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Published on: June 2, 2014
No association between blood-based markers of immune system and migraine status: a population-based cohort study
Cevdet Acarsoy1, Rikje Ruiter1,2, Daniel Bos1,3
1Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Background:
Although some evidence implicates the immune system in migraine attacks, its role during attack-free periods remains largely unexplored. Therefore, we assessed the association between the immune system and migraine status.
Methods:
From the population-based Rotterdam Study, we included 6593 participants who underwent blood sampling and migraine assessments. In the blood samples, we measured white blood-cell-based immune markers. As a marker for the innate immune system, granulocyte and platelet counts were determined, whereas lymphocyte counts were used as a marker for the adaptive immune system. Migraine was assessed using a validated questionnaire based on ICHD-2 criteria. We investigated associations between blood-cell counts and migraine using logistic regression models adjusting for age, sex and other variables.
Results:
Mean age of participants was 65.6 ± 11.2 years and 56.7% were female. The lifetime prevalence of migraine was 15.1% (995/6593). We found no statistically significant associations between granulocyte (odds ratio [OR] per standard deviation increase 1.01 95% Confidence Interval [CI]: 0.93-1.09), platelet (OR 1.01 CI: 0.94-1.09) or lymphocyte counts (OR 1.01 CI: 0.93-1.08) and migraine status.
Conclusions:
Our results do not support an association between white blood-cell-based immunity markers and migraine status.
