Thaindian News

By Meena Kar
Dec 21, (THAINDIAN NEWS) Headache has been the main cause of spoiling sociability. However, now one would be delighted to know, that the hormone, responsible for increasing trust, bonding and sociability can be used to treat headache as well. A recent study has proved that a hormone called Oxytocin, which is generally attributed to love and trust, can be used as an efficient pain relief for those who are regular victims of headaches.

According to the researchers, Oxytocin works on trigeminal nerve. It functions by blocking the pain signals, after binding to the receptors in the trigeminal nerve, that carries pain information from the head. The study was carried out on 40 volunteers who suffer from chronic daily headaches. They were given an Oxytocin nasal spray. Surprisingly, 50% of the subjects reported that their headache has reduced by 50%, while 27% said that after four hours there was no pain at all. However, none of them reported complete relief. All the subjects, who became part of the experiment suffered from headache at least 15 times in a month. Yet, one cannot deny that more research has to be conducted as only 40 patients were involved in the initial findings. Unless it is conducted over a large group of people, no one can establish the truth with conviction. Nevertheless, it seems to be a very “encouraging” finding. More research has to be conducted to prove its long term effect said Dr. Egilius Spierings, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School. He also said that it was an interesting finding and he was happy for the handful of people, who were partially relieved by Oxytocin.

However, he was also disappointed because, its effect did not start until four hours of its administration and its effect did not last for more than 24 hours. Therefore, patients suffering from migraine, cannot use this therapy, as they would crave for a faster treatment during an attack.