Gluten-free diet: a new strategy for management of painful endometriosis related symptoms?

M Marziali, Marco Marziali, Marco Venza, M Venza, S Lazzaro, A Lazzaro, Alessandra Lazzaro, C Micossi, Chiara Micossi, Vito M. Stolfi, V M Stolfi
Minerva chirurgica · 2012 · vol. 67(6) , pp. 499–504 · PMID:23334113 · W140323777
article OA: closed CC0 ⤵ 37 in-corpus citations
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This retrospective study found that a gluten-free diet significantly decreased painful endometriosis symptoms and improved quality of life in 75% of patients after 12 months.

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Abstract

AIM: Pelvic pain affects 4% to 39% of women and accounts for 10-40% of all outpatient gynecologic visits. The etiology of painful endometriosis-related has not been fully delineated. No studies have been published concerning gluten-free diet administered to achieved relief of painful symptoms endometriosis-related. The aim of this retrospective study was to evaluate the effectiveness for the outcomes of endometriosis-related pain and quality of life of gluten-free diet in a follow-up of 12 months in patients with chronic pelvic pain endometriosis-related. METHODS: Two hundred seven patients with severe painful endometriosis-related symptoms entered the study. At enrolment time, the baseline values of painful symptoms were assessed by Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) for dysmenorrhoea, non-menstrual pelvic pain, and dyspareunia. According to VAS, pain severity was scored from 0-10; 0 indicating the absence of pain, and 1-4, 5-7 and 8-10 mild, moderate and severe respectively. A gluten-free diet was submitted to all patients and a new evaluation was performed after 12 months of diet. Student t test was used for statistical analysis. RESULTS: At 12 month follow-up, 156 patients (75%) reported statistically significant change in painful symptoms (P<0.005), 51 patients (25%) reported not improvement of symptoms. No patients reported worsening of pain. A considerable increase of scores for all domains of physical functioning, general health perception, vitality, social functioning, and mental health was observed in all patients (P<0.005). CONCLUSION: In our experience, painful symptoms of endometriosis decrease after 12 months of gluten free diet.

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Outcome instruments

VAS-pain

Condition tags

mesh:D004715mesh:D017699endometriosischronic_pelvic_paindysmenorrheadyspareunia

MeSH descriptors

Diet, Gluten-Free Endometriosis Pelvic Pain Pelvic Pain Adolescent Adult Endometriosis Female Humans Pelvic Pain Retrospective Studies Young Adult

Citation neighborhood

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Cited by (37)

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