Is Your Diet Giving You a Headache?
SPLITTING, POUNDING, SQUEEZING—NO matter the specifics of your head pain, making it stop is probably high on your priority list. But of all the places you’ve looked for answers, your dinner plate may not be one of them. But it should be, says Amy Kimberlain, RDN, a registered dietitian in Miami and Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics media spokesperson. “A headache, even though the name implies a pain in your brain, is actually pain from a mix of signals between your brain, blood vessels, and nearby nerves,” she says. “There can be inner and/or outer triggers that cause the body to react with pain,” which you experience as a headache. Those signals between your brain and blood vessels can be affected, in part, by what you eat (or don’t eat), and when.