Background

Headache disorders are classified as primary or secondary; however, among the secondary headaches, those attributed to food ingestion are not well understood. Therefore, we conducted this study to describe and characterize a new headache entity that occurred during the holy month of Ramadan. This headache occurred within 4 h of breaking the fast.

Methods

This is a nationwide descriptive community-based cross-sectional study conducted during the last 10 days of Ramadan, based on a random sample of adults living in Saudi Arabia. The demographic data, headache symptomatology, nature and distribution of the pain, possible triggering and relieving factors, and patient management programs were analyzed.

Results

Completed questionnaires were obtained from 16,031 participants. Of those, 3147 (19.6%) reported headaches after breaking the fast in Ramadan. In 84.1% of cases, there was no previous diagnosis of headache or migraine. The characteristics of these postprandial fasting-related headaches mostly was episodic in nature (72%). The nature of the headache was variable, mostly heaviness or tightness (53.9%). Triggering factors included ingestion of fried food in (45%) and coffee (26.3%). Lying down and sleeping was found to be an important relieving factor (61%).

Conclusion

A new headache entity is being described. Appears to be quite common, occurs less than 2 h following the first meal, and is mostly of the heaviness and tension type.

中文翻译：

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沙特阿拉伯斋月期间与餐后禁食相关的头痛：一项横断面研究

背景

头痛疾病分为原发性或继发性；然而，在继发性头痛中，那些归因于食物摄入的头痛尚不清楚。因此，我们进行了这项研究来描述和描述在斋月期间发生的一种新的头痛实体。这种头痛发生在断食后 4 小时内。

方法

这是一项在斋月最后 10 天进行的全国性描述性社区横断面研究，基于居住在沙特阿拉伯的成年人的随机样本。分析了人口统计学数据、头痛症状、疼痛的性质和分布、可能的触发和缓解因素以及患者管理计划。

结果

从 16,031 名参与者中获得了完整的问卷。其中，3147 人（19.6%）报告在斋月开斋后头痛。在 84.1% 的病例中，既往没有头痛或偏头痛的诊断。这些餐后禁食相关头痛的特征大多是偶发性的（72%）。头痛的性质是多变的，主要是沉重或紧绷（53.9%）。触发因素包括摄入油炸食品（45%）和咖啡（26.3%）。躺下和睡觉被发现是一个重要的缓解因素（61%）。

结论

正在描述一个新的头痛实体。似乎很常见，发生在第一餐后不到 2 小时，并且主要是沉重和紧张型。