Our Method & Evidence
A different way of understanding migraine
Migraine is complex. No two people experience it in exactly the same way.
At Migraine Heroes, we bring together traditional pattern recognition, contemporary scientific research and years of individual practice to understand what may matter most for each person.
We use that understanding to guide personalized food recommendations, learn from how people respond, and adapt our approach over time.
Our ambition is lasting migraine relief, so people can reclaim the freedom to live their lives.
Progress means getting more of your life back
Our goal is not simply to reduce the number or intensity of migraine attacks. It's to help people live more fully, with greater confidence and freedom.
Migraine can disrupt work, relationships, plans and the ability to enjoy everyday life. Reducing those limitations is central to what we're trying to achieve.
As members progress, they may notice meaningful changes even before their migraines have significantly reduced. Attacks may become more manageable, recovery may feel easier, or they may find themselves doing things they previously avoided.
These changes matter. They're signs of progress, not a reason to stop aiming for greater relief.
And because migraine can change as life changes, we look at progress over time and in context, rather than judging success by a single measurement.
Ultimately, we want members to reach a point where migraine no longer meaningfully limits their lives.
Developed through research and real-world practice
- 1Traditional knowledge
- 2Contemporary research
- 3Individual practice
- 4Refinement
Our method didn't begin with a fixed set of rules.
Working with Dr. Yifang Zhang, we explored ideas from Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and examined them alongside contemporary scientific research.
We then put promising approaches into practice through individualized, one-on-one care. Members knew we were exploring and refining the approach, and their feedback was essential.
Practitioners stayed in close contact with members, often exchanging messages daily to understand how they were feeling, what was changing, and where adjustments were needed.
Over time, we identified recurring observations, refined our recommendations and gradually codified what we learned into the Migraine Heroes method.
Today, the method continues to evolve through scientific research, practitioner expertise and member feedback.
The influence of Dr. Zhang
Dr. Zhang's work emphasizes understanding a person's broader symptom patterns and choosing foods that fit their individual needs, circumstances and everyday diet.
This principle helped shape Migraine Heroes: rather than starting with a universal list of foods to avoid, we look at the individual and identify practical nutritional changes that may support them.
Her published work, including Your Guide to Health with Foods & Herbs, explores traditional dietary knowledge and the importance of adapting food choices to the person.
One food, two very different responses
Ginger comes up again and again in migraine research. In a double-blind trial of 100 people, ginger powder eased migraine attacks about as well as sumatriptan, a standard migraine medication, with fewer side effects[5]. That trial tested a measured dose taken during an attack, not ginger as an everyday food, but it gave us a good reason to explore it.
In practice, it helped some people a lot. We noticed this most often in younger women who tended to wake with migraine, and in people whose migraine got worse in colder months. As part of a plan alongside other foods, it seemed to make a real difference for many of them, so we started including it for more members with similar patterns.
Then we saw the other side. Some women, often around perimenopause, already had hot flashes, night sweats and dizziness, and those symptoms got worse within a couple of days of having ginger daily. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, ginger is considered warming, and these women showed signs of what TCM calls empty heat[6]. Empty heat is part of vital fluid depletion[7], when the body tends to run hot.
So for members with dizziness and those signs, we stopped including ginger and chose other foods better suited to them.
Research told us ginger was worth trying. Members' own tracking showed us who it didn't suit. And the traditional framework gave us a way to recognise those people in advance. That's why every food card now shows when it's safe to use, what to watch for, and when to pause it.
Why food is at the heart of our method
Many things can influence migraine, but not all of them are easy to change.
Stress, sleep, hormonal fluctuations and everyday responsibilities can be difficult to control.
Food is our main focus because, in our experience, it's what most reliably brings change for members. It's also practical: small additions can often fit into the way someone already eats, without requiring a major change in lifestyle.
But we know that even small changes need to be realistic.
That's why we consider allergies, dietary preferences, affordability, availability and ease of preparation. We offer practical guidance to help members incorporate recommended foods into everyday life.
Our goal isn't simply to identify foods that might help. It's to make those recommendations achievable, so people can keep going long enough to learn what works for them.
