Green apple scent cuts migraine pain
 

NEW YORK, Jul 06 (Reuters) -- The smells of certain foods -- such as green apples -- may help ease migraine pain, according to a report.

"Future studies of foods and fragrances should provide new treatment options of mitigating migraine," conclude researchers Dr. Alan Hirsch of the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation, and Dr. Chil Kang of Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center, both located in Chicago, Illinois.

Their report appears in the journal Headache Quarterly.

Headache experts agree that certain odors seem to either provoke or warn of migraine onset. Many migraine sufferers believe smells such as cigarette smoke, cooking odors, or perfumes can trigger an attack, while others recognize various scents as part of the 'aura' that signals migraine onset.

Hirsch and Kang speculated that if odors could trigger an attack, others might help reduce headache intensity. They asked 50 chronic headache patients to rate the severity of their pain before and after smelling an inhaler impregnated with the scent of green apples.

After completing the tests at home, 35 of the 50 patients reported that they disliked the green apple odor, while the remaining 15 said they found it attractive.

The authors report that "patients who liked the smell experienced a statistically significant reduction in the severity of their headaches, while patients who disliked the smell experienced no significant effects, either for better or worse."

The researchers believe specific food odors may work with memory to ease an individual's headache symptoms. Previous research has revealed that "memories evoked by food smells (are) usually pleasant and associated with a positive mood state," the authors report. They speculate that "the green-apple scent may have induced a positive mood state in the 15 patients, and such a state would tend to reduce perceptions of pain."

The Chicago authors believe that eating certain foods or inhaling some food odors, used "in addition to standard medical treatment of migraines," might someday prove to be a useful means of reducing headache pain. SOURCE: Headache Quarterly 1998;9:159-163.