THE ESSENTIAL
- According to the Ministry of Health, endometriosis affects approximately 10% of women of childbearing age.
- If treatment fails, surgery is offered to those affected. It involves removing endometriotic lesions.
Endometriosis causes very strong pain, and can lead to infertility. This disease is caused by the migration of endometrial cells outside thethe womb. “There are currently no definitive treatments for endometriosis, even if hormone therapy and/or surgery can stem the progression of this disease for several years depending on the case.indicates the association EndoFrance.
Hormone therapy involves blocking the production of estrogen, a female sex hormone linked to reproductive functions and implicated in endometriosis. “However, current treatments for endometriosis have low efficacy, high recurrence rate, and cause adverse effects in other estrogen-affected tissues.“, notes Sang Jun Han, professor at the Baylor School of Medicine (United States) and author of research on endometriosis. With his team, he discovered that a compound present in the leaves of olivier allowed to treat endometriosis, while limiting the risk of side effects. Their results are published in the specialized journal Journal of Biomedical Science.
Endometriosis: targeting receptors rather than estrogen
The American scientists started from an observation: as endometriosis depends on estrogen, the disease is probably linked to the receptors for this hormone in the body, ER-alpha and ER-beta. In previous work, they demonstrated that the ER-beta receptor contributes to the progression of endometriosis. “These results suggest that selective suppression of ER-beta activity might help treat the disease without the side effects of current ER-alpha-targeting hormone therapies.“, believes one of the authors of this new research, Dr. Yuri Park.
Oleuropein, a natural treatment for endometriosis
The scientific team looked for natural substances that might act on these receptors and be used in non-hormonal therapies. They thus discovered that oleuropein, a natural component present in olive leaves, inhibits ER-beta activity, but not that of ER-alpha. The compound helps block the growth of endometriotic lesions in mice. “Oleuropein treatment was not toxic to the liver, and did not affect the ability of female mice to bear offspring“, specifies Sang Jun Han. In mice with endometriosis, the use of oleuropein improved the fertility rate. If these results are promising, they will have to be confirmed in human studies, before allowing the development of new treatments once morest endometriosis.
