A Global Perspective on Migraine Attack Triggers: Understanding Differences Across Lifestyles, Religions, and Regions

This review aims to summarize migraine attack triggers and understand variance across lifestyles, religions, and regions.

Experts from 11 countries collaborated to suggest a definition of migraine attack triggers. After investigating the geographical distribution of various triggers, referring to an earlier review written by the International Headache Academy (iHEAD) of the International Headache Society, we collected literature and summarized findings on both globally observed triggers and region- or culture-specific triggers. The most common triggers included stress, menstruation, and sleep disturbances. Several triggers were observed only in certain cultural contexts, such as fasting during Ramadan or Yom Kippur, or in specific regions, including barometric pressure in Eastern Asia, Lodos winds in Türkiye, midnight sun in the Arctic region, and watermelon consumption in Brazil. We summarized migraine attack triggers reported universally and specifically in different settings. In addition to using conventional methodology, future studies should address the mechanisms and causality of these triggers.