A friend showed me a journalistic report of a presentation with great fanfare at the Congress of Deputies, a study which showed that, amongst the group of people with migraine, low levels of an enzyme, diamine oxidase, have been found. A consequence of this deficit would be a low inhibition of histamine, a molecule defined as a potential source responsible for migraines.
They do not say clearly what the role of histamine in the origin of the crisis is. It suggests that migraine has a vascular origin (we know that’s not true) and that histamine would generate a violent expansion of the temporal arteries (which are marked on the temples). Food contains histamine, some more than other. Some medications (including those used to combat migraine) may act by inhibiting, slowing the activity of this holy enzyme that contains the damn histamine.
If all this were true... identifying those citizens that, because of their genes or their habits, find themselves living in an organism that can not restrain the excesses of histamine would be crucial, and then proceed to give advice on not recommended food and medicines.
The presentation of this discovery has had an incredible paraphernalia launching to the world as if it were a milestone in resolving the cumbersome problem of migraine.
The promoters of this study have developed the "Manifesto of Madrid", a call to sensitize all professional and social sectors to redouble their efforts. That includes more information, a consideration of chronic disease disabling entitled to the subsidies given to the classic diseases, more funds for research, promises of new medications...
When it rains, it pours. Arteries, histamine, genes, triggers ...
The biochemistry of the sapiens (ma non troppo) is the same as that of other bugs as far as histamine is concerned. Strains of animals with a deficit of diamine oxidase could be selected and then cause them a forbidden bellyful, and see if they behave as if they had a migraine.
My proposal about the origin of migraine is known to readers of this blog. I think it is a cultural product that promotes defensive alarmism. I have had a lot of patients with migraine that after eating chocolate, cheese and other delicacies have understood what I explained to them and declassified forbidden fruits proceeding to eat them with relish and no fear, without any consequences. I also know some cases in which crises have gone away when removing a kind of food from their diet. There are data for all likes and dislikes.
I fear all these solemn proclamations. My duty for the small group of followers of this humble blog is to show my concern about these media circuses.
Meanwhile, the memes of migraine still make their killing. They increasingly find it easier to spread around the socialized neuronal network.
In Madrid, histamine was proclaimed the responsible for the migraine hell.
Histamine is the new scapegoat. It will try to displace serotonin.
The promoters of molecular scapegoats are always behind all of this.
"Qui prodest? (Who benefits from this?). The Manifesto promoters think it is the sufferer. Let's hope so, but I doubt it.
