The Study on migraine

Researchers are currently developing and testing they believe will be able to prevent migraines from happening rather than treat the pain after they develop. The drugs are designed to prevent the headaches by interrupting the chain of events that normally lead up to these headaches occurring.

How the new drugs work

The new drugs work to stop a biochemical known as gene-related peptide from creating the headaches. Over two decades ago researchers discovered that gene-related peptides played an important part in the formation of chronic migraine headaches.
Doctor Peter Goadsby said that the human body used gene-related peptides to control the opening of blood vessels. The gene-related peptides are also thought to play a big part in signaling the brain of pain in the body.
The current medications used for migraine relief work to block the gene-related peptides, so they stop the pain after the headache has begun. The new medications under development will be designed to target the gene-related peptides before they start to send the pain signals, and thus they will stop the headache before it ever begins.

Blocking Gene-related Peptides Completely

It is impossible for you to block the gene-related peptides completely because the human body needs then for other functions. If the gene-related peptides were totally stopped there would be severe repercussions and people would become very ill.

What this means to migraine sufferers

Migraine sufferers number more than thirty six million in the United States. If you combined the number of people who suffer from asthma and diabetes, they would not equal the number of people who suffer from migraines.
To date no drug has ever been developed to help these people to reduce the number of migraines they have by preventing them from occurring. Doctors have used medications that were designed for other purposes, like the treatment of high blood pressure, to try and help their patients who suffer from chronic migraines avoid some of the agony they suffer each month.

What are chronic migraines?

A person is said to suffer from chronic migraines if they experience the pain for fifteen days or more out of each month. That is a lot of debilitating headaches. There are reportedly four million people in the United States who suffer from conditions of chronic migraines.

Who is developing the new drugs?

There are four pharmaceutical companies currently working to develop these new drugs. These companies include:
• Alser Pharmaceuticals has yet to present their findings from their tests
• Amgen reported that after twelve weeks over half of their test subjects reported a significant reduction in migraines
• Eli Lilly and Company who report their new drug could possibly help prevent migraine formation
• Teva Pharmaceuticals report that their new drug has proven effective on half of the test subjects
The development of a migraine prevention drug could possibly:
• reduce the number of headaches suffered each year
• reduce the number of side effects migraine sufferers have from the medications they take
• reduce the number of missed work hours that migraine sufferers have each year
• reduce the cost of health care in the United States