Study: The Pill Reduces Cancer Risk

The birth control pill does not raise a woman’s cancer risk and may reduce some cancer risk, but not if used for more than eight years, a Scottish study found.

First author Philip C. Hannaford and researchers from the University of Aberdeen analyzed data on 46,000 women over a 36-year period from the Royal College of General Practitioners Oral Contraception Study which began in 1968.

Approximately half of the women used oral contraceptives; half never used the pill. Every six months the woman’s doctor provided the study with information on the her health and 75 percent of the women were flagged so that deaths and cancers were reported even if women left their doctor.

Overall there was no increased risk of cancer among pill users, but in the doctor observation data set for women who had taken the pill for some time there was a 3 percent reduced risk of developing any cancer. However, for the data set of the cancers notified via the central National Health Service registries, the reduction in cancer risk was 12 percent, the study published in the British Medical Journal Online First reported.

Women who used the pill for more than eight years had a statistically significant increased risk of developing any cancer — in particular cervical and central nervous system cancer.