Yonago Acta medica 1997;40:13–19
Plasma Lactic Acid and Pyruvic Acid Levels in Patients with Chronic Primary Headaches during the Headache Free Period
Hiroko Okada, Shigeru Araga, Takao Takeshima and Kenji Nakashima
Division of Neurology, Institute of Neurological Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Tottori University, Yonago 683, Japan
To study mitochondrial abnormalities in patients with chronic primary headaches, lactic acid (LA) and pyruvic acid (PA) levels in plasma were measured. Subjects were 14 patients with migraine [age, 38.0 ± 14.7 years (mean ± SD); male/female ratio, 6/8; 3 with aura and 11 without aura] and 17 patients with tension-type headache (TH) (age, 44.5 ± 19.5 years; male/female ratio, 8/9; 3, chronic and 14, episodic) during headache free periods; 12 healthy volunteers [age, 36.3 ± 8.4 years; male/female ratio, 6/6] served as controls. The plasma LA level was measured with the lactate oxidase-peroxidase method, and the plasma PA level, with the pyruvate oxidase peroxidase method. The migraine, TH and control groups showed 9.6 ± 5.0 mg/dL, 7.2 ± 5.8 mg/dL and 3.3 ± 1.9 mg/dL as the mean plasma LA, respectively; and 0.51 ± 0.30 mg/dL, 0.47 ± 0.45 mg/dL and 0.26 ± 0.20 mg/dL as the mean plasma PA, respectively. The migraine group showed significantly higher means for plasma LA and PA than the control group. The means in the TH group were lower than in the migraine group and higher than in the control group, without significant differences. These results may support the hypothesis that migraine patients have functional abnormalities in their mitochondrial energy metabolism.
Key words: energy metabolism; migraine; mitochondrial dysfunction; tension-type headache
