Quick ahead an excellent 20 years, and we nonetheless don’t have a remedy for endo, and we don’t have what I, or the World Well being Group4 for that matter, would contemplate efficient therapies for the situation.
However I’m not shocked. In 2022, the Nationwide Institutes of Well being devoted lower than 0.1% of their analysis funding to the examine of this persistent situation that impacts 1 in 105 individuals assigned feminine at delivery of reproductive age, considerably reduces high quality of life6, and prices the US an estimated $22 billion a yr in misplaced productiveness. (FYI, in uncommon circumstances, individuals assigned male at delivery can have endo too.)
Like many individuals with endo who’ve been left within the lurch relating to remedy and care, I needed to do my very own analysis. I found that dietary adjustments, though not a remedy, might assist alleviate endometriosis signs. Again within the early aughts, the prevailing knowledge relating to eating regimen and endo was to go vegan.
The simplified concept was that consuming some animal merchandise7, like pink meat, might drive prostaglandin manufacturing. Prostaglandins, though essential for the physique, when overproduced could cause the uterus (and that endometrial-like tissue) to contract, resulting in ache and cramping. Plus, prostaglandins are implicated8 within the pathophysiology of endo.
As somebody who went vegan manner again in 2001, I can let you know {that a} vegan eating regimen doesn’t at all times equate to a nutritious diet. Though I ate an abundance of fruits and veggies, I used to be additionally consuming plenty of processed carbs, akin to pasta, rice, cereal, bread, and so on. In order that vegan eating regimen didn’t essentially assist me. In reality, it might have made it worse9.
