Uterine Fibroids and Diet

Abstract

Uterine myomas or fibroids are the most common benign female tumors of the reproductive organs, associated with significant morbidity and quality of life impairment. Several epidemiological risk factors for their occurrence have been identified so far, including nutrition and dietary habits. In this investigation, authors reviewed, as a narrative review, the data about diet and uterine myoma development in order to homogenize the current data. A PubMed search was conducted for the years 1990-2020, using a combination of keywords of interest for the selected topic. The authors searched the databases, selecting the randomized clinical studies, the observational studies, and the basic (experimental), clinical, and epidemiological researches. Once they collected the articles, they analyzed them according to the number of citations of each article, starting from the most cited to the least cited articles. Subsequently, authors collected the data of each article and inserted them in the various research paragraphs, summarizing the data collected. In this way, they crossed the available data regarding the association between nutrition habits and dietary components and myoma onset and growth. Many nutrients and dietary habits are associated with myoma development risk. These factors include low intakes of fruit, vegetables, and vitamin D, as well as pollutants in food. Despite the available data on the influence of some foods on the development of fibroids, further research is mandatory to understand all the nutrition risk factors which contribute to myoma growth and how exactly these risk factors influence myoma pathogenesis.

Keywords: diet; dietary habits; fruit; myoma; nutrition; uterine fibroids; vegetable; vitamin D.

Figure 1

Possible Mechanism of uterine myoma’s pathogenesis.