“Endometriosis is a major cause of disability and compromised quality of life in women and teenage girls.” It “is a chronic disease which is under-diagnosed, under-reported, and under-researched…[and for patients, it] can be a nightmare of misinformation, myths, taboos, lack of diagnosis, and problematic hit-and-miss treatments overlaid by a painful, chronic, stubborn disease.”

Pain is what best characterizes the disease: pain, painful intercourse, heavy irregular periods, and infertility. About one in a dozen young women suffer from endometriosis, and it accounts for about half the cases of pelvic pain and infertility. It’s caused by what’s called “retrograde menstruation”—blood, instead of going down, goes up into the abdominal cavity, where tissue of the uterine lining can implant onto other organs. The lesions can be removed surgically, but the recurrence rate within five years is as high as 50 percent.

Endometriosis is an estrogen-dependent disease, so might the anti-estrogenic effects of the phytoestrogens in flaxseeds and soy foods help, as they appear to do in breast cancer? I couldn’t find studies on flax and endometriosis, but soy food consumption may indeed reduce the risk of that disease. What about treating endometriosis with soy? While I couldn’t find any studies on that, there is another food associated with decreased breast cancer risk: seaweed.

Seaweeds have special types of fiber and phytonutrients not found in land plants, so in order to get these unique components, we would need to incorporate sea vegetables into our diet. Seaweeds, may have anti-cancer properties, including anti-estrogen effects. Japanese women have among the lowest rates of breast, endometrial, and ovarian cancers, as well as longer menstrual cycles and lower estrogen levels circulating in their blood, which may help account for their low risk of estrogen-dependent cancers. We assumed this was due to their soy-rich diets, but their high intake of seaweed might also be helping.

When seaweed broth was dripped on human ovary cells that make estrogen, estrogen levels dropped. Why? It either inhibits production or facilitates breakdown of estrogen. It may even block estrogen receptors, lowering the activity of the estrogen that is produced. This is in a petri dish, though. Does it happen in women, too? Yes.

Researchers estimated that an effective estrogen-lowering dose of seaweed for an average American woman might be around five grams a day, but, apparently, no one has tried testing it on cancer patients yet. However, it has been tried on endometriosis, as I discuss in my video How to Treat Endometriosis with Seaweed.

Three women with abnormal menstrual cycles, including two with endometriosis, volunteered to add a tiny amount of dried, powdered bladderwrack, a common seaweed, to their daily diet. This effectively lengthened their cycles and reduced the duration of their periods—and not just by a little. As you can see at 3:14 in my video, subject 1 had a 30-year history of irregular periods, averaging every 16 days. Taking just a quarter-teaspoon of this seaweed powder a day added 10 days onto her cycle, up to 26 days, and adding a daily half-teaspoon increased her cycle to 31 days, nearly doubling its length. Furthermore, as you can see at 3:38 in my video, all three women experienced marked reductions in blood flow and a decreased duration of menstruation. For 30 years, subject 1 had been having her period every 16 days, and it typically lasted 9 days. Can you imagine? Then, by just taking a daily half-teaspoon of seaweed, her period came just once a month and only lasted about four days. Most importantly, in the two women suffering from endometriosis, they reported “substantial alleviation” of their pain. How is that possible? There was a 75 percent drop in estrogen levels after just a quarter-teaspoon of seaweed powder a day and an 85 percent drop after a half-teaspoon.

Of course, with just a few women and no control group in that study, we need bigger, better studies. But, that study was published more than a decade ago and not a single such study has been published since. Millions of women are suffering with these conditions. Does the research world just not care about women? The more pointed question is: who’s going to fund the work? Less than a teaspoon of seaweed costs less than five cents, so a larger study may never be done. But, without any downsides, I suggest endometriosis sufferers give it a try.

For more on endometriosis, see my video What Diet Best Lowers Phthalate Exposure?, and, to learn about the anti-estrogenic effects of the phytoestrogens in flaxseeds on breast cancer, see Flaxseeds and Breast Cancer Survival: Clinical Evidence.

Interested in more on sea vegetables? See:

I recommend staying away from kelp and hijiki, though. Why? See Too Much Iodine Can Be as Bad as Too Little.

Learn more about other natural remedies for menstrual problems:

In health,

Michael Greger, M.D.