Dietary Practices of Women with Endometriosis: A Cross-Sectional Survey

Mike Armour, Alexandra Middleton, Siew Lim, Justin Sinclair, David Varjabedian, Caroline Smith, Caroline A Smith
Journal of alternative and complementary medicine (New York, N.Y.) · 2021 · vol. 27(9) , pp. 771–777 · doi:10.1089/acm.2021.0068 · PMID:34161144 · W3135089138
article OA: closed CC0 ⤵ 21 in-corpus citations
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⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-07 ⓘ

This survey of 484 Australian women with endometriosis found that 44% used dietary strategies like gluten or dairy elimination and FODMAP diets, reporting significant improvements in pelvic pain and gastrointestinal symptoms.

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Abstract

Background: Endometriosis causes deleterious effects on the lives of sufferers across multiple domains impacting quality of life. Commonly utilized pharmaceutical interventions offer suboptimal efficacy in addition to potentially intolerable side effects for many women. There is some evidence for dietary therapies reducing endometriosis symptoms, but little data on dietary preferences/strategies used, and their impact, in a community setting. Methods: A cross-sectional online survey was conducted between October and December 2017 to investigate the self-management strategies employed by women with endometriosis. Participants were aged 18–45 years, living in Australia, and had a surgically confirmed diagnosis of endometriosis. Results: Four hundred eighty-four responses were included for analysis, with 76% of women reporting the use of general self-management strategies within the last 6 months. Of these, 44% of respondents reported using dietary strategies for symptom management. Reducing or eliminating gluten, reducing or eliminating dairy, and the low-fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols (FODMAP) diet were the most commonly reported dietary strategies utilized. Respondents reported a 6.4/10 effectiveness score for reduction in pelvic pain with dietary changes, with no difference in pain reduction between the various diets used. Furthermore, women self-reported significant improvements in comorbidities such as gastrointestinal (GI) disturbance (39%), nausea and vomiting (15%), and fatigue (15%). Conclusions: Dietary modifications are a very common self-management strategy employed by people with endometriosis, with the greatest benefit reported on GI symptoms. Reducing or eliminating gluten, dairy, or FODMAPs or a combination of these was the most common strategy. No single diet appeared to provide greater self-reported benefits than others.

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Condition tags

mesh:D004715mesh:D017699endometriosis

MeSH descriptors

Endometriosis Endometriosis Irritable Bowel Syndrome Cross-Sectional Studies Female Humans Pelvic Pain Quality of Life

Citation neighborhood

Papers in the corpus that this work cites (lower rings, blue) and that cite this one (upper rings, green). Dot size scales with the paper's in-corpus citation count — bigger dot = more influential within the endo/adeno field. Click a dot to open that paper. [ expand to 2 hops ] — adds papers reached through this work's immediate citers/citees. Heavier; up to 60 extra dots.

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Cited by (22)

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