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could your sweet tooth be misleading you? In this episode, we dig into whether chocolate
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really triggers migraine or if those cravings might be an early warning.
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Migraine Heroes is a podcast for chronic migraine sufferers who've seen countless doctors with no
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results. Learn how to reduce your migraine attacks without endless medications or constant sacrifices.
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Hello, I'm Diane Ducarme. I've helped over 500 people break free from migraine even after
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suffering for up to 60 years. My mission in life? To bring this relief to a million people
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using a unique blend of eastern medicine and western science.
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In this episode, you will learn why science still debates whether chocolate is a true migraine
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trigger or just a craving before the headache hits. How to track chocolate accurately in your
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migraine diary and distinguish a trigger from a prodrome symptom, so the phase before the massive
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pain hits. And how eastern medicine views chocolate energetically and how mindful
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consumption can benefit your brain and body. So stay tuned to the end. I will cut to the
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cheese and share for whom chocolate might be good and a wet type of chocolate. Chocolate is
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widely believed to be a migraine trigger with up to 33% of migraineurs naming it but retrospective
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recall and surveys may bias results. A key question we're trying to answer in this podcast is does
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chocolate cause the migraine or do you have chocolate because you're about to have a migraine
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and so is it a prodrome symptom? Cravings, especially for sweets, are common pre-attack
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symptoms misleading patients to blame chocolate. A thorough review found that while 23 of 25 studies
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reported chocolate as a trigger, controlled provocative trials failed to show significant
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differences between chocolate and placebo. One such study confirmed no increased headache rates
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with chocolate versus control. Now I was curious, what sort of control are we talking about here?
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So I did more digging and in this case it was carob and carob is a naturally sweet
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caffeine-free pod from the Mediterranean tree ceratonia siliqua, traditionally used as a
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chocolate alternative. So here's why it is not so clear-cut. Chocolate contains tyramine
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and other vasoactive amini like histamine which in some people may provoke vasoconduction
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and dilation linked to migraine. So that would put it in the migraine trigger category.
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However, high cacao dark chocolate also offers flavonoids, magnesium and antioxidants that may
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help modulate cgrp chemicals involved in migraines. So the bottom line from a western science perspective
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is chocolate is not conclusively proven to trigger migraines for most people.
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It may affect a small subgroup, especially those sensitive to tyramine, histamine, but cravings
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often mimic causation. So let's turn east to have a bit more clues. And before we do that, I would
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like to define chocolate. When looking at the studies above, I digged for what type of chocolate
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had been used in all of these studies and the answer was regular chocolate. I'm not sure there
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is such a thing as regular chocolate, but okay, probably a baking chocolate with about 50-55%
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cacao, that would be my guess. So to answer from an eastern perspective, we're going to need to
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make a distinction between dark chocolate with 70% or more cacao and chocolate like 55% and less.
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And I want to start to lay out the properties of dark chocolate, the one with 70% or more cacao,
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and therefore the properties of cacao itself. In traditional Chinese medicine, cacao isn't just
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a guilty pleasure, it's a medicinal food, a warming, invigorating, spirit-lifting substance
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that's been used for centuries across cultures, even before it made its way into our chocolate
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bars. Cacao is considered warm in nature, that means it stimulates yang, activates energy,
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and supports circulation. So think of it as adding a gentle internal fire, especially for
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people who feel cold, sluggish, or tired all the time. Cacao carries bitter and sweet flavors,
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and bitter flavors in traditional Chinese medicine are associated with the heart,
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they help clear the heat, invigorate blood, and calm the spirit, what is called the shen. So yes,
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cacao can literally help to lift your mood and open your emotional center. And the sweetness
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gently nourishes the spine and stomach, helping support digestion and grounding your energy.
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In practical terms, cacao is seen to move qi and blood, it's warming and mildly invigorating,
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so it can help with stagnation headaches, where things feel stuck or tight, it can nourish the
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heart and calm the shen, many migraines sufferers experience anxiety or restlessness during prodrome
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or postdrome phases, so small amounts of dark cacao can soothe that, and strengthen kidney yang.
