Welcome to Dishing Up Nutrition. This is brought to you by nutritional weight and wellness. And today's episode is all about endometriosis. It might be surprising to learn that one in 10 women is affected by endometriosis. So whether

you've been diagnosed, you suspect you might have it, or you just want to understand your body better,

we're going to walk you through what it is, what causes it, and how diet and some key supplements

can play a supportive role.

So I'll just start by introducing myself. I'm Kara Carper. I'm a licensed nutritionist

and certified nutrition specialist here at nutritional weight and wellness. And I'm here with my

co-host today, Brandy Burrow. She is a registered and licensed dietitian.

That's right. Thanks for having me, Carla. Yeah, good to be with you again.

Well, let's get started with our topic today. Let's start by describing what is endometriosis.

Endometriosis is a condition where the tissue that's similar to the lining of the uterus,

which is called the endometrium, it starts growing outside of the uterus.

And this tissue can show up in places like the ovaries, fallopian tubes,

the outside lining of the uterus, and if it's a more advanced case, it could even travel to the bladder

and the intestines. So it's just like the body is perceiving that as foreign tissue, right? It's

growing in places that it doesn't naturally grow. Exactly. And during a normal menstrual cycle,

the endometrial tissue of the uterus, it thickens in preparation for a potential pregnancy.

But the key issue in endometriosis is that the tissue tends to spread outside the uterus, like Brandy mentioned, but it's still behaving as though it's a uterine lining. So just like

the uterine lining does every month, this tissue will thicken regardless of where it's located

in the body. It thickens, and then it breaks down, and it tries to shed. But unlike your menstrual cycle, there's nowhere for that tissue to go when it

sheds. So it gets trapped. That can lead to really intense pain for women. Inflammation,

often scar tissue. And then the scar tissue creates adhesions and organs actually can stick together.

And so you can imagine the pain that that would result in.

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