Women get more headaches than men, due to reasons such as stress, poor posture and having cheese and red wine, says a study.

The nine-year-long study also said women were three times more likely to see doctors about headaches than men.

Martin Gulliford and fellow researchers at the King's College London studied consultations and referrals to specialists up to the year 2000 at 253 general practices in Britain, reported the online edition of Daily Mail.

They found 6.4 percent of consultations were for headaches for women, compared with 2.5 percent for men, the study published in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery and Psychiatry says.

While women aged 45 to 54 were more likely to be prescribed headache pills than men of the same age, women aged 15 to 24 were those most likely to seek help from their doctor for the problem, they said.

"Patterns of treatment clearly differ between men and women. Prescribing rates for headache are relatively high for women of middle age," Gulliford said.

"While women are more likely to be prescribed medication to prevent future attacks of headache, men are more likely to be referred to a specialist for investigation," he said.