A new Swedish study has shown that women who are taking the contraceptive pill might be putting themselves at risk for decreasing their overall health and well-being.
Mood swings, energy level shifts, and a “significantly lower” quality of life were the reported side effects of the contraceptive pill when the three-month study had concluded.
“Despite the fact that an estimated 100 million women around the world use contrace-ptive pills we know surprisingly little today about the pill’s effect on women’s health,” said Pro-fessor Angelica Linden Hirsch-berg, one of the study’s leaders, according to the Karolinska Institute. “The scientific base is very limited as regards the contrace-ptive pill’s effect on quality of life and depression and there is a great need for rando-mized studies where it is compa-red to placebos,” Dr Hirschberg continued.
The study that explored the side effects of contraception was conducted by the Karolinska Institute and Stockholm School of Economics, and included 340 healthy women between the age of 18-35. Their findings were recently published in the scientific journal “Fertility and Sterility.”
“This possible degradation of quality of life should be paid attention to and taken into account in conjunctions with prescribing of contraceptive pills and when choosing a method of contra-ception,” stated Niklas Zethra-eus, one of the study’s co-authors, according to the Inde-pendent. “All types of hormonal contraception have advantages and disadvantages. This possible effect on life quality adds to this knowledge and could be of particular import-ance for women who have experi-enced negative mood symptoms previously,” Dr Hirschberg stated.
