Yogurt, ice cream intake during adolescence reduces endometriosis risk

Adolescents eating dairy foods, such as yogurt and ice cream, may have a lower risk of subsequent endometriosis diagnosis, reveals a study.

The authors prospectively collected data since 1989 in the Nurses’ Health Study II. Participants in 1998 (aged 34–51 years) completed a 124-item food frequency questionnaire about their high school diet. Cases were defined as self-reported laparoscopically confirmed endometriosis.

Hazard ratios (HRs) and 95 percent confidence intervals (CIs) for the association between dairy foods and laparoscopically confirmed endometriosis were calculated using Cox proportional hazard models.

Among 32,868 premenopausal women from 1998 to 2013 who completed the questionnaire about their high school diet in 1998, there were 581 cases of laparoscopically confirmed endometriosis diagnosed.

Those who consumed >4 servings per day of dairy foods as an adolescent had a 32-percent lower risk of laparoscopically confirmed endometriosis during adulthood (95 percent CI, 0.47–0.96; p_trend=0.04) than women consuming ≤1 serving per day. The association was also true for low- and high-fat dairy foods.

Specifically, yogurt and ice cream intake led to a reduced risk of endometriosis. Women who consumed ≥2 servings of yogurt per week during adolescence had a 29-percent lower risk of endometriosis diagnosis (95 percent CI, 0.52–0.97; p_trend=0.02) than those consuming <1 serving per week.

Moreover, women who consumed ≥1 servings of ice cream per day during adolescence had a 38-percent lower risk of endometriosis diagnosis (95 percent confidence interval, 0.40–0.94; p_trend=0.20) than those consuming <1 serving per week.

“Future studies in adolescent populations are needed to confirm these results,” the authors said.