A TEAM of researchers in Israel think they may have found a cure for religious fasting headaches suffered mainly by devout Muslims and Jews.
Every year millions of Jews fast on their holiest day, Yom Kippur, and many more millions of Muslims fast for the month of Ramadan. And every year, as many as 40 percent of those fasting develop serious headaches, according to this report.
But given the prohibitions against taking anything by mouth, there’s little these fools can do until the fast ends – nightly for Muslims, and after 25 hours for Jews.
Now, a team of researchers in Israel, reporting in the journal Headache, think they have a solution – a cousin of Vioxx (rofecoxib), the drug Merck pulled from the US market in September 2004 because it increased the risks of heart attacks and other serious complications.
The drug, etoricoxib (Arcoxia), also made by Merck, is approved in several European countries, as well as Israel, but was refused FDA approval in the United States in 2007 because it works the same way Vioxx does.
Dr Michael Drescher, of Hartford Hospital, Connecticut, and colleagues at two hospitals in Israel recruited more than 200 volunteers before Yom Kippur in October 2008.
Just before the holiday, half of them took etoricoxib, and half were given inactive placebo pills. Neither the volunteers nor the researchers knew which was which until after the study. Among the 195 study participants who responded to a survey after the holiday, about 36 percent who took etoricoxib developed headaches, compared to about 68 percent who took the placebo.
Those who took etoricoxib also had less severe headaches, and they had an easier time fasting.
Yom Kippur headache is a well documented phenomenon but the causes are unclear. Doctors have suspected withdrawal from caffeine, nicotine, oversleeping, and dehydration.
Before their study, however, they asked “every credible rabbinical source” possible whether taking a drug to prevent headaches would be in the spirit of the fast. They said it was, to coin a phrase, kosher.
Drescher said:
Rabbis told us it’s not a matter of suffering. It’s about divorcing yourself from the day to day.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
January 15th, 2010 at 10:47 pm
I would bet a large (by my impoverished standards) sum of money that the Rabbis of some extreme literal Jewish sects will declare taking pills not Kosher after all.
Jeez, some of these guys are concerned about whether pressing a light switch constitutes breaking the sabbath.
David
January 15th, 2010 at 11:51 pm
I’m sure the headaches are caused by dehydration.
Why don’t the religiots just put up with it? Isn’t it just another form of self flaggellation?
January 16th, 2010 at 2:24 am
Maybe god wants them to have headaches. They should wear them as a badge of honor. After all, if they’re going to self-inflict them then why do anything to alleviate them?
January 16th, 2010 at 7:10 am
I would have thought that the suffering was the entire point.
January 16th, 2010 at 8:58 am
Does the Jewish god like cheaters? You fast as part of your religious duties and the head-ache is just your body telling you you’re stupid, even if god approves.
January 16th, 2010 at 9:50 am
“Rabbis told us it’s not a matter of suffering. It’s about divorcing yourself from the day to day”
Fine – then just take the day off work!
January 17th, 2010 at 10:13 am
What sort of idiot indulges in activities that have a reasonable chance of giving them a headache? Oh wait.