Well, it turns out Harry Potter may indeed be saving the world, or at least shedding new light on migraines. A story in HealthDay examines how migraines are common among young people, especially (heh) Muggles (non wizards). In case you're wondering who conducted the research, it was a 17-year-old Harry Potter fan from Connecticut.

Here's a part of the story:

According to research in the new issue of the journal Headache, one in 20 Muggle children and teens suffers from migraines -- many of them, like Harry's, undiagnosed.

To raise awareness of this other evil, the American and British authors of the study decided to compare Harry's symptoms with what is known about Muggle migraines.

Hallie Thomas, a 17-year-old high school graduate from Monroe, Conn., was the senior author on the research. She is a Harry Potter fan and also a migraine sufferer.

For the study, she re-read all six Harry Potter volumes published to date, highlighting the passages where he had a headache.

Those were passed on to the study's other two authors: Dr. Fred Sheftell, director of the New England Center for Headache and president-elect of the American Headache Society, and Timothy J. Steiner, a headache specialist at Imperial College of London and chairman of the World Health Organization's Global Campaign to Reduce the Burden of Headache Worldwide.

They then tried to match the references to the description of migraine in the International Classification of Headache Disorders, 2nd edition or ICHD-II.