I was struck by the statistics on migraineurs worldwide published by the WHO. Apparently, 303 million people the world over suffer migraines, out of which women account for 70% of the patients. India alone has 100 million sufferers and the US has 30 million patients. The report went on to add that it is estimated that 20 million migraine attacks happen everyday!!!! Staggering by any scale. A lot of cutting edge research has been done, especially in the last decade to control this beast, scientific reports still grapple with unknowns, and are still clueless on issues such as why or how magnesium release regulates calcium ions in the neurons or why a certain chain of events takes place in the cranium that bring on migraines or even why they wind up.

Food helps tackle this beast to some extent. Tryptophan is a chemical found in various foods that helps.

We are now aware that the basic building block of serotonin is an amino acid called tryptophan. If we increase the intake of tryptophan-rich foods, then we increase the level of serotonin from a state of deficiency in migraineurs. However, the tryptophans are large molecules and their break down and absorption is not as easy as those of the smaller molecule amino acids. To divert the small molecule amino acid such that they do not compete with the absorption of tryptophan, we must marginally increase our insulin levels. This should not be done by intake of sugar, but through mildly increasing the intake of brown rice, bran bread, oat porridges and jacket potatoes. Refined sugar should not be a part of the diet of a migraineurs, preferably even in small doses.

Some examples of tryptophan foods are peas, soya, turkey, eggs, tofu, partridge, pheasant, avocados etc. Though milk and nuts are also tryptophan-rich, I have not included them in the list, as people could be allergic to them and they are also triggers for some migraineurs. Bananas are a rich source of tryptophan as well. The talk of banana being a trigger is rooted in the presence of amines in the fruit. However, amines are concentrated in the peel of the banana - not as much in the edible portions of the fruit. You may however, avoid over-ripe bananas as they have higher amine concentration in their edible portions as well.