Habit 4: Weight Optimization

Habit 4: Weight Optimization

What is it?

Weight optimization refers to achieving and maintaining a healthy body weight through a balanced diet, regular physical activity, and lifestyle management. Maintaining an optimal weight supports overall health by improving metabolic function, reducing inflammation, and lowering the risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and joint problems.

Regimen:

• What- Aim BMI of 20–25, couple your exercise with a Mediterranean-style diet.

How does it work?

Weight optimization may help reduce migraine frequency and severity through several mechanisms:

1. Reduction in Inflammation: Excess body fat contributes to chronic low-grade inflammation. This inflammation can sensitize the nervous system, making it more prone to migraine attacks. By losing weight, inflammation levels decrease, potentially lowering migraine susceptibility.

2. Hormonal Balance: Obesity can disrupt the balance of hormones such as estrogen. Weight loss may help stabilize these hormone levels, potentially reducing hormone-related migraine triggers.

3. Enhanced Vascular Health: Obesity is linked to impaired metabolic function, including insulin resistance, which can affect vascular health. Vascular dysregulation is a known contributor to migraine pathophysiology, as it can influence cerebral blood flow and trigger the flow of neurovascular events that lead to a headache.¹

What is the efficacy?

Methods: This randomized, single-blind trial included 110 women aged 18–50 years, all experiencing 4–20 migraine days per month and having a BMI of 25.0–49.9 kg/m². Participants were assigned either to a Behavioral Weight Loss (BWL) intervention (n=54), which encouraged diet and exercise, or a Migraine Education (ME) control group (n=56) that offered guidance on migraine management.¹

Results: Women in the weight loss group lost about 3.8 kg after treatment and 3.2 kg at follow-up, while the education group actually gained weight. Both groups, however, showed similar reductions in migraine days: the weight loss group had –3.0 days post-treatment and –3.8 days at follow-up, while the education group had –4.0 days and –4.4 days, with no significant difference between them.

Conclusion: Although the behavioral weight loss program led to meaningful weight reduction, it did not further reduce migraine days compared to education alone. This suggests that weight loss by itself may not be enough to significantly improve menstrual or general migraine frequency, and combining it with other migraine treatments may be more effective.

References

1. Bond DS, Thomas JG, Lipton RB, Roth J, Pavlovic JM, Rathier L, O'Leary KC, Evans EW, Wing RR. Behavioral weight loss intervention for migraine: a randomized controlled trial. Obesity. 2018 Jan;26(1):81-7.