Study finds link between endometriosis, bacteria
- Endometriosis is a painful disease that affects up to 10% of women
- A study found that a certain bacteria could be a contributing factor
- There is no 'cure' for the disease other than surgery
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(NewsNation) — A new study could offer clues into what causes endometriosis, a painful disease that affects up to 10% of girls and women of reproductive age.
In the study of 155 women — 76 without and 79 with endometriosis — bacteria from the genus fusobacterium was found in the uterus of 64% of women with endometriosis. Less than 10% of the healthy women carried the bacteria in their uterus.
In a follow-up experiment, mice injected with fusobacterium had an increased number of endometriotic lesions. When the mice were given an antibiotic, the number and weight of the lesions declined significantly.
“These findings suggest that Fusobacterium infection may contribute to the pathogenesis of endometriosis and that antibiotic treatment to eradicate endometrial infection should be further studied,” researchers wrote in the study published Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
The root cause of endometriosis remains unknown.
Most common in the ovaries, the disease causes tissue similar to that lining the uterus to grow outside of the uterus, according to WebMD. The tissue breaks apart and bleeds during menstruation but has nowhere to go.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Yutaka Kondo, one of the study authors and professor at Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan, described the discovery as groundbreaking in the field of women’s health care.
“Previously, nobody thought that endometriosis came from a bacterial infection, so this is a very new idea,” Kondo said.
Fusobacterium is commonly found in the mouth and gut and is known to be involved in the development of colorectal cancer, the study notes.
Current treatments include pain medication, birth control or other hormone treatment, according to WebMD. But the only “cure” is surgery to remove reproductive organs.
Elise Courtois, a genomicist at the Jackson Laboratory in Farmington, Connecticut, told the publication Nature that more work will need to be done before the study findings can be used to develop a treatment. She suggested testing more diverse populations.
“There are definitely things that make us suspect the microbiome is implicated in endometriosis,” Courtois said. “Genetics doesn’t explain everything.”
