{"id":11401,"date":"2026-08-28T05:03:47","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T05:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nygse.com\/?p=11401"},"modified":"2026-09-03T03:32:28","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T03:32:28","slug":"endometriosis-bacterial-overgrowth-sibo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nygse.com\/es\/endometriosis-bacterial-overgrowth-sibo\/","title":{"rendered":"Endo Belly y Sobrecrecimiento Bacteriano: La V\u00edncula con la Endometriosis"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Bloated by Dinnertime, Every Single\nDay?<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Endo belly, bacterial overgrowth in the small intestine, and what the newest research does and does not show.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Dr. Pankaj Singhal y Dra. Virginia McLean<\/strong>
Cirujanos ginec\u00f3logos y rob\u00f3ticos especializados en endometriosis \u00b7 New York Gynecology Surgery & Endometriosis (NYGSE\u2122) \u00b7 www.nygse.com
\u00a9 2026 New York Gynecology Surgery & Endometriosis. Material patentado de NYGSE. Queda prohibida la reproducci\u00f3n o distribuci\u00f3n sin autorizaci\u00f3n por escrito.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Almost every week, a patient waits until the end of the visit to mention the bloating. She has already described the pain, the heavy bleeding, the years of being told it was normal. Then, on the way out, she says something like: this is probably nothing, but my stomach blows up every afternoon.<\/p>

It is not nothing. She can be flat in the morning and look several months pregnant by dinner. Her clothes stop fitting by evening. It hurts. It gets worse around her period. She has been told to cut out gluten, or dairy, or to relax. Online she has found a name for it, endo belly, and a long list of people willing to sell her something for it.<\/p>

So it is worth saying clearly what is known, what was published this year, and what the research does not support.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Understanding Endo Belly and Bacterial Overgrowth<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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What Is Endo Belly?<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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There is no medical condition called endo belly. The phrase describes something real that patients noticed long before anyone studied it: abdominal distension that builds through the day, often flares with the cycle, and can be severe enough to change how a person dresses and eats.<\/p>

Because it is a description rather than a diagnosis, it has more than one cause, and those causes can stack. Bowel gas from fermentation. Slowed transit and constipation. Inflammation in the pelvis. Bowel loops tethered by adhesions or by endometriosis growing on the bowel itself. Bracing the abdominal wall against pain. Several of these can be true in the same person on the same day.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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What Is SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth)?<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Most gut bacteria live in the colon. The small intestine, where food is actually absorbed, is meant to stay relatively sparse. When bacteria settle there in large numbers, the condition is called small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, or SIBO. When the dominant organisms are methane producers, it is called intestinal methanogen overgrowth, or IMO.<\/p>

The mechanism is simple enough to explain in a sentence. Carbohydrate that should be absorbed gets fermented instead, gas is produced in the wrong part of the bowel, and the result is distension, cramping, and either constipation or diarrhea depending on which gas dominates. Methane in particular slows the bowel down and tracks with constipation.<\/p>

It is measured with a breath test. The patient drinks a sugar solution, then breathes into collection tubes over the next two to three hours while the laboratory measures hydrogen and methane. It is not an invasive test, and that is part of why it gets ordered so freely.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Endometriosis<\/a> Puede ser sutil. Puede ser claro o blanco en lugar de las manchas oscuras que la mayor\u00eda de la gente imagina. Puede estar oculto debajo de adherencias, o metido en una anatom\u00eda que la cicatrizaci\u00f3n ha sacado de su forma habitual. Puede ubicarse detr\u00e1s de una superficie que se ve perfectamente normal desde arriba. Y puede estar en un lugar al que la c\u00e1mara nunca lleg\u00f3.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The Link Between SIBO and Endometriosis<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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What the Research Actually Shows<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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A study published in 2025 in the International Journal of Gynaecology and Obstetrics compared 148 women with endometriosis against 148 women without it, and breath-tested them all. In the endometriosis group, 136 of 148 tested positive for bacterial overgrowth, which is 91.9 percent. In the comparison group, 123 of 148 tested positive, which is 83.1 percent. The difference reached statistical significance at a p value of 0.0223.<\/p>

The symptom findings in the same study are, to us, more useful than the breath tests. Women with endometriosis reported altered bowel transit far more often, 85.8 percent against 71 percent, and constipation 67.8 percent against 44.7 percent. Among everyone who tested positive, methane was the dominant gas in 63.2 percent of cases, which fits the constipation pattern rather than the diarrhea one.<\/p>

This is not a new idea, only a newly measured one. A study from 1998 in Fertility and Sterility examined 50 women with surgically confirmed endometriosis and gastrointestinal symptoms. All 50 had an abnormality of bowel motility on testing, and 40 of them, 80 percent, had bacterial overgrowth. That study had no comparison group, so it could not tell anyone how unusual those numbers were. Now we have some idea.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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LEE ESTA PARTE CUIDADOSAMENTE<\/span><\/strong><\/p>

Look again at the comparison group in the 2025 study.<\/p>

Eighty three percent of the women without endometriosis also tested positive. A test that is positive in five out of every six healthy people is not telling you much that is specific to you. The gap between the two groups was real, but it was about nine percentage points, not the dramatic finding it gets turned into online.<\/p>

This is an association between two things that often occur together. It is not proof that endometriosis causes bacterial overgrowth, and it is certainly not proof that bacterial overgrowth causes endometriosis.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Why SIBO and Endometriosis May Occur Together<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Nobody has established the direction of the arrow. Several explanations are under discussion, and they can all be partly true at once.<\/p>