Headaches are the worst.

Nothing like the doom you feel when the first signs of one hits. “It’s coming…I’m going down.” It’s awful and it not only affects your quality of life in a big way, it can leave you feeling helpless.

The causes of headaches can be multifaceted, but it’s not uncommon to find that the food you eat is fraught with triggers. Your diet can also contribute to their intensity, frequency, and duration. If headaches are a chronic concern, food is absolutely worth considering.

Finding out your food choices can affect or even instigate your headaches can be overwhelming—where do you start?—but my hope is this discussion will feel empowering. You have options! You have some control! Like any health issues, we have to be investigators and follow leads. So let’s discuss common food culprits and how to figure out what might be causing your head to scream. (skip the next portion if you are in a hurry)

A story of healing

First, a quick story about a hero of mine, Dr. Max Gerson. He is famous for developing a diet-based alternative cancer treatment. In his practice, he saw the successful recovery of the most dire, terminal cases. And he did this in the 30s and 40s! At a time when conventional medicine was starting to look at radiation and chemo as the answer, he went a different way. His story is one of perseverance, tenacity and, frankly, miracle working. He almost received funding from Congress to develop his method, but lobbying from a new and booming industry—processed food—swayed the vote and medical history would be changed forever. His biography, Dr Max Gerson, Healing the Hopeless, reads like fiction. His struggles, his narrow escape from Nazi Germany, the forces he faced in America, the dramatic stories of healing and heartbreak...it’s one of my favorite all time books.

Dr. Gerson had a humble beginning…his own headaches!

How did he launch on this path into alternative medicine? Headaches. As a young practitioner, he had such persistent headaches he could hardly function. He would often find himself holding on for dear life, in a darkened, quiet room, praying for the headaches to go away. Nothing in his medical training and none of his colleagues had any help to give. In desperation, he took everything out of his diet except apples. He immediately felt better. The headaches ceased! Then he meticulously began adding foods in one at a time to see what was causing his pain. If a food triggered him, he removed it and went back to a basic diet for a time before patiently adding another single food. This was slow and meticulous. He stayed with whole, nourishing foods and eliminated anything processed (processed foods were just beginning to catch on and he recognized they tended to be nutrient deficient and more likely to trigger reactions.) He developed his own custom tried and tested diet.

Most of us wouldn’t go to this trouble, but where desperation and tenacity meet…answers are uncovered. This direct relation between food and pain set him on a healing path. When he shared his elimination method with a friend who also suffered from headaches, they were both shocked to find he resolved his headaches AND his tuberculosis! So Dr Gerson began studying his elimination diet method with other ailments which would eventually lead him to his cancer research.

So…nothing but apples, eh?

Luckily, we know more about nutrition now. But the concept remains, if you identify a trigger and remove it while focusing on whole, nutritious foods in its place, you will see amazing things happen!

There are different kinds of headaches, and factors beyond food that contribute (stress, sleep, hormones, toxins, etc.) We can only talk about generalities here. If you are struggling with headaches, I hope this will give you some places to start:

Food can contribute to headaches through deficiencies, food triggers, and chemical triggers.

Deficiencies:

Eating a healthy diet with a variety of proteins, fruits and veggies can help ensure you don’t have nutrient deficiencies contributing to headaches. Here are some common ones to be aware of:

Magnesium: Taking daily magnesium (400 mg a day is a good place to start) alongside magnesium rich foods like nuts, seeds, leafy greens, avocados, broccoli, sesame sees,
B vitamins: involved in the formation of neurotransmitters like serotonin, a deficiency in B vitamins has been linked with migraines and other headache symptoms. A quality B Complex can help with a myriad of symptoms, but is worth exploring in regards to headaches.
Water: again, I am listing water has a nutrient! Chronic dehydration is so common and so so so preventable. A headache can be your body’s way of screaming for more water. In fact, if you feel a headache coming on, go drink a big glass of classic H20. Sometimes that is enough alone to stave it off or at least lessen the severity and duration!

Food triggers:

The most common foods to cause inflammatory reactions (including but not limited to headaches) are:

The Usual Suspects: They look harmless, even nourishing, but are they hurting you?

Dairy: this can be all dairy, just lactose, certain proteins, or just cow milk. It can often be dose dependent.
Eggs (the white and the yolk can react separately so many people tolerate one but not the other)
Tree Nuts (almonds or pecans, for example)
Peanuts (including peanut butter and peanut oil)
Wheat: this can be due to any component of the grain itself or to the pesticide residue that comes with modern farming practices.
Soy: usually processed soy and often because of its overuse in our modern diet.
Fish/Shellfish
Corn: this is starting to show up more and more because of the highly processed form it takes in modern diets.

