Diet taboos for cervical polyps

There are no absolute dietary taboos for cervical polyps. The key thing to pay attention to is to minimize the intake of foods that are high in sugar, highly irritating, and contain exogenous estrogen. Specific taboos should be adjusted based on personal constitution and disease stage. There is no universal taboo list across the Internet.

I just met a 28-year-old girl in the clinic last week. It had only been half a month since she had hysteroscopically removed a 1.2cm polyp. She felt that the wound had already grown, so she had spicy hot pot and iced milk tea with her friends for three days in a row. When the speculum was opened during the review, the wound surface was red and shiny, and an inflammatory growth the size of a rice grain appeared around it. It was because the inflammation had recurred due to stimulation. I don’t say this to scare you, but many people’s understanding of dietary taboos is either too extreme, or they don’t take it seriously at all. In fact, you have to be flexible.

Let’s talk about the most controversial issue of soy products first. Many people say that soybeans contain phytoestrogens, which can stimulate the growth of polyps and should not be touched even in one bite. This statement has long been supported by new research: as long as you do not eat two or three kilograms of soybeans, drink more than one liter of thick soy milk every day, and drink a cup of soy milk and eat a piece of tofu normally, phytoestrogens regulate in both directions, and can help stabilize endocrine and will not promote the growth of polyps. I had a patient who believed this statement before. He didn't eat any soy products for half a year, but his hormones were messed up during the review. After adjusting his diet, the indicators slowly came back. Of course, if your estrogen level is already high and your doctor specifically advises you to control it, you can just reduce the dosage appropriately. There is no need to quit completely.

There is also a widely circulated saying that "you cannot eat seafood, beef and mutton". This is actually the difference between Chinese and Western medicine: Traditional Chinese medicine believes that these are "hair substances" and may aggravate the inflammatory reaction. If you usually eat these, it is indeed easy to get angry and increase leucorrhea, then it is okay to eat less.； However, there is no concept of hair loss in Western medicine. As long as you are not allergic to these ingredients, eating more after surgery can supplement high-quality protein and help the wound heal faster. There is no need to restrict food. I often tell patients from Sichuan and Hunan that if you usually eat spicy food, you don’t enjoy it, and you don’t feel any discomfort from eating spicy food. You don’t need to suddenly switch to eating something bland just because polyps are detected. On the contrary, it will cause a loss of appetite and a bad mood. Bad mood is the biggest killer of endocrine disorders. However, if you have just completed the first two weeks after the operation, avoid touching spicy food. Capsaicin will dilate blood vessels. The wound is already scabbing. If the bleeding increases, recovery will definitely be slow.

What you really need to avoid are two categories of things that not many people mention. One type is "anti-aging health care products" with unknown doses of estrogen added, such as ovarian maintenance capsules sold by Wechat merchants and snow clam royal jelly packages sold by beauty salons. I once had a 35-year-old patient who had polyps every year for three consecutive years. After a hormone check, there was no problem. In the end, I found that he took anti-sugar pills bought by Wechat merchants every day, and there was no recurrence for almost two years after he stopped. The dosage of exogenous hormones in this type of product is opaque, and long-term consumption can easily disrupt estrogen levels. Cervical polyps themselves are caused by the proliferation of mucous membranes overstimulated by estrogen, so the risk of getting into trouble is too high. The other type is high-sugar highly processed foods, such as eating milk tea and cream cakes as afternoon tea every day. The high-sugar environment will change the pH of the vaginal flora. In fact, most polyps are stimulated by chronic cervicitis. When the flora is disrupted, inflammation will recur, and the probability of polyps recurrence will directly increase.

Don’t believe those lists on the Internet that list 10 or 20 “absolute fasts”. They are purely to scare people. My own advice to patients has always been: there is no need to make eating a hard work. It is perfectly fine to eat ice cream or spicy hot pot if you are craving for it occasionally, as long as it is not eaten every day. If you are really worried about the recurrence of polyps, instead of looking at the ingredients list and digging into the details, you can have regular gynecological examinations every year, treat vaginitis and cervicitis promptly, and don’t buy health care products from unknown sources. It will work better than any dietary taboos.