Can Period Blood Hold the Key to Diagnosing Endometriosis without Surgery? With Dr Harini Bhat

Here’s a run down of what we discussed in today’s episode: Introduction — Why Endometriosis Deserves More Attention Dr. Bhat’s Journey and the Diagnostic Struggle The Systemic Dismissal of Women’s Pain in Medicine Treatment Gaps and the Desperation They Create The Rise of “Endo Diets” and Wellness Scams Inside the Research OutSmarts Endometriosis (ROSE) Study What the ROSE Study Is Teaching Us About Menstrual Health Cultural Shame and the Silence Around Menstrual Research Why Endometriosis Research Still Lacks Funding Evidence-Based Nutrition and Lifestyle Approaches for Endo References: www.endofound.org/rose-study Check in with today’s amazing guest: Dr. Harini Bhat instagram.com/tilscience tiktok.com/@tilscience youtube.com/@tilscience tilscience.substack.com Disclaimer: The content in this episode is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is never a substitute for medical advice. If you’re struggling with with your mental or physical health, please work one on one with a health care provider. If you have heard yourself in our discussion today, and are looking for support, contact the free NEDIC helpline at 1-866-NEDIC-20 or go to eatingdisorderhope.com. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •✨ Reach Your Weight & Health Goals — Without Dieting! Pre-order The Hunger Crushing Combo Method, Abbey’s revolutionary additive approach to eating well. Learn how to boost satiety, stabilize blood sugars, reduce disease risk, and improve your relationship with food — all while getting the best nutrient bang for your caloric buck. With 400+ research citations, cheat sheets, evidence-based actionable tips, meal plans, and adaptable recipes, The Hunger Crushing Combo Method is the only nutrition bible you’ll ever need. 👉 Pre-order today! 🛒 Where to Purchase: Amazon Barnes & Noble Amazon Kindle Apple Books Google Play Kobo Apple Books (Audiobook) Audible abbeyskitchen.com/hunger-crushing-combo • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •✉️ Subscribe to My Newsletters: Abbey’s Kitchen Newsletter 📘 Check out my FREE E-Books: Hunger Crushing Combo™ E-Book Protein 101 E-Book 👋 Follow me! Instagram: @abbeyskitchen TikTok: @abbeyskitchen YouTube: @AbbeysKitchen Blog: abbeyskitchen.com Book: The Mindful Glow Cookbook • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 🎧 Don’t forget to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen — and leave us a review! It really helps support the show ❤️ 💬 If you liked this podcast, please like, follow, and leave a review — and let me know who you’d love to hear about next! ⭐ ⭐ ⭐⭐ ⭐ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the HouseMajorityPac.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 0:30Abbey Sharp?

  Your options that you were given were, go on the pill or be pregnant for life?

• 0:40Abbey Sharp?

  Welcome to another episode of Bite Back with Abbey Sharp, where I dismantle diet culture rules, call out the charlatans spinning the pseudoscience, and help you achieve food freedom for good.

• 0:53Abbey Sharp?

  Today, we're going to be talking about a condition that affects 1 in 10 women of reproductive age. Yes, we're chatting about endometriosis. For those who don't know, endometriosis is a chronic estrogen-dependent inflammatory condition where endometrial tissue starts to grow outside the uterus, resulting in painful periods, sex, bowel movements, and urination, along with heavy periods, fatigue, IBS symptoms, infertility, and increased risk of ovarian cancer. Despite impacting millions worldwide and being often described as one of the most painful, underdiagnosed, and misunderstood conditions,

• 1:36Abbey Sharp?

  research and treatment have lagged far behind. Our guest today is one of the many women who have felt let down by the science and medical community in helping to support her endometriosis management journey. Dr. Harini Bat is a pharmacist turned science storyteller, creator of the Today I Learn Science Substack and podcast, and TikTok sensation at TIL Science. Today, we will be discussing systematic sexism in healthcare, the truth about so-called quote-unquote endo diets, how your period blood may be the secret to diagnosing and treating the condition,

• 2:17Abbey Sharp?

  and I'm going to be finishing with some evidence-based diet do's and don'ts for symptom management. Now, a quick note that for simplicity, I may use inclusive, women-centered language, but I want to fully acknowledge that a lot of this will apply to folks who do not identify as women as well. Finally, I have some massively exciting news if you haven't heard, but my new book, The Hunger Crushing Combo Method, is now on pre-sale, and I would really, really, really appreciate if you would support me, because let me tell you, pre-sales can make or break the success of a book. So this really, really does mean so much to me.

