New research shows women who have used the oral contraceptive pill are less likely to die from any cause, including all cancers and heart disease, compared with women who have never used ‘the pill’. The research is based on the data from the UK Royal College of General Practitioners’ (RCGP) Oral Contraception Study which began in May 1968, and is one of the world’s largest continuing investigations into the health effects of oral contraceptives.
The results show compared with women who had never used the pill, users of oral contraception had a significantly lower rate of death from any cause (adjusted relative risk 0.88, 95% confidence interval 0.82 to 0.93). While the study did find a slightly higher risk in women under 45 years old who are current or recent users of the pill, the researchers found that the effects in younger women disappear after about 10 years. Furthermore, the benefits in older women outweigh the smaller excess risks among younger women. Strangely the study also continued to find a higher rate of violent or accidental death among oral contraceptive users compared with never users. The authors are unable to explain this persistent finding.
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Dr Edith Weisberg is Director of Research at Family Planning Association Health and Senior Clinical Lecturer in Obstetrics & Gynaecology at the University of Sydney.
“This reassures women that oral contraceptive use in healthy women is safe with no apparent long term risk irrespective of duration of use. It may have protective effects against some diseases and previous studies have shown protection against endometrial and ovarian cancer which persists for 10-15 years after cessation of use. However, whether the more recent very low dose oral contraceptives offer the same protection is unknown.”
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Professor Lois Salamonsen is Head of Uterine Biology at Prince Henry’s Institute
“This is good news for all those women who have had worries about the long term implications of using the pill. This new paper reports results of an extremely large long term study (started in 1968) and many of the women followed used contraceptives in which the hormone doses were much higher than those in current use. There have certainly been ‘scare’ campaigns in the past; for that reason it is important that the results of this study are widely disseminated. The important thing is that women can take control of their fertility without undue concern.”
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Professor Ian Olver is Chief Executive Officer of Cancer Council Australia
“In general this study should bring comfort to women who have used the contraceptive pill that in this population study there is no long term greater risk of death including deaths from any form of cancer. This study does echo the results of two other population studies. However, these results are about balancing risk factors and the balance may differ in populations from other countries and of course for individual women.
Since the results are of long term follow up they cannot be applied to current or recent pill users. The oral contraceptive itself has changed in composition over the decades and the long term results are more applicable to the women treated with the older type of contraceptive pill.
The study was large, although there were many lost to follow up, and the period of observation long, so this is an important addition to the information available on the longer term consequences of oral contraceptive use.”