Effect of Vasoactive Intestinal Polypeptide on Development of Migraine Headaches: A Randomized Clinical Trial

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of VIP (Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide) in the context of migraine, published as a randomized controlled trial.

To determine whether a 2-hour infusion of VIP would provoke migraine attacks.

Why It Was Studied

Vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP) and pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptides (PACAPs) are structurally and functionally related, yet different in their migraine-inducing properties.

It remains unclear whether the lack of migraine induction can be attributed to the only transient vasodilatory response after a 20-minute infusion of VIP.

Who Took Part

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were teenagers, young adults and adults, both men and women.

Patients were eligible for inclusion if they were ages 18 to 40 years, weighed between 50 and 90 kg, had a diagnosis of migraine without aura as defined by the International Classification of Headache Disorders, and had a migraine frequency of 1 to 6 attacks per month.

Patients were randomly allocated to receive a 2-hour infusion of VIP or placebo on 2 different days.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and crossover study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got VIP (Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide) and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Blinding on both sides kept the participants and researchers unaware of who received VIP (Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide).

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the VIP (Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide) group a baseline to be compared against.

In the crossover set-up each of the participants took both VIP (Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide) and the comparison in turn, acting as their own control.

A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study was conducted between May and September 2020 at the Danish Headache Center in Copenhagen, Denmark.

What Was Measured

Vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP) and pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptides (PACAPs) are structurally and functionally related, yet different in their migraine-inducing properties.

PubMed files the paper under topics including Area Under Curve, Incidence, Migraine Disorders, Temporal Arteries, Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide and Vasodilator Agents.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of VIP (Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide) in people with migraine.

Results are reported in around 7 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2021 (JAMA network open), a journal based in United States.

More context: the VIP (Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide) compound page, Migraine research.