• 2:59Abbey Sharp?

  So I will be leaving the link in the show notes where you can preorder. All right, let's get into it.

• 3:11Abbey Sharp?

  Well, hello, Harini. Thank you so much for being here. I am just such a huge fan of your podcast and your social content. I'm just so excited for this conversation.

• 3:20Speaker 02

  Thanks, Abbey. Thanks so much for having me.

• 3:22Abbey Sharp?

  So you've been very open about your personal endometriosis journey. Do you want to just kind of briefly tell us about your experience trying to get diagnosed?

• 3:33Speaker 02

  Absolutely. I mean, it was, I think, just like for many other people out there, it's such a long process. I didn't even know I had it, to be honest. But I've had horrible period pains ever since I've had my period, since I was 11 years old, to the point where, I think it was just a year later, I was 12 or 13, I was hospitalized and needed a blood transfusion. And the doctors didn't know, of course, like what was wrong with just a young girl. They thought I had, I was a hemophiliac, or I had Juan Willibrans disease, like something crazy like that, and my parents were like, what, what's going on? Of course, it was none of that. I think, looking back, it was definitely early signs of endo.

• 4:13Speaker 02

  It wasn't until I was thirty, so many, many years later, that I had horrible, horrible pains to the point where it was worse. Like, I couldn't handle pain with my period pains. So this was times ten what I usually experienced. So clearly, I knew something was wrong. My sister-in-law is a primary care physician, so I was asking her, and she's like, "It sounds like you might have a kidney stone." And I was like, "It's probably that," because it was kind of like in that area. So I go to the hospital. I was on vacation, actually. I was on, I went to the hospital by myself and went there. And she did the ultrasound, and she looked at it once and was like, "Oh, you have endo." And I was like, "No, no, no, that's not possible."

• 4:57Speaker 02

  Because I was also, it's all these, not false truths, but there's a lot of misinformation and things were told culturally that we are just ingrained to believe, one of them being it's normal to have painful periods.

• 5:10Abbey Sharp?

  Right.

• 5:11Speaker 02

  And two, uh, which at least in the US, you can't get diagnosed with endometriosis without surgery. And I was in a different country, so possibly their medical laws are different there, or their guidelines are different. But she said, "Oh, you have a chocolate cyst. That's one of the telltale signs that you have endometriosis." Uh, she's like, "It is always possible you don't, but I'm willing to bet you do." And that, that was basically how I found out. And it's one of those moments where everything starts to tune out. And you're just like, "What is happening?" That was absolutely not the news I was, I was expecting. I never once thought I had endometriosis or PCOS or any of those kinds of issues.

• 5:52Speaker 02

  So when I asked her, I knew from being a pharmacist, I knew there was no cure, no real treatment or really good options for me. And it was gonna be a lifelong disease that I'd be dealing with. So I did ask her, "Okay, what, what can I do?" And she just said, "Well, you're, you're married, you're thirty. Just get pregnant."

• 6:13Speaker 02

  And I was like, "Okay, well, what if, that's not gonna stop it. So what, what do I do once I'm not pregnant?" She was like, "Just keep getting pregnant." I'm not kidding you.

• 6:21Abbey Sharp?

  Oh, my god.

• 6:22Speaker 02

  So I'm just like, "Okay, this is not helpful information whatsoever." So we settled on birth control, which is many, many people's, um, stories. So that's how I found out. I got, I had endometriosis.

• 6:35Abbey Sharp?

  I mean, that response, just keep having babies is wild.

• 6:40Speaker 02

  Really wild.

• 6:42Abbey Sharp?

  Like, maybe that's not what you want for your life. But I just really, like, you know, obviously, your experience really echoes just this broader issue that so many folks with uteruses, you know, dealing with these long, frustrating paths to recognition and diagnosis and adequate care. Like, you know, endometriosis apparently can take seven to 10 years on average to diagnose.

• 7:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:05Abbey Sharp?

  And that is a long time for women to suffer in pain, like physically, obviously.

• 7:11Speaker 02

  Right.

• 7:11Abbey Sharp?

  But also emotionally, especially if there's infertility involved, right?

• 7:15Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 7:16Abbey Sharp?

