Have we reached a turning point with migraine medication?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 30 November 2023
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Around 1 billion people around the world suffer from a mysterious neurological condition called migraine. Far more than just a headache, migraine is abnormal processing of the world around us that can have symptoms like loss of sight and speech, dizziness, nausea and extreme fatigue.
There are drugs which can help those struggling with the condition like anti-depressants and anti-convulsants. However, they weren’t developed specifically for migraine and can come with quite a lot of side effects or simply not work.
For a long time migraine medication has been a process of trial and error.
But a new class of drugs called anti-CGRPs are being hailed as a breakthrough migraine medication. Anti-CGRPs have a small side effect profile and were designed specifically to target migraine. They work by blocking CGRP (Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide) from building up in the body and triggering a receptor in the brain which turns on a head pain pathway causing the migraine attack.
Earlier this year the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence - or NICE – in England cleared the use of an anti-CGRP called Rimegepant to use as both a preventive and acute treatment. Clinicians are hoping this will massively improve the lives of those living with the condition.
So this week on The Inquiry were asking ‘Have we reached a turning point with migraine medication?’
Contributors: Dr. Amaal Starling, neurologist and headache specialist at Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, in the US state of Arizona. Dr Faraidoon, researcher at the Georgian Institute for Global Health at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. Peter Goadsby , Director of the NIHR King's Clinical Research Facility and a professor of neurology at King's College London, England. Dr Lise Rystad Oie, researcher at the government funded Norwegian Centre for Headache Research - also known as NorHead.
Presenter: Charmaine Cozier Producer: Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty Editor: Tara McDermott Researcher: Matt Toulson Technical Producer: Craig Boardman Broadcast Co-ordinator: Jordan King
Image: eternalcreative - Getty Images: 1372323487
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Global Story, with Smart Takes and Fresh Perspective, on one big news story, |
| 0:07.8 | every Monday to Friday from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:11.3 | Search for The Global Story, wherever you get your BBC podcasts to find out more. |
| 0:17.0 | Welcome to the Inquiry. I'm Charmaine Kosea each week one question, four |
| 0:26.1 | expert witnesses and an answer. September 2023 the United Kingdom. A decision is announced that could transform the lives of adults |
| 0:36.2 | with a long-term health condition. Its debilitating effects constrain relationships and threaten |
| 0:42.4 | livelihoods. A few months before, the independent |
| 0:46.3 | body that oversees drug approvals in England, the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence |
| 0:52.2 | or Nice, cleared the use of a medication to prevent migraine |
| 0:56.2 | attacks from starting. Now it's going further. For the first time, Nice recommends that same oral drug from a new class of medications for treating the actual attack. |
| 1:08.0 | It's being held as a major breakthrough for the complex disorder which an estimated 1 billion people around the world have. |
| 1:17.3 | You might be one of them. So this week we're asking, |
| 1:22.2 | is this a turning point for migraine medication? |
| 1:29.6 | Part 1, migraine demymystified. |
| 1:34.0 | Migrane is not just a headache. |
| 1:37.0 | Mygrain is abnormal processing of the entire world around us. Dr. Amal Starling is a neurologist and headache specialist at Mayo Clinic in |
| 1:50.0 | Scottsdale in the US state of Arizona. She's also an associate professor of |
| 1:54.7 | neurology there. And so individuals during a migraine attack are not suffering from a headache that they can take an aspirin from. |
| 2:06.0 | So it is important to understand the great disability from the pain plus all the other |
| 2:12.2 | neurologic symptoms that occur in migraine. |
| 2:15.2 | And those symptoms are spread across phases. |
| 2:18.4 | The first phase of a migraine attack can actually happen |
... |
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