Patients who have migraines are currently being diagnosed based on symptoms that they report. Latest study could lead to the development of a blood test capable of diagnosing patients with migraines.

This new study also suggests that different women with migraines also have different levels of fats in their blood from those who don't get migraines.

"[T]here is no biomarker or blood test that can help us to differentiate people who get migraines from those who do not," says study author Dr. Lee Peterlin from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.

In their study, the researchers looked at 88 women - 52 of them had episodic migraines, while the remaining 36 did not. Episodic migraines are migraines that occur up to 14 days each month. Chronic migraines in turn are migraines that occur more than episodic migraines do. On average, the participants of the study had headaches for about six days a month.

Blood samples were taken from the women and tested by the researchers to determine a class of lipids that were previously seen to be linked with regulating energy balance and inflammation. The experiment revealed that ceramides or lipid levels were lower among the women who experienced episodic migraines, compared with those who did not have headaches. The participants with migraines had about an average of 6,000 ng/ml of ceramides in their blood. In the women without any headaches, lipid levels were more, approximately 10,500 ng/ml.

The study also showed that the risk of migraines in women increased as levels of sphingomyelin - a different type of lipid - increased. Cause of the migraines may therefore be attributed to the level of lipids in the blood.

Another experiment also allowed the researchers to examine 14 participants and their blood samples, without knowing which of them had migraines and which did not. In this second experiment, the investigators were able to identify those who had migraines from those who did not, based on the blood test alone.

Although small, this study is very important in providing a deeper understanding of migraines, and provides more insights on diagnosis and treatment, said Dr. Karl Ekbom from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, who was not involved in the study.

Photo: Quinn Dombrowski | Flickr