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What if some of your migraines were not random at all, but your brain desperately reacting
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to unstable blood sugar?
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Welcome to Migraine Heroes, a podcast for people living with chronic migraines with
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years of pain, misunderstanding, and lack of answers.
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I'm Diane Ducarme.
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I've helped more than a thousand people reduce the burden of migraines and feel more in control.
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My mission in life, to help a million people.
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Each episode brings you grounded insight into what your body might be asking for and what
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Just to keep you fully supported, this podcast is educational.
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For diagnosis or medication, always work with your doctor.
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Now take a breath and let's dive in.
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In this episode, you will learn why sudden drops in blood sugar can act as a powerful
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migraine trigger, even if your blood tests look normal, how your brain's massive energy
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needs make it especially vulnerable to blood sugar swings, and a simple way to stabilize
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your blood sugar so your brain feels safer and migraines may happen less often.
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Stay with me till the end because you will learn a simple way to structure your meals
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that can stabilize your brain's energy and potentially prevent migraines before they
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If you live with migraines, you may know the feeling, the sudden irritability, the fatigue,
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the brain fog, and then the headache begins to build.
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And you may have asked yourself, did I eat enough today?
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Did I wait too long between meals?
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Why does skipping one meal seem to punish my brain so severely?
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And if that sounds familiar, you're not imagining it.
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Many migraine patients report that fasting or skipping meals or energy crashes are among
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their strongest triggers.
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So let us start with the basics.
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Blood sugar, also called glucose, is the primary fuel circulating in your bloodstream.
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Every cell in your body uses glucose for energy, but your brain depends on it more than almost
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And despite representing only about 2% of your body's weight, your brain consumes roughly
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20% of your body's energy supply.
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And so when blood glucose levels drop too low, the brain experiences what scientists
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sometimes call neuroglycopenia, meaning a shortage of glucose for brain function.
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Symptoms may include fatigue, dizziness, irritability, confusion, and importantly for migraine sufferers,
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Research has increasingly shown that migraines may involve, in some cases, a brain energy
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A landmark paper by Dr. Goadsby, published in the journal Nature Reviews Neurology, describes
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migraine as a disorder of brain excitability and metabolic vulnerability.
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In other words, the migraine brain may struggle to produce or regulate energy efficiently.
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By the way, each time we mention papers here, they're all in the show notes below.
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So this means that when blood sugar levels fluctuate dramatically, especially when they
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drop suddenly, the brain may enter in a state of metabolic stress that then can trigger
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a migraine attack.
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Another study published in the journal of Headache and Pain examined common migraine
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triggers and found that fasting and irregular meals were among the most frequently reported
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triggers, particularly in people with chronic migraine.
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But the story goes deeper.
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Research suggests that migraine patients may also have mitochondrial dysfunction.
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Mitochondria are the tiny power plants inside your cells that convert nutrients into usable
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When mitochondrial efficiency is lower, the brain becomes more sensitive to any interruption
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And a study in Neurology proposed that migraines may arise when the brain's energy demand
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temporarily exceeds its energy production capacity.
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So now imagine what happens when someone skips breakfast, drinks coffee instead of eating,
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or goes six hours without food, or, like I sometimes have, starts to exercise on an empty
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The brain's sugar levels may fall.
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The body releases stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol to compensate, and these hormones
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then can increase inflammation, alter blood vessel behavior, and stimulate nerve pathways
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involved in migraine.
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In other words, a simple energy shortage may ignite a complex neurological cascade.
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Scientists also suspect involvement of the hypothalamus, a region of the brain responsible
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for regulating hunger, metabolism, and circadian rhythms.
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Imaging studies have shown that the hypothalamus becomes active hours before a migraine attack
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begins, suggesting that a metabolic imbalance could be part of the trigger process.
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So the emerging picture from Western science is this.
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Migraines are not simply headaches. They may represent a brain struggling to maintain a
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stable energy in an unstable metabolic environment.
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And blood sugar swings, even really subtle ones, may push the brain over its threshold.
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And by the way, that's the truth for all human beings.
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Now I'm a mom, right?
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And as a person, you know, who can suddenly sometimes have crashes of energy, or just
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having children who are constantly suggested sweets in Ubers and in airplanes, and just
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the daily lives that they are surrounded by sweet stuff for birthdays, etc.
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They know I'm trying not to be overly saying no, that's really hard, really, really hard.
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But I ask of them that they don't have things on an empty stomach.