The scientific reasoning
Research has explored relationships between migraine and nutrition, including dietary patterns, nutrient status, metabolic processes and the gut-brain axis.[1][2]
The strength of evidence varies across these areas. Findings about a food's biological properties do not automatically establish that eating it will reduce migraine.
Our approach uses individual patterns to help determine where nutritional support may be useful, then follows the person's experience to guide adjustments.
See a real example
Every food in a member's plan comes with a card like this one: why it's suggested for their patterns, how to prepare it and what to combine it with. We keep it practical and clear, so it's simple to add to the way they already eat.
This is an example only. Please don't follow it. These foods could be right for someone, yet wrong for you. Eaten consistently, the wrong food can actively work against you.
From individual patterns to personalized recommendations
- Your patterns
- Food recommendations
- Your feedback
- Adaptation
- Back to your patterns
Our recommendations draw on several sources: traditional pattern recognition, contemporary scientific research, practitioner expertise and what we've learned through years of individual practice.
We use this knowledge to identify a starting point and recommend foods that fit each person's needs.
But the first plan is only a beginning.
As members track their symptoms and share their experiences, we look for changes in migraine frequency and intensity, energy, digestion and overall wellbeing.
We also consider what's happening in their lives. Hormonal changes, stress, illness and other circumstances can all influence how someone feels.
This feedback helps us understand whether recommendations are appropriate, whether they're practical to follow, and when something needs to change.
A recommendation only helps if it works in someone's real life.
Progress isn't always a straight line
Migraine can change as life changes.
Someone who has been doing well may experience new difficulties during a hormonal transition, a stressful period or another major life event.
That doesn't necessarily mean their earlier progress has disappeared. It means we need to understand what's changed.
We look at symptoms alongside the person's circumstances, listen to their feedback and reassess what support may be useful.
This is where practitioner judgment remains particularly important. Not every change can be understood from tracking data alone.
Same symptoms, different starting points
Take two women with migraine who both experience dizziness, blurred vision and brain fog. We often see this around perimenopause.
For the first, we see mainly vital fluid depletion[7]. Her general direction is nourishing, fluid-supporting foods, such as goji berries, flaxseeds or chia seeds.
The second has the same symptoms, plus signs such as heavier brain fog, a long build-up before each migraine episode, morning mucus or puffiness in the face. Alongside vital fluid depletion, we also see thick fluid buildup[8]. Her direction is foods that nourish without adding heaviness and that help fluids move, such as millet, pineapple or seaweed.
These are only broad directions. Each food then goes through more checks. Flaxseeds may not be our first choice for someone who needs to be careful with phytoestrogens. Seaweed needs extra care for someone taking thyroid medication.
So we first identify the patterns, then decide which to work on first, and only then choose individual foods. At that stage we screen for each person's other symptoms, medications, hormonal context and digestion. Two women who appear to share the same patterns can end up with quite different food lists, and those lists change over time as we follow their tracking.
Most people who come to us have already seen several doctors, and we encourage them to keep working with theirs. Our method is support alongside their medical care, not a replacement for it. New or changing symptoms, such as dizziness or changes in vision, should always be checked with a doctor.
How recommendations are selected
We identify a person's dominant symptom patterns, then select foods drawing on traditional dietary knowledge, contemporary scientific research, practitioner expertise and observations from individual practice.
We also consider safety, preferences and practical constraints.
As we learn how the member responds, we adjust the recommendations.
Contemporary scientific support is not a mandatory condition for every individual food recommendation. Traditional knowledge and observations from practice may also inform selection when published evidence is limited.
This does not mean that traditional concepts or individual observations have the same evidentiary status as controlled research.
Built from practitioner experience, supported by technology
The Migraine Heroes method was originally delivered through intensive one-on-one care.
Today, we've translated much of that experience into a structured digital system, making personalized guidance accessible to more people at a lower cost.
The system supports food-plan creation, tracks progress and helps members stay engaged through reminders and encouragement.
Practitioner expertise remains important, particularly when a situation is complex or a member isn't progressing as expected.
Our aim is to combine the consistency and accessibility of technology with the judgment and experience of the people who developed the method.