  And we just see these similar patterns with other conditions like PCOS and menopause and PMDD and heart attacks in women and neurodivergence even, which has long gone under diagnosed in women.

• 7:27Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 7:27Abbey Sharp?

  Why do you think women's suffering is so often dismissed or normalized in the medical system?

• 7:35Speaker 02

  Oh, my gosh, that's the million dollar question. I mean, we have studies to prove it. There are so many statistics that show that in medicine, whether it's, it doesn't matter what the gender is, whoever your doctor is, women's health and their pain is consistently more dismissed or looked at as not as much of a real pain issue compared to men. Men are more likely to receive morphine or other pain options than women consistently across the board. There is some strange cultural belief that women are built to withstand pain. And possibly that comes from, you know, us being able to give birth and the pain that comes with that. But pain is pain.

• 8:19Speaker 02

  And I think that has been such a huge issue in the medical community is just not studying women. One, first of all, not knowing how medicine works in women, what really constitutes a woman's body and how with all the hormones and everything like that, but also just believing women's pain.

• 8:37Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 8:38Speaker 02

  I know so many women who are just not given the pain that they need or told that it's all in their head.

• 8:43Abbey Sharp?

  Right.

• 8:43Speaker 02

  When they're going through something like this. It's it's it needs to change.

• 8:46Abbey Sharp?

  It absolutely needs to change. And and you know, back to what you said earlier during your diagnosis journey, you know, your options that you were given were be pregnant for life or go on the pill.

• 9:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:00Abbey Sharp?

  Is this is this the only options we've got?

• 9:04Speaker 02

  Pretty much. I mean, that's the only FDA approved options that we have. There is no and this is something that I've recently learned through the RHO study, which they're doing fantastic work and we can talk about that if you'd like.

• 9:16Abbey Sharp?

  We are going to talk about it.

• 9:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. So Dr. Christine Metz, who's one of the co-leaders of the RHO study, we had a conversation. And from that, I didn't even know this, but the they didn't even for for birth control, which is one of the options for people who have endometriosis, the endpoint for that was not even a limited progression of disease. It was just pain, which is a huge difference because we are often told, I have was told by my OB that if you go on birth control, it will stop progression of disease, point blank. And that is not scientifically the case, nor was it how it was studied. There are, I guess, anecdotal evidence that it can limit progression of the disease,

• 9:58Speaker 02

  but it's not been specifically studied in that. So so far, it is just for pain. And that is difficult to swallow as a person who anyone who has endometriosis, because what that really tells you is there is no, there are no treatment options for endometriosis ultimately. Besides potentially getting surgery, but surgery is not an option for everyone, depending on what stage you're at and so on and so forth. So there is so much work to be done in the sector.

• 10:26Abbey Sharp?

  Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I mean, of course, like naturally, you know, if women were told, well, if you're going on hormones, it's really just for pain management, why would you take the hormones and deal with the side effects when you could just take Advil if that's what it's doing anyways?

• 10:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 10:42Abbey Sharp?

  And I ultimately, like you, one of the issues with not having high quality research or good treatment options for women is that we just become so much more susceptible to these like grifters bogus wellness culture promises.

• 10:56Abbey Sharp?

  And there, as you probably know, are so many quote, quote, experts online sharing their endo diets and their protocols. And I'm curious, in your endo journey, you know, did you ever feel tempted to try this diet or supplement? Or like, protocol that your science brain was telling you was probably BS? But because you were in this state of like, there's nothing else for me, you just felt like, you gotta, you gotta try it. You gotta try it all.

• 11:24Speaker 02

  Absolutely. I think it doesn't even matter if it's endo, it could be anything. There's so much social pressure to just look or be or feel a certain way. And especially when it comes to something that is so painful and debilitating in your life, like endometriosis. You're, you get to the point where you're so desperate to just try anything, just to feel some kind of relief. Absolutely. Like, I definitely looked into a bunch of different supplements that promise improvements and symptoms and things like that. I have found ways to make things work, whether that's, you know, I think it's very common for people with endometriosis to take magnesium at night to help with the symptoms and things like that, like that for sure. I mean, everything I say is just something that's helped me specifically.

• 12:08Speaker 02

  But the magnesium that I take at night has definitely helped. Something else that I have recently tried after my surgery that has helped a lot is actually acupuncture. I have tried that and that has been helping me. It could be placebo, I have no idea, but who knows? Like, I think for me, some of it, for a lot of these people who have it, some of it is psychological. Like, you need to feel like you're doing something because no one else is.

