Endometriosis is a chronic condition in which tissue that resembles the uterine lining grows outside the uterine cavity. While endometriosis is a non-life-threatening condition, it can make women experience painful symptoms.

If you are struggling with endometriosis, you are not alone. In fact, this condition affects about 11% of women in the United States. While there’s no cure for endometriosis, there are lifestyle changes that can help to reduce the severity of the symptoms. One of these changes includes embracing an endometriosis diet.

In this article, we will explain the benefits of doing a diet for endometriosis and how to implement it in your life.

How Do Dietary Changes Help Treating Endometriosis?

While our dietary choices cannot cure or cause endometriosis, what we eat does significantly impact our physical health.

Even though further research is necessary, experts claim that nutrition can influence the severity of endometriosis symptoms. The same study also concluded that a healthy diet may reduce the risk of developing endometriosis.

A healthy diet can help treat some endometriosis symptoms, such as:

• Constipation
• Bloating
• Inflammation
• Fatigue

Furthermore, a healthy diet can help stabilize women’s hormonal balance, which can be beneficial for those who have endometriosis.

Foods that Worsen Endometriosis Symptoms

If you have endometriosis, we recommend reducing your consumption of the following foods that cause inflammation or hormone inbalance:

Trans fats

Highly processed foods such as margarine, french fries, doughnuts, and cakes are rich in trans fats.

Consuming trans fats promotes inflammation. Therefore, if you have endometriosis and suffer from inflammation, we recommend cutting down trans fats.

According to a study, the risk of developing endometriosis is 48% higher in women who consume trans fats than those who don’t.

Gluten

If you have celiac disease or gluten sensitivity, this ingredient can promote inflammation. However, even if you don’t have gluten sensitivity, eliminating gluten may help to relieve painful endometriosis symptoms. For example, in this study, 75% of women who cut down gluten reported a decrease in painful endometriosis symptoms.

More research is necessary to confirm the link between gluten and endometriosis, but we recommend trying this dietary change with a nutritionist’s help and seeing how it goes.

Foods that Affect the Balance of Hormones

Hormone therapy is an effective treatment to relieve endometriosis pain. These therapy treatments consist of taking pills or shots. However, what we eat can also impact the hormonal balance. Therefore, we recommend avoiding foods like:

• Red meat
• Alcohol
• Caffeine
• Dairy
• Trans fats

High-FODMAP Foods

FODMAP is short for fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols. Foods that are high in those fermentable carbs could cause digestive discomfort symptoms and increase the pain for women who have endometriosis.

According to a study, women with irritable bowel syndrome experienced an improvement in endometriosis symptoms when doing a low FODMAP diet.

Foods that Can Help Treating Endometriosis

Healthy foods can help to relieve and prevent painful endometriosis symptoms. In particular, we recommend whole foods that are rich in fiber to combat inflammation. Some examples of these foods include:

• Vegetables such as dark leafy greens like spinach, kale, and collards as well as tomatoes
• Fish such as salmon, tuna, and sardines
• Nuts such as walnuts, pistachios, and walnuts
• Fruits such as oranges, berries, and cherries

If you want to change your diet, Z.E.N. Foods can help. We offer a wide variety of healthy meal delivery plans. For further information, please call us today at (310) 205-9368.