How Does Consuming Alcohol Affect Fibroids?

If you already have fibroids, or are at an increased risk for these uterine tumors, it’s important to understand that alcohol could impact your health negatively. Researchers are still investigating the question, “how does consuming alcohol affect fibroids.” But emerging evidence suggests that alcohol can increase your fibroid risk, or contribute to the growth of existing tumors. Here’s what you need to know. 

Alcohol Consumption and Fibroids

While we don’t completely understand how consuming alcohol affects fibroids, we do know that drinking can impact your fibroids in several different ways:

1. Hormones

While we don’t know exactly why fibroids form, we do that estrogen plays a role in tumor development. Now, consuming alcohol can increase your body’s estrogen production, meaning it could kickstart fibroid growth, causing new tumors to develop or making existing ones get bigger. Furthermore, even alcohol impacts your liver’s ability to metabolize hormones such as estrogen. As such, consuming excess amounts of alcohol could leave you with a hormonal imbalance that contributes to fibroid risk.

2.  Inflammation

How does consuming alcohol affect fibroids when it comes to inflammation? Well, alcohol is a pro-inflammatory substance. So, when you consume lots of alcohol, you could develop chronic inflammation. In turn, your body produces prostaglandins, a substance that promotes the growth of fibroids and other tumors. Plus, if you already have fibroids, increased inflammation in your body could worsen some of your fibroid symptoms, especially pelvic pain.

3. Weight Gain

Alcoholic beverages are often highly caloric. Consuming extra calories can lead to weight gain. And since carrying extra weight increases your fibroid risk (having extra fat tissue causes your body to produce more estrogen) this is yet another way in which alcohol consumption increases your risk for uterine tumors.

4. Additional Menstrual Disruptions

Having fibroids can impact your cycle in a variety of ways, causing you to experience longer periods; heavy bleeding or irregular menstruation. Unfortunately, consuming excessive amounts of alcohol can also disrupt your menstrual cycle. So, in combination, consuming alcohol with fibroids can exacerbate many of your symptoms.

How Does Consuming Alcohol Affect Fibroids?

Drinking alcohol can increase your risk for developing fibroids; trigger growth in existing tumors; and worsen fibroid symptoms.

Specifically, when women with fibroids drink alcohol, they may experience:

• Heavier bleeding
• Worse cramps
• Increased pelvic pain, pressure and/or bloating
• More frequent urination

Finding Relief from Fibroid Symptoms

When you have symptomatic fibroids, many lifestyle choices can directly impact your health. Now, you could make changes to what you eat and drink, following a fibroid-friendly diet and avoiding alcohol consumption. However, when you need additional symptom relief, you can also explore non-surgical medical interventions such as Uterine Fibroid Embolization. This procedure shrinks fibroids by blocking their blood supply, helping you find lasting relief without the constant need for lifestyle modifications.

Want to see if you’re a candidate for UFE? We’re here to help you explore your options. Just reach out to our team and request a consultation.