8mm
Posted on 08/27/2007 3:28:00 PM PDT by wagglebee
NEW YORK, August 27, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A study of female military cadets has shown that the use of oral contraceptives is linked with loss of bone density in women. The study examined the effects of lifestyle, diet, and exercise on bone health in 107 white female cadets at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, and found that irregular menstruation and oral contraceptives had a negative impact on bone density.
The study bolsters earlier work showing that hormonal contraceptives negatively affect bone density. Estrogen plays an important role in the development and maintenance of bone mass and hormonal contraceptives decrease the amount of estrogen a woman's body produces. In November 2004, the United States Food and Drug Administration and the United Kingdom Committee on the Safety of Medicines cited bone mineral density loss when they issued warnings on the use of the progestin-only injectable contraceptives.
In 2005, a group of women launched a $700-million class-action lawsuit against the drug company Pfizer that produces Depo-Provera, saying the hormonal abortifacient drug had caused massive bone density loss. Three lawsuits in Canada are pending against the company alleging bone density loss.
See the abstract of the study from the from the journal of Nutrition and Metabolism:
http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/4/1/17
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Class Action Suit Says Depo-Provera Birth Control Drug Causes Osteoporosis
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/dec/05122101.html
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I didn’t get any.
One would think bone density would increase with a contraceptive.
Probably screws up the ratio of hormones in the body.....
Maybe the pill does decrease bone density some, but constant pregnancies in people who aren’t in a position to take lots of calcium would decrease it a LOT more. A fetus takes the calcium it needs from it’s mother’s bones if she doesn’t eat enough.
Whereas Viagra ...
LOL!
No kidding. Every drug prescribed to me turned out to be worse than what we were curing! Geez, I’d rather have had another baby than osteoperosis and the meds for that are awful!
Hmm. Seems almost every woman in my family had bone density issues at an older age and and never even touched a BCP. Doc said heredity. Not disputing the claims, just sayin’.
However, this study was conducted on 107 women at West Point. As a rule, these women are going to be very healthy, and physically fit. And these are young women, so it’s clear that the bone density isn’t the result of aging. However, it does mention irregular periods, and that might be hereditary, thought I don’t know.
Yeah, I have been of the opinion (I’m a guy, what do I know) that ingesting hormones or whatever has got to be rough on the body. Didn’t expect it to reveal itself in bone density, though. Interesting, to say the least.
Yep, my wife has enough hormonal problems without adding any more!
Women with irregular cycles are the ones most likely to go on the pill.
It could be that it’s not the pill that’s causing it but that they’re working with a group already prone to it because of health history.
Osteoporosis certainly is hereditary. Problem is, because so little screening is done at an early age and the whole osteoporosis issue has just come to the limelight recently, in the last few decades, nobody really knows what the incidence of osteopenia or osteoporosis in young women is.
Insurance companies don’t like to pay for scans in people who don’t fit the classic risk factor category. That means young people and men.
Also considering that women these days don’t drink the milk that our parents did nor get the sunshine like they used to, it could be that that is an implicating factor.
Osteoporosis is far more complicated than just estrogen.
.
It makes sense considering osteoporosis is on the rise (or at least seems that way due to the media and people living longer).
Smoking and sodas contribute to the problem too.
**Oral Contraceptives Decrease Bone Density**
Harmful in more ways than scientists (or we) could have ever imagined.
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