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And so that if they want an indulgence, it's better they put it in their pocket and have
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it after lunch, which is a great time, but not sort of mid-morning on an empty stomach.
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Now let's go east for a minute.
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Traditional Chinese medicine has observed something fascinating about headaches for
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more than 2,000 years.
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The brain is deeply connected to nourishment and flow of energy from digestion.
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In traditional Chinese medicine, the digestive system is governed primarily by a system you
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sometimes hear me talk about, which is the stomach spleen system.
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So the system is actually responsible for transforming your food into energy, so into
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qi, and into blood, into matter.
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And those are vital substances that are going to nourish the entire body, including that
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There's an old saying in Chinese, the spleen is the source of post-natal energy.
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If you had to translate it literally, it would mean, 皮, which is the stomach spleen, 是,
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which is, is, 后天, is the day after tomorrow, 织本, is the foundation.
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So the stomach spleen is the foundation of the day after tomorrow.
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So after you're born, you're born with your mom's essence and your father's contribution.
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But then to sustain yourself, you're going to eat the food and transform it.
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So what does it concretely mean?
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It means that after you were born, your vitality is going to depend largely on how well you
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transform your food into usable energy.
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This is something that the West completely misses, and it drives me insane.
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We talk a lot about calories and how many calories we put in, and therefore how much
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energy can we put out.
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But that also poses a strong stomach spleen.
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If that function is weak, what you put in and what you get out is an equation that doesn't
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When your spleen system is strong, your energy is going to be produced smoothly, blood is
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going to circulate well, and your head, your brain, is going to be nourished.
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But when your spleen becomes weakened through irregular meals, excessive sugar, chronic
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stress or eating too quickly, your blood is going to struggle to transform that food efficiently.
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And in traditional Chinese medicine terms, this is going to lead to deficiencies.
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When your brain does not receive steady nourishment, symptoms may appear such as headache, dizziness,
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but also fatigue, that mental fog, and sensitivity to light and to sound or to smell.
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Does that sound familiar?
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Interestingly, many classical texts also warn against skipping meals or eating at regular
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times, which social media these days can completely promote.
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Regular meals help the digestive organs maintain rhythm.
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Irregular eating disrupts the transformation of energy.
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Ayurveda shares a completely similar perspective.
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In Ayurvedic medicine, digestion is governed by acne, that digestive fire.
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And when meals are skipped or digestion becomes unstable, acne weakens.
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This can create a Vata imbalance, which is strongly associated with headaches, nervous
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system instability, and sensitivity.
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Both Eastern traditions, therefore, emphasize something that modern science is not rediscovering.
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The brain suffers when nourishment becomes irregular.
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Margarine, in this view, is not just a neurological event,
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it's also a signal that the body's energy rhythms have been disrupted.
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And sugar does that beautifully with sugar crashes.
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And sugar does that atrociously well with sugar spikes and crashes.
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Restoring rhythm in meals, sleep, and digestion helps restore stability to the mind.
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Now, I want to insist that if this is you every single day, if you're in pain every
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single day, this is one small piece of a much, much, much larger and more complex puzzle.
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However, it's a very important one, especially as when you're in pain every single day, you
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may start to have sort of what I would call a margarine jet lag, where because you're
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a bit rigid all day, your days become your nights, etc. and your whole body clock becomes
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Now, here's something very simple you can try today at home.
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So for the next week, experiment with a blood sugar stabilizing meal rhythm.
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Eat within an hour of waking up.
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By the way, the best time to eat for the stomach spin is 7am to 9am.
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If you can make that window, please do so.
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Do not wait longer than four hours between meals.
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And at every meal, include protein, and try to start with those, healthy fat, and slow
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for example, eggs with avocado and a whole grain toast, or chicken with vegetables and
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And if possible, consume those in that order.
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In restaurants, they do something very tricky,
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they put bread on the table, and you might think that this is offered free of charge,
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and what does the restaurant have to gain with that, given they start to fill your belly
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before you started eating.
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Actually, if you start with the carbohydrates, like bread, you're going to have a sugar crash
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right at the time of your dessert,
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and so just in time to expand that bill a little and expand that appetite very much.
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Now if you eat with that combination, it's going to help slow glucose release into the
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bloodstream, preventing sudden spikes and crashes that may stress your brain.
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If you do want to indulge, do so after a full meal, just like in my household.
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And remember, every small step you take moves you closer to freedom.
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You are powerful, you are resilient, and you are not alone.
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Keep rising, Migrant Hero.
