OBJECTIVES: (1) To assess  the prevalence of migraine using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) conducted in the general United States population; (2) To calculate the 10-year Framingham cardiovascular disease (CVD) and coronary heart disease (CHD) risks and compare the risks between migraine patients (MP) and non-migraineurs (NM). METHODS: MP were identified using the survey question: “During the past 3 months, did you have severe headaches or migraines?” from the 1999-2000, 2001-2002, and 2003-2004 NHANES.  Independent chi-square tests and t-tests were used to compare differences in CVD or CHD risk factors between MP and NM. Multivariant ordinal logistic regressions were used to examine the odds ratios of low, moderate, and high CHD and CVD risks between MP and NM accounting for the complex sampling design used by NHANES. Significance was defined as p≤0.05. RESULTS: Amongst the total of 14,204 study subjects (6,731 men and 7,473 women), 2,895 (20.38%) subjects reported having migraines or severe headaches in the past three months. The average age of MP was 41.8 (±16.8) years, compared to 47.4 (±19.8) years in the NM group. MP had a significantly higher percentage of females, with 1,962 (67.77%) females. Subjects in the migraine group were found to have an odds ratio of 1.208 (95% CI, 1.033-1.412, p-value<0.001) for moderate CHD risk, and an odds ratio of 0.975 (95% CI, 0.732 – 1.412, p-value<0.001) for high CHD risk. Regarding CVD risk, migraine patients were found to have an odds ratio of 1.173 (95% CI, 0.818 – 1.683, p-value<0.001) for moderate risk, and an odds ratio of 1.112 (95% CI, 0.909 – 1.582, p-value<0.001) for high risk. CONCLUSIONS: Migraine appears to be more prevalent among younger subjects with an overall mean age of 42 years old. These findings also suggest a positive association between migraine and CHD risks.