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Women with migraines faced increased risk for rosacea

Women who experienced migraines had a slightly increased risk for developing rosacea, particularly those aged 50 years or older with severe migraines, according to recent study results.

Researchers reviewed data from the United Kingdom-based General Practice Research Database to identify patients with 53,927 cases of incident rosacea between 1995 and 2009 (62.8% female; 54.4% diagnosed between ages 30 and 59 years) and 53,927 matched controls without the disease. Multivariate logistic regression was used to compare “the prevalence of diagnosed migraine and exposure to triptans before the first-time rosacea diagnosis between cases and controls.”

Rosacea and migraine had a small overall association in women (adjusted OR=1.22; 95% CI, 1.16-1.29) but not in men. The effect was more pronounced in women with migraines aged 50 to 59 years (OR=1.36; 95% CI, 1.21-1.53), and those who used triptans also had slightly rising risk estimates that increased with age. Women aged 60 years or older had the greatest odds ratio (OR=1.66; 95% CI, 1.3-2.10).

Researchers said the possibility of bias and confounding existed because of the study’s retrospective, case-control nature.

“This … study provides evidence that the overall risk of developing rosacea is not materially increased in patients with migraine, an association which has been controversially discussed over decades,” the researchers concluded. “However, while ORs for men remained around 1.0 across all age groups, female migraineurs older than 50 years, particularly those with more severe migraine, had a slightly, but statistically significantly increased risk for incident rosacea. Exposure to triptans seems to present a proxy for disease severity.”