Research: Increased risk of inflammatory bowel disease in women with endo

Women with endometriosis have an increased risk of developing inflammatory bowel disease, according to research published in the September 2012 issue of the journal Gut.

For an average of 13 years, researchers monitored the long-term health of more than 37,000 Danish women who were hospitalized with endometriosis from 1977 to 2007. They found that 320 of the women monitored developed inflammatory bowel disease—228 of which were diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and 92 with Crohn's disease.

Women with endometriosis have a 50 percent higher risk of developing inflammatory bowel disease than the general population. After restricting the study to those women with surgically confirmed endo, they discovered the risk jumped to 80 percent.

The researchers think that the diseases may share similar causes. Or it's possible that long-term treatment of endometriosis with oral contraceptives increases risk of inflammatory bowel disease.