Women who take the pill may live longer

Women in the UK who have ever taken Pill are less likely to die from any cause including all cancers and heart disease, according to new research.

The findings come from the Royal College of General Practitioners Oral Contraception Study, one of the world’s biggest studies of its kind into how oral contraceptive use affects womens health.

Early reports from the study suggested that older women using the Pill, or smokers were at an increased risk of an early death due to stroke. The latest findings suggest this is not the case and should provide some reassurance to women who have taken the pill in the past.

In the study, 46,000 women were tracked for up to nearly 40 years.

The results showed that women who used oral contraception had a significantly less likely to die from any cause, including heart disease and all cancers (particularly bowel, uterine body and ovarian cancers) compared with women who had never used the pill.

Although the latest research has found a slightly higher risk of death in women under the age of 45 using the Pill, or have done so recently, the reseachers say the effect disappears after about 10 years.

Furthermore, the benefits in older women outweigh the smaller risk among younger women, said the researchers.

The authors of the report, published in the British Medical Journal, concluded that their results, derived from a relatively healthy UK study group, show that “oral contraception is not significantly associated with an increased long-term risk of death … indeed a net benefit was apparent.”

However, they also pointed out that “the balance of risks and benefits may vary globally, depending upon patterns of oral contraception usage and background risk of disease.”

This article was published on Fri 12 March 2010