Can a better diet help headaches?

If you suffer from regular headaches, a few changes to your daily diet can make all the difference. Nutritional therapist, Kerry Torrens explains...

Around 10 million people in the UK suffer from some sort of headache. Symptoms range from a dull ache to debilitating migraine. For one of my clients, a working mum, it had been a long-standing problem. Her GP diagnosed 'tension headaches', and she was keen to find an alternative to over-the-counter painkillers.

She skipped breakfast to squeeze in the school run, and grabbed snacks rather than eating at set times. Her diet lacked magnesium (low levels of this mineral are associated with tension headaches) and she often didn't sleep well.

 

My advice to the client was:

• Eat breakfast within an hour of waking - wholegrain cereal with fruit, granary toast with sugar-free nut butter, or eggs with spinach or watercress - and eat every 3-4 hours to stabilise blood sugar levels.
• Base meals and snacks on low-GI carbs such as rye crackers, wholemeal bread, wholewheat pasta or basmati rice, combined with lean protein like chicken, turkey, fish and low-fat dairy.
• Eat magnesium-rich foods, such as green leafy vegetables, nuts, seeds, beans and peas.
• Snack before bed to help improve sleep - good choices include porridge, oatcakes topped with low-fat cream cheese, a plain yogurt with nuts and sliced banana.

The results:

Setting her alarm 10 minutes earlier gave my client time to have breakfast; she then started to build in the other changes. Within three months she reported fewer headaches with less severe symptoms.

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