Chronic air pollution → oxidative stress + systemic inflammation + neurovascular changes → increased migraine susceptibility. (Source: ChatGPT -to- PubMed)
1. “Migraine and air pollution: A systematic review”
“Results: The final review included 12 studies with over 4,000,000 participants. Designs included case-crossover, case-control, time series, and non-randomized pre-post intervention. Outcomes included migraine-related diagnoses, diary records, medical visits, and prescriptions. Rather than pooling the wide variety of exposures and outcomes into a meta-analysis, we tabulated the results. Point estimates above 1.00 reflected associations of increased risk. In single-pollutant models, the percent of point estimates above 1.00 were carbon monoxide 5/5 (100%), nitrogen dioxide 10/13 (78%), ozone 7/8 (88%), PM2.5 13/15 (87%), PM10 2/2 (100%), black carbon 0/1 (0%), methane 4/6 (75%), sulfur dioxide 3/5 (60%), industrial toxic waste 1/1 (100%), and proximity to oil and gas wells 6/13 (46%). In two-pollutant models, 16/17 (94%) of associations with nitrogen dioxide were above 1.00; however, more than 75% of the confidence intervals included the null value. Most studies had low to moderate risks of bias. Where differences were observed, stronger quality articles generally reported weaker associations.” (Source: PubMed)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/head.14632
PMID: 37795754
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37795754/ Erratum in
(**Correction to "Migraine and air pollution: A systematic review".
[No authors listed]
Headache. 2026 May;66(5):1202. doi: 10.1111/head.70053. Epub 2026 Feb 12.
PMID: 41681045 No abstract available.)
2. Ambient air pollution exposure and risk of migraine: Synergistic effect with high temperature
“Results: Higher air pollution levels were significantly associated with risk of migraine over various lag structures. In the best fitting lags, the odds ratio (OR) associated with an interquartile range increase of PM2.5, PM10, NO2, O3, and CO was 1.031 (95% CI: 1.010-1.053), 1.032 (95% CI: 1.007-1.057), 1.053 (95% CI: 1.022-1.085), 1.034 (95% CI: 1.001-1.067), and 1.029 (95% CI: 1.005-1.053), respectively. The SO2 effect was positive