According to a new study of American Association of Pediatrics, children with excessive weight are more likely to suffer from different sorts of headaches and migraines than children without overweight problems, and these headaches tend to become chronic.

However, the study suggests that once the excessive weight problem is eliminated, the headaches may also go.

Almost a thousand children and teenagers with headache complaints participated in the research, which proved that the greater the child is overweight, the more frequent are his headaches. However, the connection between the headaches and excessive body weight is not studied enough yet.

Dr. A.D.Patterson of Memorial Hospital, Wasington D.C., led the study which involved young patients who addressed the national headache centers. The medics have chosen a thousand children and investigated the issue by examining the group for almost a year.

200 of the children in study were obese, whereas another 330 had a risk of becoming overweight. In total, the study made a conclusion that there indeed is a connection between the excessive weight and frequency of headaches in children.

Those children who managed to lose the excessive weight during the year of the research, tended to suffer a lot less from headaches. The researchers haven’t found the actual reasons that connect the excessive weight in children and the frequency of their headache episodes. The medics suggest that obesity doesn’t actually cause headaches, but provokes them, making them more painful and long-lasting.

One of the theories is that excessive weight causes the growth of inflammatory substances that may prolong the headaches.

The researchers advise the doctors treating the young patients suffering from headaches should pay attention to their weight problems. In case there is such a problem, the reduction in weight may result in decreasing of headaches frequency.