Breast Cancer And Birth Control Pills

What Does The Mini Pill Not Do

• The mini pill does not guarantee 100% protection against pregnancy. About 10% of people using mini pills get pregnant.

• The mini pill also does not protect you from sexually transmitted infections . If you are in a situation where you could contract an STI, like syphilis or HIV , you must use a barrier contraceptive method.

Is There An Advantage To Waiting A Few Months After Stopping The Pill Before Trying To Conceive

Conceiving immediately after stopping the pill does not increase your risk of miscarriage or harm to the fetus. The hormones in birth control pills don’t remain in your system.

Usually periods start again a few weeks after stopping the pill. However, if your periods were infrequent before you started taking the pill, they will likely be that way again after you stop taking the pill. It may take a couple of months before you return to regular ovulation cycles.

After stopping the pill, if you’re not ready to conceive, consider using a backup form of birth control.

How Could Oral Contraceptives Influence Cancer Risk

Naturally occurring estrogen and progesterone stimulate the development and growth of some cancers . Because birth control pills contain synthetic versions of these female hormones, they could potentially also increase cancer risk.

In addition, oral contraceptives might increase the risk of cervical cancer by changing the susceptibility of cervical cells to persistent infection with high-risk HPV types .

Researchers have proposed multiple ways that oral contraceptives may lower the risks of some cancers, including

• suppressing endometrial cell proliferation
• reducing the number of ovulations a woman experiences in her lifetime, thereby reducing exposure to naturally occurring female hormones
• lowering the levels of bile acids in the blood for women taking oral conjugated estrogens

Selected References

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Brca Genes And Cancer

The BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes are 2 genes that everybody has. These genes usually protect us from breast and ovarian cancers. If you get a mutation in one of these genes they no longer give us that protection.

The risk is highest for breast cancer in women, but its also above average for ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer in men and pancreatic cancer.

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How Contraceptive Pills Affect Your Risk For Cancer

Research shows that combined hormone pills can affect your risk of certain cancers, but their impact depends on the type of cancer risk and how long you use the pill. For some cancers, the influence stops when pill use ends. For others, the effects can last for years, even decades. Heres what you need to know:

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Will A Pregnancy Test Be Accurate If I’m Taking The Birth Control Pill

You can get accurate results from a pregnancy test while you’re on the pill. Pregnancy tests work by measuring a specific pregnancy-related hormone — human chorionic gonadotropin — in your blood or urine. The active ingredients in birth control pills don’t affect how a pregnancy test measures the level of HCG in your system.

Do Birth Control Pills Cause Weight Gain

This is a common thought. But studies have shown that the effect of the birth control pill on weight is small — if it exists at all.

Instead, you may be retaining more fluid, which can make you feel as if you’ve put on weight, particularly in your breasts, hips and thighs. The estrogen in birth control pills does affect fat cells, making them larger but not more numerous.

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Does Birth Control Pill Use Impact The Risk Of Any Other Cancers

• Cervical cancer: A Lancet study found a 10% increased risk with less than 5 years of use, a 60% increased risk with 5 to 9 years of use, and doubling of risk with 10 or more years of use.
• Endometrial cancer: Risk is reduced by at least 30%, with a greater risk reduction the longer the pill is used.
• Ovarian cancer: Risk is reduced by as much as 30%-50% with at least three years use.
• Colorectal cancer: Risk is reduced 15% to 20%.

Our mission at The Thermogram Center, Inc. is preventive education. Environmental causes of human cancer are manageable. However, the public remains unaware of the many common environmental carcinogens and the actions necessary to mitigate their risk. We hope to be a reliable source of information to help you protect you and your family from the hazardous chemicals in the air, water, food, and products threatening your well being.

Birth Control May Temporarily Increase Some Risks

Its not clear what, exactly, Talento is referring to when she describes birth control as carcinogenic. But some studies have linked oral contraception use to a temporary increased risk of breast and cervical cancer. The most commonly cited research, a 2014 paper published in Cancer Research, found that women who had recently used oral contraceptives with high-dose estrogen had a higher risk of breast cancer than those whod used other versions or none at all.

But the authors of that study wrote that their findings should be interpreted cautiously. Although the results suggest an increased risk ofbreast cancer, they explained in their paper, the many established health benefits associated with use and decreased risk of benign breast conditions, must also be considered when making individual choices.

Laura MacIsaac, MD, associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive science at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, says there are other caveats to consider about these findings, as well: Studies that show an increase in cancer risk while a patient is on birth control are likely picking up on whats called surveillance bias, she tells Health.

