Hypothesized treatment for migraines using low doses of tryptophan, niacin, calcium, caffeine, and acetylsalicylic acid

Antioxidant metabolism induced by quinic acid. increased urinary excretion of tryptophan and nicotinamide

“…Finally, it has been noted that both tryptophan and nicotinamide are well known therapeutic agents at higher doses than exist naturally. The scientific data pertaining to tryptophan's use as a therapeutic agent, in relation to quinic acid supplementation, as has been detailed previously, and include obesity, anorexia, migraine, depression, insomnia and stress (Brown et al, 1979;Cavaliere and Medeiros-Neto, 1997;Chouinard et al, 1979;Gedye, 2001;Li et al, 2006;Smith, 1982;Weld et al, 1998;Wong and Ong, 2001). Here it can easily be seen that tryptophan doses known to be therapeutic have levels of around 1.5 mg/L tryptophan (calculated from the literature; Smith, 1982) in urine whereas the corresponding tryptophan values after quinic acid supplementation gave about 4.5 mg/mL (calculated from data in Table 1).…”

“…Consequently, there were no data available in the literature on urinary levels of high dose nicotinamide over longer periods of time. Nonetheless, high dose nicotinamide has therapeutic value to treat lipid profiles (Handfield-Jones et al, 1988;Takahashi et al, 2004;Zak et al, 2006), diabetes (Rakieten et al, 1976;Wilson and Buchingham, 2001;Yamada et al, 1982;depression (Chouinard et al, 1979), HIV (Murray et al, 2001), renal tumors (Beales et al, 1999), graft failure (Brandhorst et al, 2002), migraines (Gedye, 2001) and as an antioxidant (Kamat and Devasagayam, 1999;Ungerstedt et al, 2003).…”

Sustained-Release Niacin for Prevention of Migraine Headache

“…A thorough review of the literature revealed only anecdotal mention of niacin alone for treatment of migraine 2 and 1 report that niacin may be useful as an adjunctive therapy for acute migraine. 3 Our patient's experience suggests that niacin may be useful in migraine prevention. Niacin and its derivatives act as negative feedback regulators (Figure 1) on the kynurenine pathway, which is responsible for the conversion of tryptophan (a serotonin precursor) to nicotinic acid (niacin).…”

The treatment of migraines and tension-type headaches with intravenous and oral niacin (nicotinic acid): systematic review of the literature

“…A total of 14 articles were screened [6,7,9-20]. Five articles were excluded in total; three because niacin was not the sole therapeutic agent used for the treatment of headache [16], histaminic cephalgia [17], and migraine [20]; and two because the reports were opinion pieces without any objective or subjective data to support the assertions made [13,19].…”

“…Five articles were excluded in total; three because niacin was not the sole therapeutic agent used for the treatment of headache [16], histaminic cephalgia [17], and migraine [20]; and two because the reports were opinion pieces without any objective or subjective data to support the assertions made [13,19]. In total, nine articles were found to meet the inclusion criteria and were included in this systematic review [6,7,9-12,14,15,18].…”