By Joene Hendry

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Adolescents who have frequent headaches appear to be at increased risk of becoming daily smokers, Dr. Karen E. Waldie of the University of Auckland, New Zealand, told Reuters Health.

Compared with headache-free peers, 15-year-olds with frequent headaches were twice as likely to smoke during adulthood, Waldie and colleagues report. And adolescents who smoked were twice as likely as non-smoking peers to have frequent headaches, the group noted in the medical journal, Headache.

The close association between headaches and smoking during adolescence is consistent with earlier research findings, the investigators note. But, "this study also highlights the continuity of both smoking and headaches," Waldie said. Those who had a history of headache in adolescence were twice as likely to become smokers in adulthood compared with those without an early history of headache, she and colleagues report.

The researchers looked at associations between headache pain and tobacco smoking among 980 men and women who provided information on headache frequency and smoking behavior when they were 11 and 13 years old (childhood), 15 years old (adolescence), and 26 years old (adulthood). The subjects were participants in the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study.

After factoring in the influence of gender and socioeconomic factors that influence smoking status, the investigators found that adolescents who reported frequent headaches were 2.2 times more likely to smoke at age 26 than those without headaches. The investigators further found that adult smokers were less likely to quit if they had headaches at age 15.

Waldie suggests the findings highlight the need for parents and healthcare providers to take a serious look at children's headache complaints. But she and colleagues note that any causal relationship between headaches and smoking should be further investigated in larger populations.

SOURCE: Headache, April 2008.

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