Migraines may carry long-term baggage

Headaches with aura linked to brain lesions and possibly strokes

Women with migraines accompanied by a visual disturbance called an aura are more likely to incur subtle, microscopic brain damage than are women without migraines, researchers report in the June 24 Journal of the American Medical Association.

A second study finds that women who have frequent migraines with an aura are four times as likely to have a stroke in subsequent years as are women without migraines.