Before I started writing this article, I Googled “healthy eating for Endometriosis”. Would you like to guess how many search results that gave me? More than 2 million!

 

There were book recommendations with diets and diet plans. And many webpages that tell you which food to eat and which to avoid. That was just on the first page ..

Many of the suggestions, at least on the websites I quickly clicked into, give very general healthy eating recommendations. The kind that most governments also provide for other diseases, for example heart disease. The recommendations are to avoid processed foods, eat more fruit and vegetables, avoid inflammatory foods (but the sites disagree sometimes on what is inflammatory and what isn’t), eat a wholefood, or FODMAP, or general anti-inflammatory diet.

Now, I don’t disagree with any of these. But I think there are 5 reasons why the information on Google about healthy eating for Endometriosis confuses you.

 

1. The recommendations are based on the writer’s view of what may be causing Endometriosis.

Some sites recommend an anti-inflammatory diet which means they see Endometriosis as an inflammatory disease. Others recommend foods to help your body to get rid of oestrogen. They work from the perspective that Endometriosis is a disease of excess oestrogen.

 

2. Some books or websites are written by clinics or practitioners, others by people with a lived experience.

I would hope that clinics and practitioners base their advice and recommendations on well researched, scientific information. It is great to see that Endometriosis is getting more funding for research and that nutrition is becoming a topic of interest.

Other sources of information are written by people with a lived experience, so women who have Endometriosis, have searched for and experimented with different diet approaches and found something that improved their symptoms.

What both of these have in common though is that they don’t take the individual’s relationship with food into consideration. If a research study says a gluten-free diet reduces symptoms for 75% of women, that is a fantastic insight. But do you below to the 75% that will see an improvement, or to the 25% who don’t see a benefit from a gluten-free diet?

Similarly, if one woman shares her success with a particular nutritional approach, how do you know it will have the same effect for you?

 

 

3. The majority of information only looks at Endometriosis

When you search for healthy eating for Endometriosis, the results only look at Endometriosis in most cases. But what if you also have a thyroid problem? Or asthma? I couldn’t find any search results for combinations of health concerns, except for Endometriosis and PCOS.

If you have other health concerns, the recommendations may help you to reduce your Endometriosis symptoms, but may not help your other health concerns, or even make those worse!

4. The aim of the information is to appeal to a large audience

Websites and books try to provide information to a large audience, and need to generalise (just as I have generalised about the information I’ve found in my Google search on healthy eating for Endometriosis) to make the information readable.

5. Nutrition and your health is based on biochemistry

How nutrition affects your health is based on biochemistry – how compounds and molecules from food interact with your body and body systems. Unless you have some knowledge of the biochemistry of nutrients and health, you’ll be blindly trialling things. Some may make you feel better, others don’t make a difference at all, but you have no idea why.

 

Here's what I know about healthy eating for your Endometriosis. There’s only one way to eat healthy and reduce your symptoms, and that is to follow your uniquely personal diet. A diet that takes all your health concerns into consideration, and is based on your unique relationship (good or bad) with food.

Can you get create that diet based on Google results? Possibly. But you’ll get much better results and a lot faster and with a lot less confusion, if you let an expert help you to create that diet.

 

Has Google confused you about healthy eating for Endometriosis? I can help you get some clarity about how Nutrition may help you in a free 30-minute Endometriosis SOS Call.