My final migraine food trigger found: tannins

I do not post much here any more, but I thought I would post this info as it has been about 6 months after confirming that the vast majority of my migraines are triggered by tannins. For over a year I was trying to find the link between foods that caused my M's, like blueberries, almonds and other nuts, certain types of apples/apple cider, smoked meats (non-nitrated meats from my pellet smoker), certain types of read and white wines, red plums, dark raisins, red beans, etc. etc. Anyway, tannins and phenolics are the connection, and are certainly triggers for me. I came across this old online site that tied it all together:

http://www.widomaker.com/~jnavia/tannins/

Some other related web sites include:

http://clients.teksavvy.com/~mmather/migtan.html
http://www.webmd.com/migraines-headaches/news/20120620/some-kinds-red-wine-may-not-trigger-migraines

Of course most neurologists are not up to speed on this, and the medical profession is very segregated regarding nutrition/digestion/blood chemistry and the nervous system. I still get migraines, but far fewer of them now that I avoid tannins in foods.

Also note that apples are highly varied in tannins. Look on any cider making web site and you will find that there are apples high in tannins and others that are low in tannins. Basically if you cut open an apple and they turn brown fast, they are high in tannins. If they don't brown, they are likely low in tannins. The brown color is due to tannins being made by the cutting of the apples. Granny Smith apples are low in tannins. Some white wines like chardonnay may also have tannins if they are fermented in oak. Also scotch and whiskey is full of tannins and phenolics after being aged in oak, and I avoid them as well.

I also gets migraines from eating foods high in tyramine, which is better known/accepted by doctors. I also get them from MSG. Oh, and a tuna that does not have MSG or 'veggie broth' is available at Costco in the Kirkland brand cans.

scott, you are so very fortunate to have found specific things you must avoid.  wishing it were so "easy" for the rest of us.  ha!  none of this is easy, and i personally have tried cutting out nearly every food group and tannins, sulfites, tyramines, MSG, etc. but have only found help with the MSG and its 40-50 clones....

you wished me fewer migraine days in a PM several months ago.  unfortunately, mine are still daily and likely will remain so.  but my diet is as pure and holy as i can get it, as is my environment.  living on this earth, though, is full of land mines. 

i'm just thrilled that you have no need to post much anymore, but we can all be grateful you gave us such pertinent information.  now you can go on to your real life.  yours is a true success story.  with many best wishes, dianne

Thank you very much for posting this.  I have not yet tried eliminating tannins from my diet and now thanks to your post I plan to give this a try.

i seem to recall that you were starting or going to start the paleolithic diet.  did you find it was successful in any way?  it's been on my mind to do it for years and years, but i find i am very bad at staying with it, even though i have done every other diet in the world with determination and stick-to-it-iveness..

a good how-to book with recipes is needed.  the theory is already in my mind, and seems logical.  if you can shed any light on this i'd most appreciate it.  thanks, dianne

Scott, I am glad that you were able to discover some more  M triggers, knowing as much as possible about various triggers can only be good.
I just hope this was indeed your last trigger, since I have been there in the past, only to discover later on, yet another trigger which I overlooked, or perhaps only discovered after eliminating all other triggers.

I hope you are right, but never stop being watchful. At times I think that M "finds" new triggers, when we become wise to the old ones. We are dealing here with a very clever enemy who never sleeps.

Diana like you I am very, very careful with triggers, and even if they don't awlays work due to teh complexity of our daily existence, I have decided that even if I avoid one M amongst many, by being careful with my triggers, this is worth it for me.
In meantime I have also re-trained in eating more healthy foods, and now I cannot stand anything which is processed, or tampered with, or loaded with fats and/or sugar not even mentioning those hidden chemicals they pack into our everyday foods. It helps me to keep in shape with no effort on my part, and there are other benefits. Like I can still fit into some of the clothes from 20 years ago, I kept for sentimental reasons.
So watching triggers is not all bad, if terribly inconvenient at times when we are out. But there it is, no one said life with M is easy, is it?
Painless days to everyone - my head is not too bright last few days, we have this horrid weather in UK this year.

