Laziness and Junk Food Are Teen Headaches

Aug. 18, 2010 -- Adolescent couch potatoes have significantly more headaches compared with their healthier counterparts, and each unhealthy behavior has an additive effect on headache, according to a study from Norway.

Excess weight, inactivity, and smoking independently increased the risk of recurrent headache. And as the number of unhealthy behaviors increased, so did headache diagnoses and frequency.

Whether lifestyle interventions would affect headache remains unclear but certainly plausible, according to the study published online in Neurology.

"Even though we were unable to adjust for all relevant confounders in the present study, and in spite of the fact that cross-sectional studies cannot adequately address the question of causal relationship, we believe that the associations observed and the additive effect of these negative lifestyle factors on the prevalence of recurrent headache indicates that these lifestyle factors are possible targets for headache preventive measures," Dr. John-Anker Zwart of Oslo University Hospital and coauthors wrote.

Though drug therapy is the most common treatment for headache, lifestyle factors appear to play a role in several types of headache. Physical activity may induce headache, but regular exercise also has been proposed as a component of migraine management, the authors wrote.

Smoking is a migraine trigger in adults and is associated with a higher prevalence of headache. Obesity also has been associated with chronic daily headache and frequent migraine in adults.

But whether the lifestyle links apply to headache in younger patients had received scant attention in the medical literature, the authors continued.

To address the lack of information, investigators interviewed nearly 6,000 junior high and high school students living in the same Norwegian county from 1995 to 1997. The interview included a comprehensive questionnaire that elicited information about headache, smoking, physical activity, and other health and lifestyle issues. The students also underwent a brief clinical examination.