasoactive amine that causes the blood vessels in the brain to at first constrict, and then dialate, which causes the pain in a migraine headache (brains cells to not have pain receptors, but blood vessels do). Lately they have found that people on MAIO drugs tend to get migraines in this same way, by eating foods high in tyramine.

Some foods high in tyramine are: Several types of yeasts, tofu/soy sauce/miso soup, over-ripe bananas, almonds, Champagne, sherry wine, port wine, ripe avocados, aged cheese (especially Swiss), smoked or aged-cured meats, liver (any) and pate, chocolate, saurkraut and pickles. Red wines vary, some give me migraines while others do not, and ales give me migraines and lager beers tend not to (different types of yeast). The levels of tyramine vary in foods, even in the ones that are known to be high in them. Generally the fresher the food, the less apt they are to have higher levels of tyramine. Tyramine is natrual occuring and results in the process of protien breaking down, and by the actions of bacterial and yeast fermention. Also the amount that can trigger a migraine is apt to vary from person to person, and in my case, vary from time to time.

Here are some web sites with specifics on the subject:

http://www.virtualtrials.com/pcvdiet.cfm
http://uhs.berkeley.edu/home/healthtopics/pdf/triggers.pdf
http://superiorsites3.com/NNS02DietMigraineHeadaches.htm

Tartrazine is my trigger. It's in all kinds of foods, as well as cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.

You can read more about it on wikipedia - the tartrazine page is very comprehensive.

Good luck!