1 in 3 People Live With Chronic Headaches, Study Finds

Pain medication overuse fuels global headache disorders, according to new research.

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Nearly one in three people worldwide experienced headache disorders in 2023, amounting to almost 3 billion individuals, according to a new study published in The Lancet Neurology.

The analysis used data from population studies worldwide to provide the most detailed picture to date of how headaches affect daily life and overall health.

The Burden of Migraines

The study found that tension-type headaches were the most common type of headache, affecting 34.6 percent of the population annually.

Migraines strike only half as many people as tension headaches do yet cause roughly 90 percent of all headache-related disability, according to the study.

The study measured health loss in “years lived with disability” (YLDs), which reflects the total time that people spend living with conditions that limit daily activities and well-being.

The research, part of the 2023 Global Burden of Disease study, found that headache disorders remain a leading cause of health loss and have stayed unchanged since 1990.

“It is important to distinguish between high prevalence versus high health loss,” study coauthor and Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation researcher Yvonne Xu told The Epoch Times, noting that the study didn’t investigate causes that lead to headache.

Women Hit Twice as Hard

The burden falls disproportionately on women, who experience headache-related disability at more than twice the rate of men—739.9 YLDs per 100,000 compared with 346.1 for men, the study found. Women also spent more time experiencing headache symptoms.

While the researchers didn’t address why women experience headaches more often than men, changes in hormones could be among the reasons.

When the Cure Becomes the Problem

The analysis found that medication overuse drives more than one-fifth of all headache-related disability worldwide—a vicious cycle in which the pills intended for relief ultimately make the problem worse.

Patient education is necessary to avoid pain medication overuse, as it’s known that long-term medication overuse can lead to worsened headaches, according to Xu.

Medication overuse causes the brain’s pain pathways to become overly sensitized, Dr. Jeffrey Chester, medical director at The Ohana, a luxury addiction treatment center in Hawaii, who was not involved in the study, told The Epoch Times. “Over time, this can make it easier for headaches to develop.”

While the study didn’t investigate the causes of headaches, recent research suggests that lifestyle modifications are promising interventions. Regular sleep, hydration, consistent meals, physical activity, and stress management have been shown to significantly reduce headache frequency and severity.

“Both aerobic exercise and strength training have demonstrated meaningful reductions in monthly headache days and overall disability,” Dr. Alexander Dydyk, director of pain medicine, weight loss, and wellness at HealthyU Clinics, who was not involved in the study, told The Epoch Times.

These approaches are most effective when paired with an individualized medical and preventive treatment plan, he said.