Most women with endometriosis also suffer from estrogen dominance. That is, they have more estrogen in their hormonal system than normal, largely caused by external environmental factors. This worries medical researchers because estrogen is the main hormone that causes endometrial cells to reproduce and grow. The more estrogen a woman with endometriosis has, the more tissue growth will be.

One of the external influences that scientists have studied is caffeine. What they have found is that caffeine causes an increase in estrogens in almost all women.

In clinical studies, women who drank only one cup of coffee were found to have higher estrogen levels than women who did not drink coffee. These studies also found that as women drank more coffee, their estrogen levels continued to rise to the point that women who drank four to five cups of coffee a day saw an increase in estrogen of nearly 70%. Those four to five cups equal about 500 mg of caffeine.

There are three different types of estrogen that women make; estrone, estriol, and estradiol. In subsequent studies, caffeine has been shown to increase the third, estradiol, the highest. This is concerning because not only does it cause endometrial cells to grow, but high amounts of estradiol are known to cause some forms of cancer.

Caffeine is also known to affect other organs of the body in negative ways. The only organ in the body that removes most of the excess estrogen is the liver. Caffeine interferes with the liver’s ability to do this, causing a buildup of estrogen. As you can see, caffeine causes estrogen dominance in two ways, causing the body to produce more and also preventing the liver from doing its job of eliminating any excess.

The female body also has a hormone called progesterone that naturally counteracts the effects of estrogen. The adrenal acorns produce pregnenolone which in turn produces progesterone. Large doses of caffeine, consumed by the vast majority of women and men, continually bombard the adrenal glands until they stop working properly and cause adrenal fatigue. This naturally leads to a decrease in the production of progesterone and more than 50 other important hormones. With nothing to buffer it, estrogen continues to build up.

This whole cycle caused by caffeine leads to the dominance of estrogens. This excess estrogen intensifies the growth rate of endometriosis and contributes to the many symptoms experienced by women with this condition, including fatigue, bloating, back and neck pain, and depression.

The first step in reducing estrogen dominance is stopping caffeine in all its forms. Caffeine not only makes endometriosis and its symptoms worse, but it also negatively affects the body’s ability to deal with excess estrogen and the effects it has.