In other words, doctors pick up more cancers in pill users than they do in women who dont have to see their doctors as frequentlylike those whoâve had their tubes tied, who have IUDs, or who arent using birth control at all.

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Oral Contraceptives And Cancer Risk

An initial analysis of an ongoing, multicenter case-control studyindicates that women who have used oral contraceptives areapproximately half as likely to develop ovarian and endometrial canceras women who have never used them and that, despite previous concerns,contraceptive use does not appear to increase a woman’s risk of breastcancer.

The study used population-based cancer registries in eightgeographic regions across the United States to identify women 20-54years of age with newly diagnosed breast, ovarian, or endometrialcancer. Controls were women of the same ages without known cancer,chosen from the same geographic areas by dialing randomly selectedtelephone numbers.

The relative risk of ovarian cancer for women who had used oralcontraceptives for at least 1 month, as compared with women who hadnever used them, was 0.6 . The longera woman had used oral contraceptives, the lower her risk of developingovarian cancer. The protective effect of oral contraceptive usepersisted more than 10 years after pill use was discontinued.

The relative risk of ovarian cancer for women who had used oralcontraceptives for at least 1 month, as compared with women who hadnever used them, was 0.6 . The longera woman had used oral contraceptives, the lower her risk of developingovarian cancer. The protective effect of oral contraceptive usepersisted more than 10 years after pill use was discontinued.

Birth Control & Cancer: Which Methods Raise Lower Risk

If you’re a woman of childbearing years who wants to delay pregnancy, you might have heard that some birth control methods are linked to cancer. Spend a minute online and you’ll probably find more than a handful of contradicting reports saying some types cause cancer, while others fend it off. How do you know what to believe?

“This is a perplexing issue for many women,” says Mia Gaudet, Strategic Director of Breast and Gynecologic Cancer Research at the American Cancer Society. For example, “there is consistent evidence that oral contraceptives increase a woman’s risk of breast and cervical cancer but decrease the risk of endometrial and ovarian cancer.”

Here is a quick look at some popular birth control options and what we know today about their links to common cancers.

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If I Plan To Have A Baby How Soon After Stopping Birth Control Pills Can I Conceive

Usually ovulation begins again a few weeks after stopping birth control pills.

As soon as you ovulate again, you can get pregnant. If this happens during your first cycle off the pill, you may not have a period at all. Take a pregnancy test if you’ve had unprotected sex and your period hasn’t returned.

What Happens If I Take Birth Control Pills While Pregnant

Don’t worry if you kept taking your birth control pill because you didn’t know you were pregnant.

Despite years of this accident happening, there’s very little evidence that exposure to the hormones in birth control pills causes birth defects. Once you learn that you’re pregnant, stop taking the birth control pill.

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Here’s How Birth Control Affects Breast Cancer Risk

“When we look at all comers, the absolute overall increased risk of breast was one extra case of breast cancer for every 7,690 women using hormonal contraception for one year, said Dr. Rebecca Starck, a gynecologist at the Cleveland Clinic, who was not involved in the study.

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Its really quite small not to say its zero. Yes, hormonal contraception may increase your risk for breast cancer, but the absolute risk of breast cancer is small.

This study was done in Denmark, where every resident is on a register of medical visits and drug purchases. The researchers tracked nearly 1.8 million women starting in 1995 and compared those who purchased birth control methods with women who developed breast cancer.

Overall, the use of any hormone-based contraceptive for five years or more raised a womans risk of breast cancer by 20 percent, Lina Morch of the University of Copenhagen and colleagues reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The risk of breast cancer ranged from a 9 percent increase among women who used birth control for a year or less, to a 38 percent greater risk if a woman used it for 10 years or more.

Breast cancer is the second-biggest cancer killer of American women, after lung cancer. The American Cancer Society says every year it’s diagnosed in 200,000 women and a few men, and kills around 40,000.

Some intrauterine devices do not employ hormones. Condoms and diaphragms do not deliver hormones.

How Do Birth Control Pills Work

Birth control pills, also called oral contraceptives or the pill, are a popular form of contraception. From 2017 to 2019, 14% of women ages 15 to 49 in the United States used oral contraceptives, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Additionally, 16% of women in the same age group worldwide were using oral contraceptives in 2019, according to the United Nations.

Most birth control pills contain synthetic versions of the hormones progesterone and estrogen. When a pill contains both hormones, it is called a combined oral contraceptive. The mini pill is a type of birth control pill that contains only synthetic progesterone, called progestin. The hormones in the pill work by preventing the body from ovulating or releasing an egg. They also change the lining of the uterus and cervical mucus. Together, this prevents sperm from fertilizing an egg during intercourse. Birth control pills are taken at the same time every day, and they prevent pregnancy 99% of the time, when taken correctly.