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It is said to stimulate vitality, libido, and energy reserves, so not bad for something that
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also tastes great. So that's quite compelling, and in many ways useful. Some people have a
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ritual of mourning cacao, to replace their coffee, just like that. It's funny, at home we have had,
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for six years, two little guinea pigs, Rainbow and Azalea, Zia for the flower, and they used to
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live in the kitchen. They would be a true good organic food raider, you would open or cook
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something processed, no reaction whatsoever. You'd open a beautiful fresh organic produce,
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they would go wild and squeak until they receive that to eat. Very healthy and long-living two
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balls of fluff and love. When opening chocolate, no reaction. When opening raw ceremonial cacao grades,
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they would go wild, completely wild. It was saying so much about the wonders of that food,
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in its most raw format. So yes, cacao has massive properties. For the anecdote, I've never dared to
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give them cacao. My daughter would have been all over me for experimenting that on them. Like she
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was saying, my two favorite children in the house, the ones eating the most vegetables.
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Okay, so now back to chocolate. When you have 70% dark chocolate, you benefit most of these
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properties. Note that the cacao itself may be altered, so try to go as close as possible to
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the raw high-grade cacao. And so you get the properties of the magnesium, of the blood flow,
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of the kidney yang. You just need to know that if you medicate a lot for your migraines, it is highly
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likely that your liver will be very charged. That is what's called liver fire in traditional
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Chinese medicine. And with that, and when you have a liver fire, increasing kidney yang can exacerbate
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it and make the liver fire more and therefore give you more migraines. In addition, when you
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increase your yang, you use your yin for digestion. So a lot of dark chocolate can cause decreasing yin
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and therefore more evening migraines. So now let's go to the basic chocolate referred to in those
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studies. Too much cacao or chocolate with excess sugar and dairy creates dampness and internal heat,
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which in traditional Chinese medicine can worsen migraines, especially if you're prone to phlegm
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or liver yang rising patterns. Now let's talk about why from a traditional Chinese medicine
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perspective, you might find yourself craving sweet foods or chocolate right before a migraine hits
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during what's called the prodrome phase. In traditional Chinese medicine, sweet flavours
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are associated with the earth element, which governs the spleen and stomach, the centre of our
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digestion, nourishment and emotional stability. When you're under stress, overthinking or
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emotionally depleted, which many of us are before a migraine, the spleen gets weakened. And what does
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a tired spleen crave? Sweetness. It's like your body saying, I need to come back to centre, I need
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comfort, I need grounding. So that sudden desire for chocolate or sugary snacks might not be the
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trigger, but rather a signal that your spleen is struggling and trying to stabilise your internal
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world before the storm. Chocolate adds another layer. It's bitter and sweet and warm in nature,
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in traditional Chinese medicine, that means not only it comforts the spleen, but it also
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stimulates the qi, it activates the yang and even calms the shen, your spirit. It also helps
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distribute your blood inside of your limbs if you have really little energy because you're lacking
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blood volume. So when you crave chocolate in your prodrome, it could be your liver qi stagnating,
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your spleen depleting and your heart shen getting restless, or your blood volume getting not enough,
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all crying out for a quick, warm, comforting boost. But as you know, that short-term fix can
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backfire if the underlying balance isn't addressed. So now, let's cut to the chase and let me give you
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very specific pointers on what to do and not to do. Again, how do I know that? Because at Migraine
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Heroes, we track every single person we work with on a daily basis. We have a library of what works
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and what doesn't. Low cacao chocolate has no properties and should be, if you can, avoided.
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I say when you can because sometimes your imbalances are so high that trying to avoid it
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makes you binge it later even more. I've been in that category after my skiing accident, having
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lost half of my blood and not having been transfused for contaminated blood issues, and sometimes,
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and actually most of the time, cravings have nothing to do with willpower but more with
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internal imbalances. I often tell people in our app, you have your triggers. If you want to have
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them, just do. It's our job. You feel indifferent about chocolate. Now, 70% chocolate and ceremonial
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cacao grade are good for you if you have migraines a few days after your menstruation, you feel cold
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all the time, you feel stressed often, you have afternoon migraines, you crash around 5 p.m.,
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you do not medicate too much. It is not good for you if you have migraines before your menstruation,
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in the few days leading up to it, what we call PMS migraines, if you feel hot often, if you have
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night sweats, if you have evening migraines, or if you medicate often. And remember, every small step
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you take moves you closer to freedom. You are powerful, you are resilient, and you are no longer
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alone. Keep rising, Migraine Hero!