What we've observed in our members
75%were assessed as having some improvement
In an internal review of 304 paid members who started between 2023 and 2025:
- 55%were assessed as having significant improvement
- 20%were assessed as having mild improvement
- 25%were assessed as having no improvement
These findings are encouraging observations from individual practice, not results from a controlled clinical trial.
How we assessed improvement
The review included members who ended their membership, including early cancellations.
Outcomes were classified retrospectively using members' reported experiences and information collected during their membership.
Where no end-of-membership assessment was available, Diane and Hélène Y assessed the outcome using the available care records.
The significant, mild and no-improvement categories reflected practitioner judgment, calibrated by the two practitioners familiar with the cases. They were not based on a standardized clinical scoring instrument.
Membership duration varied, so outcomes were assessed at different points rather than at a fixed follow-up date.
These results provide encouraging observational feedback, but they do not establish how much improvement was caused by the program.
Measuring what matters in everyday life
Our new measurement framework helps us understand what changes for members beyond the number and intensity of migraine attacks.
We now measure three dimensions:
Understanding
How well members feel they understand their migraine, from experiencing it as completely random to recognizing patterns that may influence it.
When we ask: At onboarding and in monthly reflections
Agency
How confident members feel handling a migraine when it comes.
When we ask: At onboarding and in monthly reflections
Impact
How migraine affects everyday life, including days when members feel sharp and free, days when they have to cut back on activities, and days when thinking or concentrating is difficult.
When we ask: In the daily tracker
We collect these measures through structured questions during onboarding, daily tracking and monthly reflections.
By following them over time, we aim to understand not only whether migraine symptoms are improving, but whether members are getting more of their freedom back.
The framework draws on functional domains used in established migraine impact measures, including HIT-6 and MIDAS.[3][4]It was designed to follow members' progress in everyday life, rather than to diagnose or measure clinically.
How we think about evidence
Our approach brings together published research, traditional knowledge and observations from individual practice. These sources inform different parts of the method, but they do not all provide the same level of evidence. We distinguish what research has established from what we're continuing to investigate.
References
- The Role of Diet and Nutrition in Migraine Triggers and Treatment: A Systematic Literature Review
Hindiyeh NA et al., Headache, 2020
What it shows: Reviews studies on dietary triggers and diet-based approaches to migraine; some diets show benefit in small studies.
What it doesn't show: The overall quality of evidence is low; it doesn't show that any one diet works for everyone.
- Gut-brain axis and migraine headache: a comprehensive review
Arzani M et al., The Journal of Headache and Pain, 2020
What it shows: Summarizes research linking gut health and migraine through the gut-brain axis.
What it doesn't show: The mechanisms aren't fully understood; it doesn't show that changing diet through this route reduces migraine.
- A six-item short-form survey for measuring headache impact: the HIT-6
Kosinski M et al., Quality of Life Research, 2003
What it shows: Develops and tests HIT-6, a short questionnaire measuring how headache affects daily life.
What it doesn't show: It doesn't validate our own questions, which are only informed by it.
- Development and testing of the Migraine Disability Assessment (MIDAS) Questionnaire
Stewart WF et al., Neurology, 2001
What it shows: Develops and tests MIDAS, which measures days lost to migraine at work, home and in social life.
What it doesn't show: It doesn't validate our framework.
- Comparison between the efficacy of ginger and sumatriptan in the ablative treatment of the common migraine
Maghbooli M, Golipour F, Moghimi Esfandabadi A, Yousefi M, Phytotherapy Research, 2014;28(3):412–415. doi:10.1002/ptr.4996
The next three are Traditional Chinese Medicine concepts. Each is a traditional way of grouping symptoms, not a medical diagnosis.
- 虚热 (xū rè), "empty heat": a tendency to run hot, such as hot flashes or night sweats, that comes from depleted reserves rather than an excess of heat.
- 阴虚 (yīn xū), usually translated as "Yin deficiency", our "vital fluid depletion": signs suggesting that the body's nourishing, moistening reserves are running low.
- 痰湿 (tán shī), usually translated as "Dampness", our "thick fluid buildup": signs suggesting that the body is struggling to process and move fluids.
Scientific review: 11 November 2026