The (Anti-Cancer) Power of the Pill
Reported September 14, 2007
(Ivanhoe Newswire) — Early users of oral contraceptives who worry they may have upped their chances of developing cancer by taking the pill can relax, according to British researchers.
After following women for more than 35 years, the researchers report there is no elevated risk of cancer among the majority of pill users. In some cases, the pill even seems to have protected them against the disease.
The research is based on two sets of data collected on 46,000 women who were first recruited for the study in 1968. One data set includes information collected while the women were still going to their original doctors. The other includes information collected from a central registry after women had moved on from those physicians.
No increased risk of cancer was seen in either data set, and when the first data set was used, women who had taken the pill actually had a 3-percent lower risk of developing cancer. Analysis of the second data set reveals a 12-percent lower risk.
The authors do note, however, women who remained on the pill for more than eight years did have a higher risk of developing cancer, with the finding strongest for cervical and central nervous system cancers. About a quarter of the women fell into this higher use category. These women, however, still had a lower risk of developing ovarian cancer.
Study authors report these findings are some of the strongest to date showing the use of oral contraceptives is safe and possibly even good for a woman’s health. They write, “A major strength of the study was the ability to include more than a million woman years of observation, accumulated over 36 years. Virtually all of the women in the study are now post-menopausal, of an age when many cancers become common. This provided a large number of events for analysis.”
SOURCE: British Medical Journal, published online Sept. 11, 2007
