Women using the oral contraceptive pill are more likely to live longer than women who have never taken the pill, according to a study published online today by the British Medical Journal (BMJ).
A long-term study, which has been ongoing since 1968, found that women taking the pill in the UK are less likely to die from any cause, including all cancers and heart disease.
In May 1968, the Royal College of General Practitioners’ (RCGP) began the RCGP Oral Contraception Study, one of the world’s largest continuing investigations into the health effects of oral contraceptives.
Early reports from the RCGP study suggested an increased risk of death among oral contraceptive users, mainly due to an excess of strokes or other vascular problems among older women or those who smoked, but this risk disappeared in the longer term.
These latest results, led by Professor Philip Hannaford of the Centre of Academic Primary Care, University of Aberdeen, relate to the 46,112 recruited women, followed for up to nearly 40 years.
The researchers found that younger women under 45 who are current or recent users of the pill are at slightly increased risk of disease, but the slightly increased risk disappears within 10 years of stopping the pill and they conclude that the benefits of taking the pill outweigh the risks.
The study continues to find a higher rate of violent or accidental death among oral contraceptive users compared with never users. The authors are unable to explain this persistent finding.
Results show that in the longer term, women who used oral contraception had a significantly lower rate of death from any cause, including heart disease and all cancers (notably bowel, uterine body and ovarian cancers) compared with never users.
This equates to 52 fewer deaths per 100,000 woman-years.
Professor Hannaford said: “Many women, especially those who used the first generation of oral contraceptives many years ago, are likely to be reassured by our results.
“However, our findings might not reflect the experience of women using oral contraceptives today, if currently available preparations have a different risk than earlier products.”
The authors conclude 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 point out that “the balance of risks and benefits may vary globally, depending upon patterns of oral contraception usage and background risk of disease.”
BMJ 2010;340:c927
DOI:10.1136/bmj.c927