Seeing red: diet and endometriosis risk
A prospective study of 81,908 women found that increased red meat consumption is associated with higher endometriosis risk, while fish and shellfish intake is associated with lower risk.
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This paper reviews evidence linking diet to endometriosis and then highlights Yamamoto et al.’s prospective cohort study of 81,908 pre-menopausal women in the Nurses’ Health Study II, with laparoscopically confirmed endometriosis outcomes over 20+ years. The study found higher endometriosis risk with greater intake of red meat (processed or unprocessed), while replacing red meat with fish, shellfish, or eggs was associated with lower risk, and poultry showed a weaker but unexpected positive association; red meat effects also appeared independent of animal fat and palmitic acid. A key limitation emphasized is that much prior evidence is based on animal models and that human dietary data are often retrospective or case-control, though this particular work is prospective and uses a validated diet questionnaire. The paper also discusses possible mechanisms such as heme iron, metabolic/inflammatory pathways, estrogen-related effects, environmental contaminants, and possible gut microbiota involvement. This paper is centrally about endometriosis — it focuses on how red meat and other dietary protein sources relate to laparoscopically confirmed endometriosis risk.
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- europepmc
- last seen: 2026-06-13T06:22:48.782012+00:00
- pubmed
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