These are big categories of food. Experimenting with removing one or two at a time can help you gauge your reaction to them. Often, a simple break from that food is enough to heal or reset the way your body reacts and you are able to reintroduce them safely later on. Sometimes, you may find your body will never quite be able to handle that food well and you’re better eliminating it altogether.

But it isn’t always that easy (as if that was easy!). Your trigger may not be one of the usual suspects. It could be something tiny…like garlic or honeydew! It could be chocolate—gasp! It could be…anything.

Other common food reactions are ignited by chemical components of that food and so, can be trickier to pinpoint.

Chemical/Component triggers:

Some examples of common chemical triggers:

Is it the caffeine in your latte, the gluten in the muffin that’s making your head throb?

Caffeine: Is it a trigger in and of itself or is the amount you take in the issue? Worth experimenting with. (A genetic test I offer can tell you exactly how well you metabolize this stimulant!)
Histamine: This is a component found naturally in many foods, but also that builds up in aged foods. Some people can tolerate fresh food, but leftovers eaten even the next day will trigger a headache! Some people have to avoid aged and fermented foods like cheese altogether!
MSG: it has many, many names, google them! MSG is a common trigger for headaches, especially migraines.
Nitrates and Nitrites: found mostly in cured meats like sausage and bacon. But if you are particularly sensitive to them, naturally occurring ones found in foods like celery, beets, and radishes can be enough to set you off.
Tyramine: this one is famous for triggering migraines. It’s a natural substance formed from the breakdown of protein as it ages. (See Histamine, as they are very similar)
Salicylates: this is most known as the basis for aspirin but for people sensitive to it, it can trigger the headache you were trying to help by taking that aspirin in the first place! Food sources include an assortment of plant foods, mostly certain fruits and nuts. But it is more often problematic when added in processed foods.
Gluten: This is a protein responsible for so many reactions! You don’t have to have celiac disease to react to gluten. In fact, low level, chronic reactions can be more devastating because a person never makes the connection and continues eating it. Gluten can absolutely contribute to chronic headaches, from migraines to tension headaches. This one is worth experimenting with for sure.

If any of these pique your interest, do a little research to find foods you may feel compelled to remove and experiment with.

Have I overwhelmed you yet?

You really can drop everything but apples and then meticulously add one food at a time. Or, you can get tested for food sensitivities.

I am a big believer in testing.

There are lots of tests on the market and different degrees of efficacy. In my own practice, I use a blood draw called a Mediator Release Test (MRT). It identifies foods and chemicals causing reactions and then scales them to differentiate critical reactions and less critical ones.

Even with testing, Food Sensitivities can be like playing Whack-A-Mole

One caveat: testing for food sensitivities can feel like playing whack-a-mole. You fix one, 2 more pop up in its place. You might identify a trigger, eliminate it, and feel better. But if you don’t fix the underlying cause of WHY your body reacted in the first place (Hint: it has to do with gut health!), new food reactions occur. This is why I rarely do sensitivity testing on its own, but almost always couple it with gut mapping and a protocol to both remove offending foods temporarily, and to heal and fortify the gut so reactions don’t reoccur.

If headaches are the scourge of your life, it’s worth a deeper dive. I used to get “whomping” (my word) tension headaches at least weekly until I cleaned up my own diet and identified triggers. (For me, too much sugar, some food colorings, and gluten—beyond a little bit on occasion—spells trouble.) I know many of you suffer more often and in greater ways than I did!

SUMMARY:

Clean up common triggers of headaches by eliminating processed foods as much as possible.
From there experiment with common food triggers like eggs, dairy, wheat, soy, nuts and/or corn. Conduct your own elimination experiments and see if you find relief.
If you suspect chemical sensitivities, or you can’t pinpoint the culprit with simple experiments, consider food sensitivity testing. Or bypass the experimentation process and begin here…be brave and arm yourself with a willingness to implement the information you uncover into your diet!

To continue this discussion, reach out—schedule a free 20 minute consult. I can help you with a sensitivity test and plan to fit your needs.

Whatever you do, don’t think you have to live with headaches! Find the root cause of yours for peace of mind.

Headaches are a Pain in the Gut: troubleshooting headaches by assessing your diet