The wolframin His611Arg polymorphism influences medication overuse headache

Homozygosis for wolframin (WFS1) mutations determines Wolfram syndrome (WS), and common polymorphisms of WFS1 are associated with psychiatric illnesses and dependence behaviour. To test the influence of WFS1 polymorphisms on medication overuse headache (MOH), a chronic headache condition related to symptomatic drugs overuse, we analyzed 82 MOH patients for the WFS1 His611Arg polymorphism, and performed a comparison between clinical features of Arg/Arg (R/R) and non-R/R individuals. Individuals harbouring the R/R genotype showed significantly higher monthly drug consumption (t = −3.504; p = 0.00075) and more severe depressive symptoms on the BDI questionnaire (t = −3.048; p = 0.003) than non-R/R. WFS1 polymorphism emerged as the only significant predictor of drug consumption, at the multivariate regression analysis (F = 12.277; d.f. = 1,80; p = 0.00075, adjusted R2 = 0.122). These results implicate WFS1 in the clinical picture of MOH, may be through an influence on need for drugs as in other conditions of abuse behaviour.