Cleveland College Studies the Effects of Adjustments on Migraine

By Editorial Staff

The research department at Cleveland Chiropractic College, Los Angeles (CCCLA) is conducting a clinical research study to investigate the benefits of chiropractic treatment on migraine attacks. The study is "Physiological Mechanisms of Chiropractic Adjustment on Migraine."

The working hypothesis of the research is that spinal manipulation treatment has been proven effective in the treatment of migraine headache, but there is a need to assess the hypoalgesic and possible anti-inflammatory effects of spinal manipulation on migraine. The study will investigate "the short and long-term effects of SMT on migraine. The effects will be measured by assessing subjective responses, via the visual analogue scale (VAS), and measuring the frequency and intensity of migraine headaches. Furthermore, objective data, i.e., the level of inflammatory mediators, such as leukotriene B4; LTB4; prostaglandin E2; PGE2 in the nasal fluid; and saliva will be measured using ELISA. The study will be placebo-controlled and randomized. Forty-eight subjects will participate in the study (24 migraine patients and 24 age-and-gender-matched healthy subjects), during which they will undergo either placebo or chiropractic treatment."

Leading the research team is Dr. Parvaneh Mohammadian, who earned her PhD in human biology from the department of experimental and clinical pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany in 1996. She is the director of undergraduate studies at CCCLA, and has served as an independent phamaceutical and clinical research consultant, and as a scientific research assistant in Germany, Denmark and the U.S. She is a member of the Society for Neuroscience, the American Pain Society, the American Association of University Professors, and the National Association of Advisors for Health Professions.

Rounding out the research team are: Cleveland researchers Antonio Gonsalves,DC, and Thomas Carpenter, DC; Chander Arora,PhD, of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles; and Thomas Hummel,MD, from the department of otorhinolaryngology at the University of Dresden Medical School in Germany.