Big news about "the pill"

by ppeggy | January 25, 2008 at 08:33 am

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This is amazing news. Ovarian cancer is one of the most untreatable cancers and one that most women fear. "The pill" has been blamed for many negative health effects over the years, from headaches to blood clots. But here is very good evidence that taking it when you're younger actually reduces the chances of getting ovarian cancer when you're older, years after you've stopped taking it.

LONDON - Birth control pills can protect women against ovarian cancer for 30 years or longer after they stop taking them and have so far prevented 100,000 ovarian cancer deaths worldwide, British researchers said on Thursday.

The longer women stay on the pill, the lower their risk of developing the disease, which is more common after age 50, the researchers wrote in the journal Lancet. For example, women who take the pill for 15 years cut their risk in half, they said.

Worldwide the pill has already prevented 200,000 women from developing cancer of the ovary and has prevented 100,000 deaths from the disease, Valerie Beral of the University of Oxford and colleagues wrote in their report.
Birth control pills are placed in a case at a plant in Montgomery, Pennsylvania in an undated file photo. Birth control pills can protect women against ovarian cancer for 30 years or longer after they stop taking them and have so far prevented 100,000 ovarian cancer deaths worldwide, British researchers said on Thursday. REUTERS/HandoutView Larger Image View Larger Image
Birth control pills are placed in a case at a plant in Montgomery, Pennsylvania in an undated file photo. Birth control pills can protect women against ovarian cancer for 30 years or longer after they stop taking them and have so far prevented 100,000 ovarian cancer deaths worldwide, British researchers said on Thursday. REUTERS/Handout

The findings are the strongest evidence yet of the benefits of the pill when it comes to ovarian cancer, and show the protection lasts far longer than people had thought, Beral said.

"When you are 60 it matters whether you took it for five years or 10 years in your twenties," Beral said in a telephone interview. "The longer you took it, the better off you are when the risk of ovarian cancer is high." ...more...