On 2006-12-21 16:14:20 +0000, Timothy Murphy said:

My wife helps run a scientific institute.
A research worker (feminine) complained that
the flourescent lighting in her laboratory
gave her migraine.

The institute installed "daylight" flourescent lights,
which apparently improved things.

Is there any scientfic basis for
(a) the claim that flourescent lights can cause migraine,
(b) the belief that daylight bulbs cause less problems?

One of the many triggers for migraine is the flickering especially from
the ends of tubes
of fluorescent lights which just have a simple choke as opposed to a
high frequency ballast.

I suffer from migraines periodically and this can be one of the
triggers although usually combined
with other factors such as overdoing it or certain food types.

In general I am not at all comfortable with low frequency fluorescent
lighting, especially if faulty or
if the tube has a low persistence phosphor and greater tendency to flicker.
This is especially noticable if the tube is off to the side in
peripheral vision.

CRT monitors are another one - anything less than 75Hz is uncomfortable.

As regards the lighting colour I am less sure, although for a living
space, I do not like the
unnatural light that comes from fluorescent lamps. For a workshop,
the situation is different.

For your wife's colleague's case, I think it may be more likely that
the daylight tube fittings have high frequency
ballasts which remove flicker. It appears to be that flicker is the
more common trigger.
However, migraine is highly individual, so almost anything is possible.