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Impact of diet on pain perception in women with endometriosis: A systematic review
Endometriosis is a chronic condition characterized by pain and inflammation originating from the presence of endometrial tissue outside of the uterine cavity. Scientific evidence points to the role of diet in ameliorating chronic inflammation, however, the evidence regarding the role diet plays in the perception of pain in endometriosis remains poorly understood. In this systematic review by Sverrisdóttir et al. (2022), the authors examine whether diet could influence pain perception in endometriosis patients. A comprehensive search was conducted on Medline and Embase to identify PRISMA and SWiM guidelines-adherent randomized controlled trials and observational studies, yielding six studies that fulfilled the inclusion criteria out of 2185 publications. The studies were assessed for bias using the Cochrane tool and the Newcastle-Ottawa scale and were found to be of low risk. Analysis of the studies revealed that a diet high in polyunsaturated fatty acids, a gluten-free diet, and a low nickel diet were associated with a substantial reduction in the perception of pain (five out of six studies, while all studies reported a positive improvement in pain perception). Meta-analysis was not possible due to significant heterogeneity between studies. The authors comment that, while all studies reported a positive influence of diet on pain perception in women suffering from endometriosis, the current evidence is mainly made up of non-randomized controlled trials with several areas of potential bias, which raises the demand for conducting more studies to fully understand the role diet may play in pain perception among women suffering from endometriosis. [NPID: Diet, dietary changes, dietary therapy, endometriosis, inflammation, inflammatory, pain, systematic review]
Year: 2022
