(LifeSiteNews) — A new study from researchers at the University of Oxford shows the medical problems with hormonal contraception.
“Current or recent use of combined oral contraceptives (containing oestrogen+progestagen) has been associated with a small increase in breast cancer risk,” the introduction to the study states. It was published in PLOS Medicine.
The study’s authors looked at nearly tens of thousands of women and 20 years of data in formulating their paper.
The researchers noted that the results “provide evidence about the short-term associations between hormonal contraceptives and breast cancer risk” although more research is needed to determining long-term problems.
“In our study, current or recent use of hormonal contraceptives was associated with a similarly increased risk of breast cancer regardless of whether the preparation last used was oral combined, oral progestagen-only, injectable progestagen, progestagen implant, or progestagen intrauterine device,” the research team stated. “When our findings for progestagen-only contraceptives were combined with those of previous studies, there was evidence of a broadly similar increased risk of breast cancer in current and recent users of all four types of progestagen-only preparations.”
Older women are more prone to harmful long-term effects. “This study provides important new evidence that current or recent use of progestagen-only contraceptives is associated with a slight increase in breast cancer risk, which does not appear to vary by mode of delivery, and is similar in magnitude to that associated with combined hormonal contraceptives,” the Oxford researchers wrote. “Given that the underlying risk of breast cancer increases with advancing age, the absolute excess risk associated with use of either type of oral contraceptive is estimated to be smaller in women who use it at younger rather than at older ages.”
The study is the latest evidence of increasing skepticism of the safety of hormonal birth control from a scientific standpoint, putting aside the moral problems with deliberately making oneself infertile. Other studies in the past decade have found similar links between birth control and breast cancer.
A comprehensive Danish study looked at over 1 million women from 1995 to 2013 and found that some forms of contraception doubled women’s rate of depression and tripled the chances of teenage girls being prescribed antidepressants, as previously reported by LifeSiteNews.
“We have to realize among all the benefits, external hormones [also] may have side effects. And the risk of depression is one of them,” said the study’s co-author, Dr. Øjvind Lidegaard, a clinical professor in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Copenhagen.
A 2017 Swedish study found that mood, self-control, and energy level were all negatively affected by contraceptives, LifeSiteNews previously reported.
LifeSiteNews has documented the consequences of oral contraceptives. Confirmed harms include elevated risk of blood clots, hair loss, increased chance of Crohn’s disease and brain shrinkage, breast cancer, hardening of the arteries, and greater chance of glaucoma and cervical cancer.