• 12:33Abbey Sharp?

  Yes.

• 12:33Speaker 02

  You know, it's kind of that thing. I mean, there are now people who are definitely doing that and we're so thankful that they are. But for the most part, for the vast majority of the history of this happening, not, not much has been done.

• 12:46Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 12:46Speaker 02

  So you sort of feel like you need to be doing something for yourself to take that control back. Because so much of your body has not been in your control for the most part.

• 12:55Abbey Sharp?

  Oh, my gosh. I, I can relate to that so much. I don't have endometriosis, but I, I did go through infertility and IVF. And so, you know, also in the infertility world, which Obviously overlaps with the endo world.

• 13:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:08Abbey Sharp?

  It's like, you know, you feel so hopeless. Of course you want to do every stupid, weird, crazy thing that you've read on the internet in some Reddit thread, like, you know, and

• 13:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:20Abbey Sharp?

  again, just to kind of feel like you, you're doing it.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 13:24Abbey Sharp?

  And that almost gives you this like little confidence. So like you said, there's, there's an element of placebo. I also felt that acupuncture has been incredibly helpful in my life for various reasons.

• 13:34Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 13:34Abbey Sharp?

  So I mean, I do think there's, there's some, some good there. I think at the end of the day, when it comes to these like snake oil gimmicks and things like that, as long as it's not detracting you from evidence-based treatments.

• 13:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:48Abbey Sharp?

  And, you know, obviously putting you in some kind of like financial situation where you can't afford to keep up these things and it's causing undue stress because of that.

• 13:57Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 13:58Abbey Sharp?

  Uh, you know, there, there is obviously no harm in, in, you know, trying a magnesium supplement or, or tweaking your diet and experimenting like that. But it really comes down to how it's affecting your physical and mental health and what those trade-offs are.

• 14:10Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 14:11Abbey Sharp?

  And I'm going to give some more insight at the end of the show on a lot of the kind of popular endometriosis diet recommendations and if they're legit.

• 14:19Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 14:19Abbey Sharp?

  But I need to talk to you and ask you about the ROSE study and, and Dr. Metz's pioneering work.

• 14:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:27Abbey Sharp?

  Can you tell us what they are doing? That is so revolutionary.

• 14:31Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, it's, it's absolutely incredible. So Dr. Christine Metz and her co-lead, Dr. Gregerson, they are both, uh, working on something that has not ever been done before in this real sense. They are studying menstrual fluid in people who have both endometriosis and people who don't, essentially comparing those two. Because when you think about what endometriosis is, it's basically the lining of the, your womb, which is the endometrium, growing in places where it shouldn't.

• 15:05Speaker 02

  And so the idea is you should be able to basically understand if there's differences in the endometrial cell compared to people who don't. And right now, the current gold standard is to just figure that out by opening people up and actually seeing through surgery. But Dr. Metz came up with this brilliant idea and her team that why don't we just wait for the endometrium to come to us? Because every month, women get their period, and it's just the shedding of the endometrial lining. It's like, it just makes total sense. It's so simple, yet so genius. So they take that. And the crazy part about all of this is that there was zero protocols on how to collect and store menstrual samples because

• 15:48Speaker 02

  it's never been done before. So that was the biggest hurdle, at least from my understanding, for the ROSE study, is to first even figure out, how do you even collect, store, and do it safely in a way that it will actually be viable once you start studying it. So that took them many, many years. And once they started doing it, they did figure out there are differences. There are four major biomarkers that are different in people who have endometrosis compared to those who don't. So what they're trying to do is make a not-invasive diagnostic test based on this information, so that people can basically get diagnosed with endo or not in a single doctor's visit, instead of having to wait, what you were

• 16:30Speaker 02

  saying, the seven to 10 years. It's huge. It's absolutely huge. So what they would really like to do, and what they're recruiting for now, is to actually get people who are younger, whether they have it or not, just to get more younger samples, because that's where the big question mark is. Because right now, I'm considered old when it comes to endo, because I'm on the later end. You only get diagnosed like when you're in your mid to late twenties, or even after that. They're really trying to understand the disease in its earlier progression, from that 11 to maybe 17-year-old range. So that is really where more of the studies needs to come in. So hopefully, they get more recruits in that age range.

