Diabetes is associated with decreased migraine risk: A nationwide cohort study

Background: Results from studies on diabetes and migraine risk are conflicting, which may be due to methodological limitations. Prospective studies with long follow-up could increase our understanding of the relationship between the two diseases. Method: We performed a cohort study including the whole Norwegian population alive on 01.01.2004, using prescriptions registered in the Norwegian prescription database to identify individuals developing type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes and migraine during follow-up (10 years). We used Cox proportional hazards regression to estimate rate ratios with corresponding 95% confidence intervals for the effect of diabetes on migraine risk, adjusting for age, sex, and educational level. Result: We identified 7,883 type 1 diabetes patients and 93,600 type 2 patients during the study period. Type 1 diabetes was significantly associated with a subsequent decreased migraine risk during follow-up in the age- and sex-adjusted analyses (0.74; 0.61–0.89). Type 2 diabetes was also associated with a significantly lower migraine risk (0.89; 0.83–0.95). Further adjustment for educational level yielded similar results for both diabetes. Conclusion: Both type 1 and type 2 diabetes were significantly associated with a decreased risk of migraine. This suggests that diabetes or diabetes treatment may have a protective effect on the development of migraine.