Migraine and arterial stiffness in the Brazilian Longitudinal Study of Adult Health: ELSA-Brasil.

The mechanisms that underlie the link between migraine and cardiovascular diseases are not clear and arterial stiffness could play a role in that association. We analyzed the association between migraine and vascular stiffness measured by carotid-to-femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV-cf).In a cross-sectional analysis of a well-defined population from the Longitudinal Study of Adult Health (ELSA-Brasil) with complete and validated information about migraine and aura according to the International Headache Society criteria, the association between arterial stiffness measured by PWV-cf was tested with multiple linear regression models [β (CI 95%)] comparing migraine without aura (MO) and migraine with aura (MA) to the reference group no-migraine (NM). Subsequent adjustments were made for mean arterial pressure, age, sex, education level, physical activity, alcohol use, diabetes mellitus, smoking, antihypertensive medication, body-mass index, waist circumference, triglycerides and LDL-c level to test the independence of the association between migraine status and PWV.We studied 4649 participants, 2521 women (25.7% MO and 15% MA) and 2128 men (11% MO and 4.3% MA). In NM, MO and MA standard PWV-cf were 8.67 (±1.71) 8.11 (±1.31) and 8.01 (±1.47) m/s, respectively. Unadjusted PWV-cf differed between NM, MA and MO (p<0.001). After adjustment for mean arterial pressure PWV-cf in NM did not differ anymore from MA (P=0.525) and MO (p=0.121), respectively. Fully adjusted models also yielded non-significant coefficients β (95% CI) -0.079 (-0.280; 0.122) and - 0.162 (-0.391; 0.067) for MO and MA respectively.In this large cohort of middle-aged adults, aortic PWV was not associated with migraine.