Oral contraceptives have changed significantly since the 1960s, when they were first approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. They now contain lower concentrations of estrogen and progestin, but they are just as effective and safe in preventing pregnancy. However, all medications, including oral contraceptives, can carry certain risks.

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Patient Counseling And Shared Decision Making

This study underscores the importance of shared decision making in counseling women about contraception. Shared decision making requires providing women with current and accurate information regarding the efficacy, noncontraceptive benefits, and risks associated with hormonal and nonhormonal contraceptives. This information should be provided in a clear, balanced, and supportive way to enable each woman to understand the expected outcomes associated with her various options and empower her to make an informed decision consistent with her values and preferences. Patients who are considering hormonal contraception can be counseled that:

• This recent study showed that women who use hormonal birth control methods may have a small increased risk of breast cancer, but the overall risk of breast cancer in hormonal birth control users remains very low.
• Hormonal birth control is very effective in preventing pregnancy and may lower a womens overall risk of cancer by providing protection against other types of cancer.
• There are nonhormonal methods of birth control that are also good options.
• Women can do things to help lower their risk of breast cancer, like breastfeeding, getting more exercise, and limiting alcohol intake.

For more information on contraceptive options, visit .

Increased Risk: Cervical Cancer

Taking birth control pills for 5 or more years might make you more likely to get cervical cancer. The longer you use them, the higher your risk. The risk tends to go back down over time when you stop taking the pills.

However, most cervical cancers are caused by a persistent infection with the human papilloma virus . Today, doctors typically screen for such infections during a woman’s health exam and Pap smear. “If you receive regular check-ups and HPV screening, this cancer should be less of a concern,” says Gaudet.

Things that might lower your risk:

• Getting regular HPV screenings.

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Do Faulty Brca Genes Run In Families

Our genes are inherited from our parents. So if your parents have the BRCA gene mutations theres a chance you will inherit these, and if so, you could pass them onto any of your children.

A woman who inherits a BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation will have a high risk of breast and ovarian cancer, and has a 50% chance of passing this mutation onto each of her children.

A man who inherits a BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation may have a small increased risk of male breast cancer. They also may have an increased risk of prostate or pancreatic cancer, and has a 50% chance of passing this mutation onto each of his children.

But its important to mention that not everyone with a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation has a family history of cancer.

Does Taking The Progestogen

Fewer people use the progestogen-only pill. This makes it more difficult to find out about its effects on cancer risk.

We need more research to know if the progestogen-only pill could slightly increase the risk of breast cancer in a similar way to the combined pill.

The progestogen-only pill could also increase risk of cervical cancer, but we need more evidence to understand if there is a link.

Research has not linked ovarian cancer or womb cancer to progestogen-only products.

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Birth Control Pills Not Linked To Breast Cancer

Taking the birth control pill does not raise the risk of breast cancer in women, according to a new study published in New England Journal of Medicine and reported by the Associated Press and other news agencies. The study, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, found no increased risk of breast cancer regardless of whether the women took the pills as teens or adults, for months or years, or had a family history of breast cancer.

Nancy E. Davidson, MD, and Kathy Helzlsouer, MD, MHS, wrote an accompanying editorial for the New England Journal of Medicine, which agreed with the studys findings. Dr. Davidson is professor of oncology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Dr. Helzlsouer is professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Dr. Helzlsouer told the Associated Press, Its nice to be able to give good news to women about something so many women take or have taken.

Does The Pill Increase Your Risk Of Cancer Research Shows That Women Who Use The Birth Control Pill Have A Slightly Increased Risk Of Breast Cervical And Liver Cancer

The pill and breast cancer risk

Women who use the birth control pill may have a small increased risk of breast cancer. The risk is smaller for women who used the birth control pill after their first full-term pregnancy.

The pill and cervical cancer risk

The risk appears to be greater for developing early stage cervical cancer than it is for more advanced forms of the disease.

The pill and liver cancer risk

Women who took birth control pills for more than 5 years before doses and formulas changed may have a slightly higher risk of developing liver cancer.

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Can I Continue Taking Birth Control Pills If I’m Older Than Age 35

If you’re healthy and you don’t smoke, you can continue taking birth control pills after age 35.

However, birth control pills aren’t recommended if you’re 35 or older and you smoke because of the risk of heart and blood vessel disease. In that case, you need to quit smoking before you can safely continue using birth control pills.