Efficacy of intravenous magnesium sulfate in the treatment of acute migraine attacks.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Magnesium Sulfate in the context of migraine.

Magnesium deficiency has been proposed to play a role in the pathophysiology of migraine, and recently treatment of migraine with magnesium has gained considerable interest.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 30 patients were involved.

The age groups tagged for this paper are adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

This was a randomized, single-blind, placebo-controlled trial including 30 patients with moderate or severe migraine attacks.

The patients were assessed immediately after treatment, and then 30 minutes and 2 hours later.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, single-blind and placebo-controlled study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Magnesium Sulfate and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

In this single-blind Magnesium Sulfate study one party knew the assignments and the other did not.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Magnesium Sulfate group a baseline to be compared against.

Intensity of pain, accompanying symptoms, and side effects were noted.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Acute Disease, Analgesics, Magnesium Sulfate and Migraine Disorders.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, single-blind and placebo-controlled study of Magnesium Sulfate in 30 patients in people with migraine.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 12 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2001 (Headache), a journal based in United States.

More context: Migraine research.