The researchers' results are being published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and may spell relief for millions of other migraine patients around the world.
Jarle Jacobsen, age 49, says he feels like he has a whole new life after he started taking Atacand. The Trondheim pastor was plagued by migraine several times a month, with their intense pain forcing him to cancel meetings and otherwise disrupting his life.
"I have had migraines for 20 years and often had to virtually wall myself in to deal with the pain," Jacobsen told newspaper Aftenposten. "I really felt like I was losing control over my life."
He started taking Atacand about a year ago, he said, and hasn't had a migraine since.
Harald Schrader, a professor at NTNU, told Aftenposten he suffered from migraines himself and knew that many anti-migraine drugs had negative side-effects ranging from weight-gain to sleep disruption.
Schrader also had high-blood pressure and started to take another drug, Zestril. He soon noticed that his migraines also disappeared, but Zestril left him with a dry cough. He then switched to Atacand, and his migraines stayed away with no side-effects.
Intrigued, he launched a study into use of the drug (financed in part by the makers of Atacand, AstraZeneca), with 60 patients taking part. Incidence of migraines fell by 64 percent.
Schrader and Tronvik are now launching a new study, examining whether blood-pressure swings can be tied to migraines.
