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The Contraceptive Pill And Strokes
Putting new research into the pill in context
One of the first things I ever wrote about when I started my scientific blog was the contraceptive pill. While I have no great insight into the experience of hormonal contraception — I’m a man lacking the requisite organs — I’ve always thought that the hate that contraception gets in the media is far out of proportion of the scientific evidence.
I’ve never been able to tell if it’s because people are weird about periods, because of the whole societal hatred of sex, or just because contraception goes against a certain religious mindset that requires women to be eternally pregnant. Maybe a combination of all three?
Regardless, the recent news seems to fit the trend. Headlines are decrying the medication as dangerous and saying that it could double or even quadruple your risk of strokes and heart attacks. For anyone who has or is using the pill to prevent pregnancies — or for one of the many other things that the pill can be used for — it must be quite worrying.
Fortunately, the science isn’t nearly as concerning as the headlines make out. Let’s look at the data.
Pill Publications
The new study that’s being reported in all of these media stories is a very large cohort study…