Scott, also  I meant to add that tea and red wine are also full of tannins, so watch out for this
 I am so glad that you have found something that works for you.

Too many doctors who call themselves specialists fight each other about their pet theories, and common sense and patient's stories and lives seem to fall by the wayside; casualties of inflated egos. Others are simply affraid to admit to their ignorance and instead of learning from the real world and listening to what their patient's say, they go on repeating their mistakes.

Too many neurologisst  take ont M patients, without knowing how to treat it, but would never admit it, so they go on poisoning us with medicines which are uselss or harmful, wasting our time and causing more side effects. So often they also make us feel as if it was all our fault. This is why need need to learn from each other and to help each other, so thank you for your feed back. Visit us and keep sharing. It is always appreciated.

dcook60 wrote:i seem to recall that you were starting or going to start the paleolithic diet.  did you find it was successful in any way?  it's been on my mind to do it for years and years, but i find i am very bad at staying with it, even though i have done every other diet in the world with determination and stick-to-it-iveness..

Yes I did try it for two weeks but I lost 10lbs in that time. I started out being 119lbs and went down to 108lbs and I felt I was losing too much weight too quickly and I didn't even need to lose any. I abandoned the diet at that point. I guess it was because I wasn't eating dairy products and just not getting enough calories. I also have a very active job so I need calories. It didn't help my migraines in those few weeks.

thank you for your kind answer. i only need to lose 5#, and that's not important to me at my age now.

i wanted to try the paleo diet for migraine purposes, but really had little hope that it would be "the answer", since my head pain is likely caused by structural problems not solvable with known methods.

i'm sorry it didn't help you. dianne

Well, thanks all.

Note that I am not migraine free, and I still get them. However, certain types of food ingredients are my main triggers, as is the case with my cousins that also get these. I also get M's from taking opiate base Rx drugs, and from getting too much sunlight in my eyes, so they are not all food induced. However I can ramp up to chronic migraine levels if I eat the wrong foods and drink the wrong beverages. Sometimes I get M's for no reason that I can determine. But they are fewer now. Also there are hidden tannins in so many things that it is impossible to avoid them all. Similar with MSG and tyramine. MSG is disguised as a lot of other things on food labels (that practice should be banned) and tannins and tyramines are just part of foods and are not labeled. So avoiding them can be difficult. I grow blueberries here and it is hard not to eat them. Raspberries do not seem to cause me problems, and so either they are actually low in tannins, or they have a different type of tannin than those that cause my migraines. Tannins are a wide group of phenolic chemicals, and there are over a thousand known types. They are also found in wood smoke. Like tyramine, it seems to be the amount that I eat that causes M's. I can eat about 2 handfulls of blueberries and not be affected, but more than a cup and I gat a migraine. Also there is the combination effect, and if I eat a few of these and a few of those I can get a M.

As for wine and tea having tannins, that varies. I have been drinking wine most of my adult life, and some types give me M's, and some do not. It depends on the variety of grapes, the time that the crushed juice sits in the skins and stems (both high in tannins) before they are strained, and the time that they are aged in oak barrels (oak is very high in tannins), the type of oak used, and if they are new or used oak barrels. I avoid cabernet and sangiovese (chiante) wines, and merlots do not seem to be that bad for me. The key is moderation, and a glass or two at most. Champagne has always given me M's, and one of the first triggers that I found in my early teens (drinking at weddings). I think it has to do with the final bottle fermentation. Ales also give me M's, for whatever reason. Lager beers generally do not. Scotch and tequila give me M's for different reasons. Scotch has a lot of oak tannin, and tequila has agave (cactus) and that has a lot of tyramine. Gold tequila is also aged in oak and picks up tannins. Tea is also a common tannin source, and I quit drinking black tea a long time ago (I am sensitive to caffeine and theophylline). However, most herbal teas also have a lot of tannins in them, so I do not drink much herbal tea any more either. Apple cider vinegar is an issue, and I have stopped using that as well. Added smoke flavoring is another one that I am eradicating from my food stores now. I keep finding more and more sources of additives that affect me. Processed foods are mostly full of triggers.

