MIAMI BEACH, Fla., April 14 (UPI) -- A new study by a New York doctor finds that obese people are more likely to have severe headaches.
Marcelo Bigal of the Albert Einstein School of Medicine and his colleagues surveyed 143,433 people by telephone. They divided the 30,850 people who reported at least one severe headache in the previous year into five groups based on body mass index.
The researchers found that 33 percent of the obese reported missing at least four days of work because of headache, compared to 27.2 percent of the overweight and normal weight and 26.1 percent of the underweight.
The morbidly obese and obese were also more likely to report severe pain. But the length of time each headache lasted did not appear to differ significantly among the weight groups
Those who were underweight were more likely to report nausea with their headaches.
The study was to be presented at the American Academy of Neurology meeting this week in Miami Beach.
