Association between Dietary Habits, Lifestyle and Migraine Attacks During Social Isolation in the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review of Observational Studies

Abstract

Eating habits and lifestyle were the areas of life most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in patients with migraine, whose triggers for their crises are related to these factors. Thus, the aim of this study was to systematically review the association between eating habits, lifestyle and migraine attacks during social isolation in the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, a systematic review was carried out, developed in accordance with PRISMA and registered in PROSPERO nº CRD42022350308, with observational studies, which evaluated eating habits and lifestyle as exposure variables for the increase or alteration of migraine attacks during the pandemic of COVID-19 in adult patients diagnosed with migraine. Searches were performed in PubMed/MEDLINE, Web of Science, LILACS, and Google Scholar (gray literature) databases, and MESH and DECS database descriptors were used without language limits. 688 publications were identified, of which 11 met the inclusion criteria for data extraction, totaling, in the end, 3,256 respondents. The assessment of the methodological quality of the studies was performed using the Newcastle-Ottawa scale. The publications included were of low to moderate methodological quality, with a high risk of bias, and most found an association between lifestyle, eating habits and migraine attacks. Sleep disorders were most positively associated with migraine attacks, followed by eating habits. However, in most studies, there was no association between caffeine and migraine during the pandemic. We emphasize the need for more prospective, robust studies with better methodological quality to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the association between eating habits, lifestyle and migraine attacks.