Chocolate May Not Cause Headaches

Chocolate lovers, rejoice: your favorite food may have been getting unfair blame for causing headaches, according to a study at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Researchers had 63 women who suffered recurrent migraines or tension headaches follow a diet that restricted chocolate and other foods high in amines (chemicals thought to trigger headache), such as aspartame, caffeine and MSG.

On some laboratory visits, participants ate chocolate bars. On others, they got carob, a chocolate substitute that does not contain amines. The volunteers kept diaries to track their headaches. Half did not get any headaches at all, and those who did were just as likely to have eaten the carob beforehand as the chocolate.

The study leader, Dr. Dawn Marcus, said previous studies that showed a chocolate-headache connection were much smaller and did not attempt to eliminate other foods thought to cause headaches.

Other research has suggested that a craving for sweets, perhaps triggered by stress, often precedes a headache. So people mistakenly believe the chocolate caused a headache that was going to happen anyway.