There needs to be more diversity in clinical research into anti-migraine drugs. Migraine scientists Antoinette Maassen van den Brink and Linda Al-Hassany of the Department of Internal Medicine at Erasmus MC report this. They published their findings in an opinion article in The Lancet Neurology.
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Migraine
The new generation of migraine drugs has for the most part been tested in a homogeneous population. This is mainly made up of American white women with an average BMI of 30+. This makes the effect of the medication on people of the opposite sex, stature, ethnicity and age in fact unpredictable.
Pharmacokinetics
‘Ethnicity, gender, body mass index and age mainly influence pharmacokinetics. However, characteristics such as gender also influence pharmacodynamics in the body. The body of a 50-year-old American woman reacts differently than that of a small, thin, 35-year-old Japanese man.’
Inclusion
Al-Hassany and Maassen van den Brink therefore argue for the inclusion of more different patient groups in drug studies. The call for more diversity in scientific research into diseases and medicines has been heard for some time. Migraines affect many patients. ‘There are more than 1 billion people worldwide with migraine and it occurs equally often in all corners of the world’, say Maassen van den Brink and Al-Hassany.
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