Personally I believe that a higher number of M's are caused by food triggers than most medical doctors believe. Most medical sources state that 25-33% of migraines are food and beverage triggered. However, in some studies of children and adolescents that get M's, it was as high as 90%. I think that tannins and amines are so prevalent in foods they are simply overlooked as triggers. Also there are few resources regarding tannin M triggers, but they are out there and have been for a long time. Thus far they have been mainly ignored. More and more sites (like LiveStrong) are listing high tannin foods like almonds and teas as M triggers. Wine has long been a known M trigger, but the key trigger ingredient is still hotly debated. Tannins are floating to the surface as the most likely cause though, especially in places like Brazil where more research is being done on wine and food related M's. Also MAOIs have been found to trigger M's in people that otherwise do not get them. MAOI M's are almost always food triggered, so there is a growing understanding and acceptance in the medical community of food triggers for M's. At the same time, it is not in the food processing business interest (a trillion dollar industry) to come up with triggers for M's in foods (MSG in particular) so a lot of it is intentionally buried by food and beverage lobby interests. MSG is also a trigger for BPH problems, and in my research there is a lot of overlap between vaso-active amines that cause BPH and the ones that cause M's. Hormones are also a main cause of M's, and as women are 3x as likely as men to get M's, that could/would mean that substances in foods are causing about 50% of M's, and hormones are causing the other 50%. I also believe that people low in MAO in the gut and bloodstream are highly likely to get M's, and that may well be the likely cause of people like me getting them (from a genetic predisposition to having low intestinal MAO).    

Also I have been working on a theory of several antidotes that can reduce tannin exposure in foods. One is that tannins are water soluble, so soaking foods in water will usually help to reduce them. Milk products and pork rinds are high in a substance that bind with tannins and prevent them from being digested. It may be that the increase in M's in my life as I have aged is due in part to the fact that I stopped eating dairy products in my mid 20's (mainly because they can trigger or enhance the onset of asthma). So I have been eating more cottage cheese, mozzarella cheese, and ice cream of late.

As an aside, I have flipped to taking the generic for Imitrex (sumatriptan succinate) as well. Far cheaper than Zomig or Imitrex, it has the same sleepy side effects as Imitrex, but at less than 1/10th the cost. Many pharmacies and hospitals do not carry Zomig, and it is often in short supply. And it is insanely expensive stuff.

I just found this site while desperately looking for info on foods containing tannins.  After suffering from food-related migraines since my teens (I'm now in my late 40's), I have just come to the realization that my food sensitivities have changed over the past year.  I knew I had an issue with tannins, but as long as I stayed away from wine and too many grapes, I was ok.  I just came through a 2 month period where I was drinking cider like it was going out of style, which coincided with with 2 months of multiple-day migraines.  I think I have been headache free for about 3 days in those 2 months.  I finally figured out the connection, although I had been able to drink cider in the past.  I stopped the cider and did a little detox and spent 3 glorious headache free days.  Last night I had strawberries and today I have a migraine.  To me, it's a good sign that my tannin sensitivity has changed.  I am now searching for anything to help me change my diet.  I am a HUGE lover of fruit and I can't imagine not eating it anymore.

Before this, cheddar cheese was my guaranteed, SEVERE migraine trigger.  Now the tannins seem to be a big concern.  I haven't had cheddar cheese (on purpose) since I was 16 and the times that I have inadvertantly eaten eat are followed by some of my worst headaches.  Lately, these ones are right up there on the pain scale.  I have even said recently, "this is like a cheddar cheese migraine!"    And, for the first time in 30+ years of headaches, I vomited with a migraine.  I immediately felt better.  The point is that my migraines have changed and likely my triggers have too.  

I can't believe this resource was here and I never found it.  I'll be looking through the site and old posts, but any info anyone can share about tannins and a list of foods would be appreciated.  

Thanks,
Jen

P.S. Imitrex does not work for me and I take Maxalt with limited success.