PAT HAGAN, Daily Mail

A vitamin that appears in many popular breakfast cereals could be a powerful new treatment for migraine.

Scientists have discovered that riboflavin - also known as vitamin B2 - can halve the number of attacks and significantly reduce the number of pills needed to control the pain.

Vitamin B2 is routinely added to cornflakes and other cereals in small doses to provide nourishment for the skin, eyes and nervous system. But the latest research suggests that in much larger doses it is not only safe but also highly effective at curbing migraines.

Daily dose

Migraine is a debilitating condition characterized by blinding headaches and, in some cases, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, constipation or diarrhoea. It affects an estimated 10 per cent of the UK population. The majority of sufferers are women.

The exact cause is still unknown, but experts think migraines may be related to a shortage in the brain of the mood-related chemical serotonin. It's also thought that certain blood vessels and nerve cells in the head are involved.

Over-the-counter painkillers such as aspirin or paracetamol may be used to treat the headaches, but if these fail to work special anti-migraine drugs called triptans can be prescribed by doctors. But although they can provide relief, they seldom banish attacks completely.

It has been estimated that migraine attacks cost companies several thousand pounds a year each in lost production due to staff absence.

In the search for ways to prevent or reduce the number of attacks, riboflavin could be crucial. Experts believe that most healthy men need no more than 1.3mg of the vitamin a day, and women 1.1mg.

Most of us get what we need from foods rich in riboflavin, such as milk, eggs, breakfast cereals, rice and mushrooms. But because our bodies cannot store it, we need to have it in our diet every day.

As well as being good for the eyes, skin and nerves, riboflavin is known to help produce steroids and red blood cells. It also helps us to absorb iron from the food we eat.

'Worth trying'

The Food Standards Agency says that anyone taking supplements should limit their daily intake to about 40mg.

But to see if riboflavin could prevent migraines, researchers at the University of Berlin recruited a group of regular sufferers and gave them a much higher dose - 400mg a day - contained in a capsule.

They recorded the number of migraine attacks and the amount of drugs that each patient used at the beginning of the study. Further checks were made after three and six months.

The results, published in the latest European Journal of Neurology, revealed that the number of headaches fell from an average of four days a month to just two days a month after using riboflavin.

The number of anti-migraine pills that patients needed fell, with some sufferers taking 35 per cent fewer tablets.

And researchers found that no ill- effects were caused by riboflavin, despite the high doses.

In a report, they said: "We could demonstrate a significant reduction of headache frequency following riboflavin treatment. It is a safe and welltolerated alternative in migraine prevention."

Ann Turner, director of the Migraine Action Association, said: "Evidence is mounting that riboflavin could help some sufferers.

"We have had feedback from some members who have tried it and this shows that it works for some but not others.

"We are not exactly sure why it works, but it may be that it is increasing the brain's capacity to cope with the stresses and strains of life.

"It's certainly worth trying, but you need to take it in the very high doses that were used in the trial."