Headaches

Introduction/Background

According to Dr. Richard Lipton and associates, three women experience migraines or severe headaches that may cause vomiting, nausea, or sensitivity to light per every one man. This study was performed in the U.S. as well as another one showing that 18% of women experience migraines as opposed to 6.5% of men, which makes it one of the most debilitating issues that women face. (1) Research has shown that women could have a higher percentage due to menstrual cycles and use of birth control pills which cause hormonal changes for them. Females could also experience more headaches and migraines because they are more susceptible to things such as red wine, aged cheeses, coffee, Nicotine, oversleeping, fatigue, changes in atmosphere pressure, high altitude, stress and emotional upset. (2) After reviewing these statistics, we decided to test whether they are accurate or just speculation. Our hypothesis is that women will get more headaches than men, and also more severe headaches than men, due to the fact that women have a lower tolerance for everyday occurrences such as stress, sleeping too little, and caffeine.

Methods

In order to test the research, we developed a survey of questions that dealt with the topic of headaches, as shown in figure 1.

Figure 1

Headache Survey

Age:____

Gender:____

*Answer N/A to any that do not apply to you. Answer yes, no, how many, or circle the choice that best fits you to the rest.

About how many headaches do you experience per month?____________

Per Week?____________

About how many migraines do you experience per month?____________

Per Week?____________

Do your headaches start around loud noises?_____

Do your headaches start after some other type of annoyance?_____

If yes, what annoyance?___________________

Do your headaches start when you are feeling hunger or haven’t eaten recently?______

Do your headaches occur around hormonal changes?_____

Does stress seem to cause most of your headaches?_____

Does caffeine play a role in causing or relieving your headaches? (circle one)

Does sleeping too much or too little cause a headache? (circle one)

Do you experience headaches when you have a stuffy nose?____

How long after being exposed to a condition that causes your headaches do you start to feel the first signs of the headache?_________________________________________

The figure above displays the survey that was used to study the hypothesis that females experience more headaches and migraines than males, and that they have a lower tolerance for certain substances. The survey was handed out to 50 people systematically (every n’th person) using a random number generator to give us a number of 10, so we handed it out to every tenth person at a local mall in order to acquire a relatively balanced sample of males and females.

To test our hypothesis that women get more headaches and migraines than men, and that they have a lower tolerance to certain stimuli, a survey was passed out to every tenth person until 50 participants were acquired. The type of sampling that was used is called systematic, which means that every n’th person is selected to be a participant. This helped to have a fair, unbiased sample of people.

Results

After handing out a survey about number of headaches and their different causes (figure 1), we have compiled the results from the research and placed them onto a spreadsheet to graph the responses. The study has shown that females seem to experience more headaches and more migraines than males, as shown in figure 2.

Figure 2

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The figure shows the amount of headaches and migraines (labeled as headaches in blue and migraines in red) the 21 males and 29 females experience per month. What this shows is that females seem to experience more headaches and migraines per month than males.

It appears that women tend to experience almost three times as many headaches and over six times as many migraines as men per month.

We also asked numerous questions regarding the effects of different substances and physical states on the participant’s headaches and migraines. A substance that was referred to was caffeine. Participants were asked whether it played a role in relieving or causing a headache. Figure 3 is a graph of the average effect for males and females.

Figure 3

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This chart shows how caffeine affected a person’s headaches, if at all. The chart was coded with 1 meaning it played a role in relieving a headache and 2 meaning it played a role in causing a headache, whereas 0 meant that caffeine had no effect on the person. As shown above, most females claimed that caffeine acted as a reliever rather than a cause and most males claimed that caffeine had no effect either way for them.

Participants’ answers demonstrated that men are rarely affected by caffeine whereas most women find caffeine to be a relieving agent.

The survey questioned people whether sleeping too much or too little caused a headache. Figure 4 demonstrates the answers that were given in regard to this question.

Figure 4

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Above is a chart listing the answers given by the 50 participants for both males and females. When arranging the chart the answers were coded as: 1- Sleeping too much causes headaches, 2- Sleeping too little causes the headaches, and 0-No effect either way. The chart shows that most females say sleeping too little seems to cause their headaches, and most males say