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Migraine trigger food

By Serge Kreutz

Version 1.0, Lancaster, 6. June 2010

Many people suffering from migraines attribute their frequent attacks to trigger foods.

But in placebo-controlled studies with most triggers, the results were inconclusive. It wasn't that specific chemical substances could be clearly associated with migraine.

Sure, some patients who are gluten-sensitive also respond with headaches to the ingestion of gluten-containing food.

But for most migraine patients, just avoiding gluten grains is no prevention.

Nevertheless, I have known for some time that my migraines are food-dependent. I know it for two reasons.

1. If I indulge in cheese, I sure get migraines. I love cheese for its taste, especially hearty

ones like Stilton, Gorgonzola, Camembert, Limburger. Indulging in cheese can mean up to half a kilo a day. I sure have headache the next day. Every next day as long as I go on eating cheese.

2. I don't get migraines on a fruitarian diet, but, even though, I do not support such diets (more on that further down in this article).

Gluten, by the way, is a protein.

Proteins are composed of amino acids. Cheese is rich in altered amino acids, one of them tyramine.

Tyramine is a slight modification of the amino acid tyrosine.

Tyramine is a so-called mono amine. Mono amines also function as neurotransmitters.

Dopamine is also a mono amine.

In a healthy human body, as mono amines are constantly supplied in the diet, and are, to a lesser extent, synthesized as neurotransmitters,

there must be a pathway to discard them, too.

This is handled by an enzyme, mono amine oxidase.

Now, in certain diseases like Parkinson's, there is a shortage of the mono amine neurotransmitter dopamine. Thus, a standard therapy is to give drugs that prevent the breakdown of this neurotransmitter. Such drugs are named MAOI, short for mono amine oxidase inhibitor.

The problem with these drugs is that they inhibit the breakdown of mono amines not just in the nervous system but also in the gut.

If patients undergoing MAOI therapy ingest mono amine-rich food such as tyramine-loaded cheese, those mono amines in the gut, the breakdown of which is inhibited, spill over into the nervous system where they cause dangerous excitation.

If not tyramine, tyramine-rich cheese nevertheless is a dietary trigger in many migraineurs.

Its not just the tyramine. Oranges, for example, also contain tyramine but they are almost never cited as migraine trigger food.

While cheese is a definite migraine trigger in me and many others, and while cheese is especially rich in tyramine, no controlled study with isolated tyramine has shown it to be a definite migraine trigger.

So it's not.

On the other hand, I know (this is 2.) that on a fruitarian diet I don't have migraine attacks.

But I am not a fruitarian. A fruitarian diet interferes negatively with my sexual desires and my sexual function, and this is not acceptable to me.

Try this additional info:

Many people suffering from migraines and lesser headaches claim that mono sodium glutamate, MSG (a common food additive that

enhances taste) is behind their cranial pain.

But once again, controlled studies have not resulted in definite proof for the idea that it's MSG that causes migraines.

But wait a moment.

Can you see the pattern? Gluten is a protein and as such amino-acid based.

Cheese is rich in amino acids, many of which are in an altered protein state. Tyramine is an altered amino acid (tyrosine).

And mono sodium glutamate is a sodium salt of the amino acid glutamate (the same amino acid that abounds in gluten).

Can you see the wider picture?

Migraines are protein-related, or amino-acid related, which is pretty much the same thing.

This is my discovery, reflected nowhere in the medical literature: migraines, and lesser

headaches, often are a condition of protein overload.

Now try the Serge Kreutz diet. The Serge Kreutz diet advises you to watch your protein intake.

Please note: I am not telling anybody to eat a no-protein diet. Everybody (and in this case, it could be spelled: every body) needs protein (as an amino acid source) in his or her diet for cell repair and the synthesis of digestive enzymes, and a plethora of other physiological processes. I would be a dangerous fool if I were to propagate a no-protein diet. Anyway, such a diet would be hard to follow as most food contains protein in various degrees.

But how much dietary protein? Conventional medical science says 70 gram a day is the minimum. Fruitarians say 30 gram. I estimate that 50 gram would be a good average for an adult. But most adults in rich Western countries, especially those adhering to Atkins quackery, eat several hundred grams a day.

Surplus protein is just converted into fuel

(sugar or fat), and for that, it will have to be deaminated (the nitrogen has to be removed from those molecules). Deamination is a heavy load on the digestive system, accompanied with toxic by-products.

Now, the Serge Kreutz diet has two legs:

1. Avoidance of protein (amino acid) overload to prevent migraines and other states of reduced well-being.

2. The inclusion of animal fat in the diet as it is supportive of hormonal processes needed for optimal sexual function.

While leg 1 has been covered in this article, sexual desires and sexual function have been the topic of many articles I have written in more than a decade.