journal features

migraine and "race"

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 2011.02.26

It looks like race* is a determining factor when it comes to migraine (in addition to gender).

Specifically, Caucasians have the greatest chance of developing migraines, and they seem to suffer the most disability due to those headaches. Asian men have the lowest incidence by quite a margin. So says this survey.

*I'm loath to use the word 'race', but we don't yet typify ourselves by 'breed' the way we do with dog or 'variety' the way we do with goldfish, so I guess we're stuck with it.

Ganbatte, my hemi-Asian lad. Break the three-generation family curse of pain, lost social opportunity and productivity, and all of the drugs and their side-effects.

Come to think of it, I wonder if there is any relationship between migraine and a tendency away from obesity. I've known many migraineurs over the years but nary an obese one.

rand()m quote

I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness... The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.

—Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World (1995)