• 17:14Speaker 02

  And we can get a diagnostic test. So the next goal for them is to do bigger studies, larger scale studies with more humans in them and then get FDA approved.

• 17:24Abbey Sharp?

  Oh, this is so exciting.

• 17:27Speaker 02

  It's so exciting.

• 17:27Abbey Sharp?

  But also very like, like shocking to me that it's only now that scientists have ever considered period blood to be useful in research or diagnostics, rather than just something we flush down the toilet.

• 17:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:39Abbey Sharp?

  And I don't know what the justification for the delay has been, but I just, I can't help but think that a longstanding cultural discomfort with women's bodies and this insinuation that period blood is dirty, like that has played this role in thwarting this scientific inquiry, but wow.

• 17:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 18:14Abbey Sharp?

  And obviously this is just like such an incredible new source of rich data about women's bodies. What else can or potentially like, could period blood tell us about our health?

• 18:26Speaker 02

  I mean, so many things. I mean, this is just the beginning. And speaking to Dr. Metz, endometriosis is just the breakthrough point, I would say, to get into everything else, whether that's PCOS or PMDD or even other things, just understanding your health in general could even tell you symptoms of ovarian cancer or, and I'm just saying like off the top, like these are just the potentials of what we could do, even down to simple things of your stress levels or whatever is going on. Your, your menstrual fluid is essentially a monthly diagnostic health report because it tells you what's been going on in the last month, if you are having an active period, let's say. If you're not, that would be a different story.

• 19:07Speaker 02

  But if you are, it does tell you so much information that we just haven't been capitalizing on it at all or just taking that opportunity to learn more about women's bodies. And it is interesting to see where the priorities have laid for the last however many Years in science where men's health has really progressed. We're talking about ED or balding and things like this compared to just basic things, actual needs for women, like having a cure or some kind of treatment for endometriosis, for PCOS. These are things that women have been dealing with for so many generations with no help whatsoever. So yeah, it's, it's very exciting to see genuine progress in this space.

• 19:52Abbey Sharp?

  I'm, I'm so excited. I'm so excited. And I hate to kind of end on like a maybe less exciting, less, uh, no, but you know, and I never, I never talk about politics on my platforms or anything, but I have to just say that I, I, I am scared, like a lot of science commuters, I am scared for the state of science right now, especially for us women. You know, there's allegedly been directives to eliminate references to women and gender from research proposals and funding to projects targeting reproductive issues and LGBTQ plus health and pregnancy related outcomes. And I'm not American, I'm a Canadian. Um, and I've, you know, obviously I've seen a lot of debate whether this is fear mongering or legitimate research restrictions because to my knowledge, it's a

• 20:37Abbey Sharp?

  little bit unclear, but what are your fears and maybe hopes? Um, yeah, maybe you can tell me for the future of women's health.

• 20:46Speaker 02

  I am ultimately overall hopeful. I think it's just wild to see where the state of science has gone in the US, uh, under this current administration. It's, it is scary. I've, I have had to stop. I have a bunch of subscriptions to like science magazines and publications and it's just been this barrage of this is getting cut, this is being slashed. It's just like constant every single day for the last few months. And I've just had to stop reading it because it does make you less and less optimistic about the future. However, I will say, and I'll give, I'll give the Rose study as an example. That was a real conversation that we had with them. And yes, they are also being affected by traditional funding. However, they have been very determined

• 21:31Speaker 02

  and have been very creative about how they get their funding and they have. Have found different ways through other means of funding and donations and so on and so forth. So there are ways, like even going back to crowdfunding, I mean, that's, that is why I did the YouTube video to get more eyes out there and get people understanding that this is happening and we can donate, like we can do on the ground boots movement to get these, these studies up and running or continuing rather, because a lot of these studies are being slash and closed.

• 22:02Abbey Sharp?

  Wow.

• 22:03Speaker 02

  So ultimately, I am positive about a future with women's health. There's regardless if it's in the US, because I think that's the other thing we need to realize the US is not the center of the world. There are so many other incredible academic institutions, other clinical trials that are happening around the world that are doing incredible progress in women's health. So if it's not happening in the US, I'd say what I'm really hopeful about is what's happening in the rest of the world. And they are starting to catch up and surpass us in that space in the US. And I'm saying full steam ahead to all those people because we absolutely need it.

• 22:41Abbey Sharp?

