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I am a 4th year criminology student in my last semester. I am born in Hong Kong but came to Vancouver when i was 5 years old, so pretty much lived here ever since :)

Sunday, 26 June 2011

The Pill and Cancer





That was a mini clip i made brought to you by xtranormal.com. Welcome back to my blog. Can anyone answer the question that the lady asked in the short clip? I sure can’t. I have just recently restocked another 3 months worth of birth control pills and yet I still have no answer to this question

There has been so much controversy in the question of whether the consumption of birth control pills increase, decrease, or maybe even make no changes at all to the risk of cancer, in particularly breast cancer. Many research and studies have been carried out and have still been unable to confirm a precise answer to the effects of the contraceptive pill in relation to the development of breast cancers. The picture still remains far from clear for women who are currently taking the pill or for those who are considering taking the pill.

Since this is only a blog, I am not going to write you a ten page paper on the topic, it is important that you do take some extra time to look at where my sources are from. I am not here to persuade you which side to take, but for the sake of your health, you should exercise your knowledge into interpreting the information I am about to present to you. 



In support to the argument that birth control pill increases the risk of breast cancer:

-In a case control study of 3,540 white women in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston by Mahler on breast cancer risk, results have shown that, “women aged 25-34 who have used oral contraceptives for one year or more are 70% more likely to develop breast cancer than are women of the same age who have not used the pill or who have used it for less than one year” (1996).

Mahler (1996) also concluded that “women in this age-group who have used the pill for 10 years or longer have a risk of breast cancer 2.5 times that of comparable nonusers.”

However, it is important to note that results from this study cannot be generalized to the population of the world as only Caucasian women were under examination in the study. 

- In the recent study, researchers at the Bethesda, Md.-based National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta tested the pill-cancer connection in a case-control study of more than 4,000 women aged 20 to 45. The results found that women who use the pill for longer than four years before having their first child appear to be three times more likely to develop breast cancer before age 45 than are those who do not use it before having their first child (Edwards, 1985).

Against the argument that birth control pill increases risk of breast cancer:







- Dr. Josh Vogel in the video quotes, “there is a very common misconception out there that many types of birth control can increase your risk of getting cancer. In fact if you look into package inserts, you will often find that. This is actually not correct especially commonly ascribed to birth control pill use, if anything the use of birth control pill will decrease of certain types of cancer including endometrial and ovarian cancer.”

-A study by the Mayo Clinic Health Centre (2007) found that “oral contraceptive use increases premenopausal breast cancer risk, especially among women who took birth control pills before having a first child. However, the review also noted that risk decreases over time, and by 10 years after discontinuation of "the pill" there's no elevation of breast cancer risk.”

Findings also showed “a significant percentage increase in breast cancer, but since the disease is rare at younger ages, the actual number of people in this group is small. For example, in the 25-to- 29-year age range, that translated to 4.7 cases of breast cancer for every 10,000 women who used oral contraceptives for a year.”

They also note “there's a very small absolute risk of developing breast cancer due to oral contraceptive use at younger ages. On the plus side, oral contraceptives are associated with reduced risk of ovarian and uterine cancers as well as improved bone mineral density.” (Mayo Clinic Health Centre, 2007)

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Although I call myself the truth blogger, I am not a scientist or a doctor. I am unable to answer with certainty the question to my blog this week. There are studies conducted for both sides of the story and both sides seem equally persuasive in their arguments. As I said, I am not here to persuade you to take a side, I am just offering you the information I have gathered so we can together learn more about birth control pills in general.


However, what I was able to extract from the various studies presented in this blog is that in certain ages and age groups, women are more at risk for breast cancer. For example, the risk for breast cancer is simply just low in women who are at a young age before 25 years old. Taking the pill at that age is unlikely to add on to the already low risk of getting breast cancer. On the contrary, in the age group of 25 to 34 years old and age group before 45 years old, the women in this age group is already at a higher risk of breast cancer than those women who are 25 years old or younger. Therefore, the consumption of birth control pills in this age group will add onto the already higher risk of breast cancer. 

Maybe this is not a one plus one type of question. Maybe there is just more than one answer to this question.

With care,
The Truth Blogger- Reminding my beautiful ladies, I do have a comment function in my blog, feel free to leave any concerns you have regarding the birth control pills and even suggest me some topics you would like me to talk about next time 
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Reference
Edwards, D.D. (1985). The pill and breast cancer. Science News, 128(19).

Ehowhealth. (User). (2009). Women’s health: what types of birth control are known to  

cause cancer? Retrived from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpL1LwsrYeM&playnext=1&list=PL1C19654E4611631A

Mahler, K. (1996). Long duration of pill use among young women shows possible link to
elevated breast cancer risk. Women’s Studies International, 28(5).

Mayo Clinic Health Centre. (2007, June). The pill/ breast cancer risk and your age.
Retrieved from http://HealthLetter.MayoClinic.com

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