beautifulandhappy.com

Just found this very important article from Yahoo and AFP, and I know this would be of interest to many women out there who are on pill, or anyone who knows someone taking pill. I’ve never taken any contraceptive pill ever, because I was afraid of all the side-effects (hehe, that’s why I got 3 kids now, side-effect, too!). When I was treated for hormonal imbalance this summer, the OB-GYN told me to take estrogen caps for a month, then afterwards be on pill for life. So I was on estrogen therapy for almost a month, but I was adamant about the pills.

Anyways, I think I don’t need them coz I am already ligated and as I have said, I have read lots of negative side-effects from the web and heard from other friends - in short, I didn’t follow the OB. I stopped the estrogen, too, I think I still have some caps here ‘coz I read from the web that long-term estrogen therapy is related to higher breast cancer risks, plus, of course contraceptive pill has also estrogen, right? Gives me some headache, too.

I know all those meds have side-effects and risks, but they are made to have their own purpose. We have our own free will anyway if we will take them or not. Well, just the same, everything we do in life has risks and effects, right?

Here’s the full article:

Published: Wednesday November 7, 2007

Women who use oral contraceptives are at increased risk for developing hardened arteries, a condition that can lead to heart attack or stroke, according to a study released Tuesday.

Belgian researchers found that women who had used the hormones were more likely to have plaques, or a buildup of fatty tissue, on their arteries than women who didn’t use this form of birth control.

Atherosclerosis, or furring of the arteries, typically occurs with age. Complications include heart attack or stroke, which occur when unstable pieces of plaque break off and block a blood vessel leading to the heart or brain.

The findings do not mean that women should suddenly abandon this form of birth control, the authors cautioned.

“The implications are not that women should stop taking the pill. They should look at reducing other risk factors for cardiovascular disease,” said Ernst Rietzschel, a cardiologist at the University of Ghent in Belgium.

“They should watch their blood pressure and cholesterol levels, exercise and eat right. If they can limit their exposure (to oral contraceptives), that’s good too,” he said.

Rietzschel based his findings on a study of 1,300 Belgian women between the ages of 35 and 55. Some 81 percent had used oral contraceptives for an average period of 13 years.

Using ultrasound scans to look at the femoral artery in the leg and the carotid artery in the neck, the researchers found a surprising incidence of atherosclerosis among otherwise healthy women who had taken the pill.

They also noted that the rates of the disease increased dramatically with every decade of usage, rising by between 20 and 30 percent for every 10 years of use.

Rietzschel said the findings could mean we are on the cusp of an increase in heart disease among women now entering their 60s - the first generation of women to use this form of birth control.

“We are coming to a stage where we might see the clinical consequences,” he said. “We are the foot of a wave, but we cannot gauge the height of the wave that is coming.” The paper was presented at a meeting of the American Heart Association in Orlando, Florida.

               

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This entry was posted on Thursday, November 8th, 2007 at 8:57 am and is filed under Healthy Life . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.