Diet and Migraine: Is there a role?

Combining diet and lifestyle changes can often make a huge impact in control of migraine headaches. The traditional approach was to focus on migraine and try to identify triggers. Often this yielded poor results and patients gave up the diet factor as important. To better understand the role of diet one must focus on the goal of dietary intervention. This takes us away from diet for migraine per se to diet for specific comorbidities that can be treated. The result of treating these comorbidities leads to improvement of migraine. It addresses diet to help alter the "threshold" of migraine by exploring the relationship of migraine to insulin, gluten, and other factors. This can lead to improved migraine management by altering the migraine threshold: i.e. requiring more of a stimulus to initiate headache. The result is to reduce the negative impact of migraine on the individual patient.

Dr. J. Kent Dexter's Bio:

Dr. Dexter earned his degree in Internal Medicine from the University of Missouri-Columbia. He is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, and his board certification in Headache Medicine was awarded by the United Council for Neurologic Subspecialties, and he holds a Certificate of Added Qualification through the National Board of Certification in Headache Management. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, and is a member of the American Medical Society and the American Headache Society. Dr. Dexter received his undergraduate degree in math and chemistry from Baker University, and pursued graduate studies in the field of human anatomy at the University of Kansas prior to joining the U.S. Air Force, where he studied computer science. Dr. Dexter previously served as Chairman of Medicine for St. Johns Regional Health Center, Springfield, Missouri; Chairman of Medicine for St. Johns Physicians and Clinics, Springfield, Missouri; and Chairman of Primary Care, Monroe Clinic, Monroe, Wisconsin. He returned to Springfield in 2003 to serve as the Medical Director of Headache Care Center, where in addition to his full-time clinical practice and research, he is involved in the development and management of the medical services provided at Headache Care Center.