Amino acids in urine in spontaneous migraine attacks.

Abstract

The urinary excretion of amino acids of 5 migraine patients was studied during as well as between attacks of headache, each patient serving as his own control. Three patients were fasting during study, whereas 2 were allowed to eat. Chromatography of urine was carried out on a Technicon amino acid analyser with chromobead type A resin. The gradient buffer solutions contained sodium or lithium salts. The peaks were measured with Technicon Integrator Calculator. Histamine-like activity in urine was measured with Dunér and Pernow’s method. Generally only small differences between attack and free interval were found in the amino acid pattern, without any systematic trend. This also pertains to lysine and arginine. There were three exceptions to this: histidine excretion was approximately doubled in 1 patient during headache. In another patient, 1-methylhistidine excretion was about 5 times higher during attack than in the free interval. In still another patient, 3-methylhistidine was definitely higher during than between attacks. Even with regard to each of these parameters, however, the 4 remaining patients showed no definite attack-induced difference in excretion. Two patients showed increased excretion of histamine-like activity in the free interval, but normal excretion during attack. These two patients displayed no common trend in histidine, 1-methylhistidine or 3-methylhistidine excretion that differed from that in the 3 patients exhibiting normal excretion of histamine-like activity. It is concluded, that migraine causes no systematic changes in amino acid pattern. This contrasts previous findings.