Disordered eating behaviors during adolescence and risk of endometriosis: a prospective cohort study.
Frequent self-induced vomiting linked to over 3-fold higher odds of endometriosis
Disordered eating behaviors during adolescence and risk of endometriosis: a prospective cohort study.
Disordered eating behaviors may impact the gynecologic health of adolescents through effects on menstrual cycle function and body size; however, few studies have evaluated these associations.
This study aimed to prospectively investigate the associations between individual disordered eating behaviors during adolescence and the risk of subsequent endometriosis diagnosis.
Prospective, longitudinal cohort (1996-2021).
frequent self-induced vomiting, over 3-fold higher odds of confirmed endometriosis
Over 25 years of follow-up, we identified 269 incident cases of endometriosis (2.3%), 190 of which were reported as laparoscopically confirmed.
A total of 32% of girls reported ever binge eating, 14% reported self-induced vomiting to lose weight, and 9% reported ever using laxatives to lose weight.
A similar effect estimate (aOR = 2.41; 95% CI 1.40, 4.12) was noted for girls who reported weekly or more frequent self-induced vomiting at least once during follow-up compared with girls who reported never vomiting.
Laxative use was not strongly associated with endometriosis diagnosis, although estimates were imprecise.
We observed that females with a greater frequency of self-induced vomiting were more likely to be diagnosed with endometriosis during follow-up, whereas girls with a history of frequent binge eating had a lower likelihood of endometriosis diagnosis.
We found no association between laxative use and endometriosis.