Healing Fibroids Through Diet

I’ve always had a particular interest in fibroids, since my mom gave birth to me via emergency c-section and later had a hysterectomy due to a then baby-head sized fibroid. Also, while I gave birth to my daughter the midwife pointed out a fibroid near the birth canal (which is where my mom’s fibroid was), but it did not interfere with a vaginal delivery as it folded back during pushing.

If you look for information on fibroids with a simple google search, you’ll find different articles that range from “you can’t do anything to heal or reduce your risk of fibroids” to “everything is within your power”.

Among the top articles about fibroids were mayoclinic.com [1], healthline.com [2], and womenshealth.com [3]. These articles agree on some common risk factors of fibroid, such as race and heredity but provide different insights when it comes to causes or even treatment.

Upon diving into the scientific literature on fibroids, I was able to unearth many more factors.

One article published in the British Medical Journal says “women should be made aware of all available treatment options: medical, radiological, and surgical” [5]  implying that those are, in fact, the only available options. No mention of dietary or lifestyle factors. At the same time, another study concludes that “large numbers of women with highly symptomatic fibroid disease are averse to surgery despite their burden of suffering and are actively seeking alternatives to hysterectomy”. [6]

In Our Bodies, Ourselves the authors mention to avoid processed foods and commercial meat, dairy, and eggs, to treat fibroids naturally, “but there is no evidence that this will work” p. 609 [7]

Another very interesting aspect of a woman’s risk to develop fibroids is epigenetics. More and more research is coming out that looks at in utero exposure or maternal health and the effects of the offspring later in life and sometimes even their offspring. A 2010 study published in Environmental Health Sciences found that in utero exposure of certain chemicals (DES) as well as gestational diabetes increased a woman’s risk of fibroids more than 20%. They also discovered that infants who were being fed soy based formula had the same increased risk for developing fibroids. Soy contains estrogenic isoflavones. An infant fed soy formula consumes higher levels of this compound than adults who eat soy-based foods. The study also found “weak associations of at least a 10% increase in risk of fibroids” for being firstborn.[8] This would support the theory that a woman’s body uses pregnancy to dump toxins into the developing fetus. If a woman is exposed to many xenoestrogens, she would then pass a higher toxic load of estrogens on to her baby.

Another study linked alcohol consumption to uterine fibroids. [9]

In episode 226 of the FertilityFriday Podcast, Lisa and her guest Tola talked about chemicals black women use to relax/straighten their hair and how these treatments could also be an added risk factor for the prevalence of fibroids in black women due to the xenoextrogens contained in those products. [10]

Lara Briden writes in her book Period Repair Manual that certain supplements can be beneficial to treat fibroids: iodine can reduce fibroid growth, DIM (Di-indole-methane) is helpful in detoxifying, and calcium d-glucarate helps with estrogen detoxification. [11]

There is also a type of uterine massage called aryuveda that can help with fibroids [12]

When we talk about all these risk factors, a common thread I see is that we’re adding many straws to the camel’s back. It’s probably not that hair treatments by themselves cause fibroids, or that eating processed food or commercially produced meat and dairy causes fibroids, but in the end, all those things that we put in and on our body increase our toxic load. Maybe your body is managing the extra stress and work just fine but adding in that “fragrance” laden personal care product could be the straw that breaks your camel’s back.

The organ in the body that deals with breaking down our body’s own and foreign hormones and other substances is the liver. So it would follow that after alleviating some of the straws, we can help reduce your risk of developing more fibroids and even reducing the size of existing fibroids by supporting our liver.

You can download my “Let’s Talk Liver!” Health Education sheet here!

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Resources

[1] Uterine Fibroids
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/uterine-fibroids/symptoms-causes/syc-20354288

[2] How to Treat Uterine Fibroids Yourself
https://www.healthline.com/health/fibroids-natural-treatment

[3] Uterine Fibroids
https://www.womenshealth.gov/a-z-topics/uterine-fibroids

[4] Shrinking Fibroids with Diet: Is It Possible?
https://www.healthline.com/health/fibroids-diet#diet-and-lifestyle-changes

[5] Fibroids: Diagnosis and management
www.jstor.org/stable/26524114

[6] The Ontario Uterine Fibroid Embolization Trial. Part 1. Baseline patient characteristics, fibroid burden, and impact on life
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0015028202045399

[7] Our Bodies, Ourselves p. 609

[8] Association of Intrauterine and Early-Life Exposures with Diagnosis of Uterine Leiomyomata by 35 Years of Age in the Sister Study
www.jstor.org/stable/25615032

[9] Association of intakes of fat, dietary fibre, soya isoflavones and alcohol with uterine fibroids in Japanese women
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-nutrition/article/association-of-intakes-of-fat-dietary-fibre-soya-isoflavones-and-alcohol-with-uterine-fibroids-in-japanese-women/975723F72C902289BAF8514F9C3CCC8E

[10] Xenoestrogens in Black Hair Products | Tola Okogwu
http://fertilityfriday.com/tola-okogwu/

[11] Lara Briden, Period Repair Manual p. 196

[12] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack, The 5th Vital Sign p. 221

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