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PERTH, Australia, July 12, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The results from a large study at the University of Western Australia has found that use of the oral contraceptive pill by teenage girls significantly increases their risk of high blood pressure later in their teens and adulthood.

Researchers used data from 1771 participants in the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study, who were studied at 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 10, 14 and 17 years of age.

Subjects were asked about various lifestyle indicators such as dietary patterns, alcohol consumption, smoking, physical activity, and prescription medications including the use of oral contraceptives. The association between each of these factors and systolic and diastolic blood pressure was calculated.

The researchers found that use of the Pill was “significantly associated with raised blood pressure in the girls.” The systolic blood pressure of girls taking the Pill (30 percent of the group) was 3.3 mmHg higher than non-Pill users, and grew worse with higher body mass index (BMI).

The report indicated that the substantial differences in blood pressure found in the study due to oral contraceptive use by teen girls “are likely to significantly affect their risk of both ischemic heart disease and stroke in adulthood.”

The researchers noted that adolescence is a time of life when behaviors “tend to become entrenched”, and that “significant public health benefits may be achieved from implementation of a range of gender-appropriate lifestyle modifications within this age group of adolescents”.

The authors of the report stated the results of their research corroborate previous findings on use of the contraceptive pill in adolescent girls.

“The effects are additive and already associated with hypertension. Moreover, teenage girls taking oral contraceptives should be advised about regular blood pressure monitoring,” said researcher Dr. Chi La-Ha of the Royal Perth Hospital, according to an Asian News International (ANI) report.

Hormonal contraceptives have been repeatedly linked to increased risks of cardiovascular disease, cervical, liver and breast cancer, blood clots, elevated blood pressure, bladder disease, inflammatory bowel disease, sexual dysfunction and stroke in women.

The Pill has even been linked to cancer in men. A study conducted at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto in 2011 found a statistically significant relationship between the rising use of the contraceptive pill and increased prostate cancer.

The researchers speculated that the results of the study, that looked at data from 87 countries, may be explained by the fact that women on the pill excrete estrogen in their urine, which then finds its way into the water supply, where the estrogen is ultimately ingested by men.

An article in the January 4, 2009 edition of the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, said the birth-control pill is causing “devastating” environmental damage and plays a role in rising male infertility rates.

The author of the article, Pedro Jose Maria Simon Castellvi, president of the Vatican-based World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, said, “We have sufficient evidence to argue that one of the considerable factors contributing to male infertility in the West—with its ever decreasing numbers of spermatozoa in men—is environmental pollution caused by the byproducts of the pill” released in human waste.

The pill has created “devastating ecological effects from tons of hormones being released into the environment for years,” Castellvi warned.

Earlier research (https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/2005/may/05050411) has also determined that boys exposed to synthetic estrogen hormones in the abortifacient birth control pill while in utero are at a greater risk of developing prostate cancer and other urinary tract problems later in life.

Research conducted by Frederick vom Saal of the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, found that estrogen-like hormones deform the prostates in developing embryos, which can be a precursor to developing prostate cancer or bladder problems.

“The developing fetus is extremely sensitive to chemical disturbance…so exposing a male baby to them is a very bad idea,” vom Saal concluded.