IS FOOD RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR
HEADACHE?
There are lots of reasons why your head may be pounding like a
jackhammer, but dietary culprits are worth investigating.
Caffeine withdrawal: If you skipped your usual morning coffee, it can
lead to a headache. That’s because the blood vessels in your brain are used
to the constriction that caffeine produces. When you don’t give them the
daily fix, blood rushes through at full throttle. To manage the overflow, the
blood vessels swell, which creates the pain.
Skipping meals: Your brain needs a steady dose of blood sugar to operate.
Missing lunch may mean that your brain is on empty, so a headache is a
way of calling out that it needs fuel. Stick to snacks and meals made up of
FIXES foods that don’t produce extreme sugar highs and lows.
Diet drinks: Almost all diet fizzy drinks contain different levels of
aspartame (an artificial sweetener found in more than six thousand food
items). Research shows that aspartame in diet sodas may be a dietary
trigger of headache in some people. And research also shows that the
additive may inhibit levels of feel-good chemicals like serotonin, which
could trigger migraines.
Something new: Lots of foods can trigger headaches—most notably
chocolate, nitrate-containing meats, MSG, and foods that contain the amino
acid tyramine (which is in red wine, aged cheese, smoked fish, and figs). If
you’ve added something new recently and you’ve started to experience
more headaches, try scaling back on one particular food at a time to see if
you can ID the bad guy.