  Yes. Amen. I, I'm, I'm, I'm so happy to hear that from you. I mean, we, we can't let science be silenced, especially with these exciting possibilities on the horizon through research like the Rose study. So I will absolutely be linking to the information below for the Rose study. I love the idea of, you know, crowdfunding these things. We're 50% of the population. Like this matters.

• 23:06Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 23:07Abbey Sharp?

  This matters.

• 23:07Speaker 02

  We can do it.

• 23:08Abbey Sharp?

  Yes, we absolutely, when there's a will, there's a way with us women. So

• 23:12Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 23:12Abbey Sharp?

  Thank you so much for fighting the good fight. Your content is wildly helpful. I'm so glad we were able to hear more about the incredible potential of the Rose study. And of course, for those who don't follow, I will be leaving links to today I learned science, the Substack in podcast and your social media at T L Science. So thank you again.

• 23:34Speaker 02

  Thank you, Abbey. It's been a pleasure.

• 23:37Abbey Sharp?

  This was so, so insightful. I feel like I learned so much from this episode. But to wrap things up here, I want to do a little quick review of some of the big dietary suggestions that we see making the rounds online and what the research actually says. Let's just start here with what may actually be worth limiting. Fried foods are one, since trans fats have been linked to greater endometriosis risk. Red meat is another, since one large study found that eating two servings of red meat a day was associated with a 56% higher risk of endometriosis and more pelvic pain.

• 24:17Abbey Sharp?

  Alcohol has also been tied to increased symptoms, likely because it raises estrogen levels, which thickens the endometrium and worsens pain. Now, that doesn't mean you could never enjoy a burger or a glass of wine again, but as with other inflammatory conditions, too much of these foods may make symptoms worse. And ultimately, endo or not, these are substances that we should probably all limit. Now, what about what to add? Well, the research does seem promising that omega-3 rich foods like fatty fish may help to reduce symptom severity, since EPA omega-3 is lower pro-inflammatory prostaglandins.

• 25:00Abbey Sharp?

  And that one feels pretty intuitive to me, because again, it's really a suggestion that I would make to anyone and everyone, anyway. But then there are some of the more fringe or controversial ideas that may go against general healthy eating advice. For example, a lot of influencers are now promoting a carnivore diet for endo, because for some folks with endometriosis, the excess fiber and FODMAPs in fruits and vegetables may trigger or exacerbate bloating. The problem with carnivore, however, is that it's generally very high in, again, red meat and these pro-inflammatory saturated fats, and low in anti-inflammatory fiber-rich plants.

• 25:44Abbey Sharp?

  And when we look at the research... We see that people who eat more fiber-rich fruits and vegetables actually have a lower risk of endometriosis. So carnivore would definitely be a no-no for me. Dairy is another hot topic. Even though it is a common IBS trigger and high in FODMAPs, which again may exacerbate bloating in some people, research has actually found that dairy intake, especially higher protein-fermented dairy like yogurt and cheese, is linked to a lower risk of endometriosis. The key here, I think, is experimenting to find your personal FODMAP

• 26:26Abbey Sharp?

  triggers, and when possible, choosing lower FODMAP produce options like carrots, blueberries, kiwi, or green beans to get your fiber without the bloat. Now, another controversial food that gets demonized in the endo world is soy, since soy foods contain compounds called phytoestrogens that can mimic estrogen in the body. Despite this, the majority of research shows that soy isn't harmful and may actually decrease endo symptoms. So if lactose is an issue for you, soy foods may be another great high-protein alternative.

• 27:05Abbey Sharp?

  And then finally, we've got to talk about coffee. We do know that caffeine can raise estrogen levels in some people, with some studies linking coffee to endometriosis diagnosis and others finding no strong connection at all. Ultimately, correlation never equals causation, and more importantly, as with FODMAPs, it really comes down to testing your own tolerance and noticing how these foods impact your unique symptoms. But in conclusion, I just want to acknowledge how confusing it may feel to try to navigate your endo diagnosis and improve your symptoms when the data is so grossly lacking. But

• 27:50Abbey Sharp?

  if we stay vigilant in supporting research on women's health, we may someday soon have a more direct path forward. And on that note, thank you again to Dr. Harini Bat for helping me bite back against science misinformation and share her incredible experience and knowledge. Signing off with Science and SAS, I'm Abbey Sharp. Thanks for listening.

• 28:19Speaker 00

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the HouseMajorityPac.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.