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Topical Area: Dietary Patterns

Dietary Patterns (Poster Session)

(P14-062-23) Plant-Based Diet and the Risk of Laparoscopically Confirmed Endometriosis in a Prospective Cohort Study

Sunday, July 23, 2023

11:45 AM – 12:45 PM ET

Location: Poster Board 62

Presenting Author(s)

Makiko MitsunamiI, MD, MMSc, PhD (she/her/hers)

Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Co-Author(s)

DS

Diana C. Soria-Contreras, PhD

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
SW

Siwen Wang, MD (she/her/hers)

Research Fellow
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Boston, Massachusetts, United States
EO

Eduardo Ortiz-Panozo

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
HH

Holly R. Harris, ScD

Assistant Professor, Epidemiology
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Seattle, Washington, United States
SM

Stacey A. Missmer

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Jorge E. Chavarro, MD, PhD

Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Disclosure(s):

Makiko MitsunamiI, MD, MMSc, PhD: No relevant financial relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.

Objectives: To evaluate the association between adherence to a plant-based diet and the risk of laparoscopically confirmed endometriosis.

Methods: We followed 82,088 premenopausal women participating in the Nurses’ Health Study II for 17 years. Diet was assessed using a validated food-frequency questionnaire, which was administered every 4 years. We created three types of plant-based diet indices: an overall plant-based diet (PDI), a healthful plant-based diet (hPDI) and an unhealthful plant (uPDI). A higher score on each index indicates higher adherence to the corresponding dietary pattern. Endometriosis (confirmed by laparoscopy) was ascertained [which years]. Cox proportional hazards models were used to calculate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for laparoscopically confirmed endometriosis.

Results: During 1,038,664 person-years of follow-up, 3,826 cases of laparoscopically confirmed endometriosis were reported. We observed no association between adherence to a plant-based diet and the risk of endometriosis. The hazard ratio (HR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) comparing women in the highest quintile of adherence to those in the lowest quintile of adherence was 1.00 (0.89, 1.11) for the plant-based diet index (PDI), 1.05 (0.94, 1.18) for the healthful PDI (hPDI), and 1.09 (0.98, 1.21) for the unhealthful PDI (uPDI). When incident endometriosis cases were classified according to the history of infertility, we found no significant difference between women with a history of infertility and those without. We found no evidence of effect modification of the association between each PDI index and endometriosis by age ( < 35 years, >=35 years) or parity (nulliparous, parous).

Conclusions: Our prospective analysis suggests that adherence to plant-based diets is not related to incidence of endometriosis.

Funding Sources: The National Institutes of Health, Rotary Foundation and Fuji Foundation for Protein Research.