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NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana, June 14, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Taking oral contraceptive increases the risk of diabetes, a new study says, with women significantly more likely to develop the disease later in life after just six months on the pill.

Scientists at the Kyungpook National University College of Medicine in Daegu, South Korea, studied whether long-term oral contraceptive use was linked to developing diabetes and insulin resistance later in life, MD Magazine reports, presenting their findings at the American Diabetes Association’s (ADA) 76th Scientific Sessions this week in New Orleans.

The researchers used data from 2007 to 2012 in the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) to look at 6,554 post-menopausal women with diabetes.

The women were grouped according to the length of time during their childbearing years during which they took birth control, with their results examined next to the fasting glucose and insulin levels of 3,338 post-menopausal women without diabetes.

The average participant in the Korean study was 65 years old and had a body mass index of 24.5. Other components taken into account were their age of menopause onset, number of pregnancies, systolic blood pressure, BMI, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, physical activity, alcohol use and smoking status.

“The results suggest that prolonged use of oral contraceptives at child-bearing age may be an important risk factor for developing diabetes in later life,” the study’s authors concluded.

Not only were the post-menopausal women who had used hormonal birth control for at least six months significantly more likely to have diabetes, this same six-month timeframe of contraception use was associated with insulin resistance in the non-diabetic women as well.

A connection between oral contraceptives and diabetes is not new.

A 2014 Centers for Disease Control (CDC) study had found a link between hormonal contraception and gestational diabetes.

This latest study joins the lengthy list of evidence showing the pill accounts for numerous physical dangers to women, including brain cancer, stroke, breast cancer, blood clots, diminished memory, cervical cancer, paralysis, atherosclerosis, brain shrinkage, high blood pressure and death. In 2005, the World Health Organization classified the most commonly used oral contraceptive pill as a Group 1 carcinogen, meaning a “definite” cause of cancer.