In this episode of HeadWise™, host Lindsay Weitzel, PhD, talks with Vincent Martin, MD—director of the Headache and Facial Pain Center at the University of Cincinnati—about a foundational and evolving question in headache medicine: Is migraine a systemic disease?Dr. Martin explains why migraine is not always a single neurological disorder and how emerging genetic and population-based research is revealing that only about half of migraine risk is inherited. He discusses how certain environmental factors—including head trauma, respiratory and immune-related conditions, and even gastrointestinal disorders—may contribute to developing migraine disease or increasing migraine frequency over time.They explore:• Why migraine may be neurologic, vascular, or influenced by other systemic conditions• What Mendelian randomization studies reveal about diseases that may actually cause migraine• How depression, asthma, autoimmune disease, IBS, and celiac disease intersect with migraine• Why people sometimes develop migraine later in life after injury or physiological change• The difference between what causes migraine disease versus what triggers an attack• How whole-person clinical evaluation may change migraine diagnosis and managementThis conversation offers clarity on a topic many people have sensed but lacked language for—why migraine often feels like more than “just head pain”—and presents a science-based understanding of how the brain, immune system, vascular function, and other organ systems interact in migraine disease.