Supplements to start healing

You might wonder why supplements are the simple second layer of the pyramid. True, understanding which supplements to take requires a lot of energy and studying.

Taking them? Not so much.

Important Notes

• Consult Your Doctor: This is not medical advice. Always talk to your medical practitioner before using supplements, especially if you're on medication or (trying to get) pregnant.

• Supplements Are Not a Cure: They can improve symptoms but won't cure endometriosis. Use them as part of the framework, not as a stand-alone strategy. In short: paying for supplements while eating pizza for breakfast would be a waste of money.

Why Would You Take Supplements?

Instead of just listing supplements (dowload the free pdf if that’s what you want), I want to help you make an informed decision.

Firstly, many healthy foods can have similar effects as supplements, just in a less concentrated form. Generally, supplements help when our body needs more of something, either because some process in our body is a little off or our diet lacks it.

It’s up to you to decide if you want to take any. No judgment here, either way.

How Do They Work?

Supplements work on different aspects of the endo mechanism, some even on several at the same time. Scientists use expensive lingo to explain these mechanisms, so let me translate:

• Antiangiogenic: Reduces the growth of new blood vessels, thus reducing unwanted cell growth (=lesions).

• Anti-proliferative: Reduces unwanted cell growth.

• Proapoptotic: Promotes the breakdown and cleanup of old cells.

• Antioxidants: Prevent unnecessary inflammatory responses.

• Anti-inflammatory: Reduce inflammation when it's already happening.

The Challenge With Supplement Research

Many supplements have been demonstrated to have benefits for endo women. This could be due to pain relief, decreased lesion size, decreased growth of new lesions, less fatigue, etc.

The issue is that many supplements haven’t been demonstrated to have that effect in endo, even though they seem very promising. I’ll try to explain why it’s so complicated:

• Research will first be done in animals. An effect in animals isn’t the same as an effect in humans though, it’s merely an indication of its potential for further research.

• The same is true for in vitro research: in a lab the effect of a certain substance on some cells is being observed. This isn’t the same as in a human body where innumerable different processes are at work at the same time. Again, it’s an inidication.

• When a substance is finally cleared for testing in humans, it’s tested in the context of a certain disease. If substance A has been proven beneficial for disease A, it doesn’t say anything about its benefits for disease B. It could give an indication of how it works, and of its safety though, so it’s already a big step.

• When the substance is then tested for endometriosis, the validity of the research depends on many factors: how large was the study, were there other factors that could explain the benefits, was it tested over a long enough period of time, how well did participants stick to the protocol, etc.

• For a few substances, like vitamin D, that we naturally have in our body, sometimes we only have data on whether women with endo seem to have less or more of these then other women. This doesn’t prove yet that supplementation would be beneficial. It only says that we tend to have less of something.

You see that a lot of hurdles need to be taken in order for a supplement to be proven. It’s early days in the context of supplement research for endo. That means we have limited studies available that would pass all of the tests.

That’s why I make the following distinction:

• was it tested in humans?

• is it proven to be safe? (if there was any doubt at all, I removed them from the list)

• what’s the proven mechanism (this is often proven in research into other diseases)

When going through the PDF with all of the supplements, you’ll see it’s quite the list.

While it can be reassuring that so many supplements could be beneficial, they are also expensive. Don't overdo it. You don’t need a mix of all of them to feel better, and taking 12 pills with your breakfast won’t make you feel less like a patient.