Birth Control for Women May Raise Risk of Depression
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 61 percent of women currently use some form on contraception. A new research has found an increased risk of depression and antidepressant use for women and teenage girls who use hormonal contraceptives.
According to Medical News Today, a web-news outlet for medical news, Dr. Oevind Lidegaard from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and his team of researchers analyzed 1995-2013 data from the Danish National Prescription Register and the Psychiatric Central Research Register, including more than 1 million women aged 15-34. Lidegaard and his team reported their research in the medical journal JAMA Psychiatry.
In order to research the effects, the researchers tested the participants' use of hormonal contraception and recorded first signs of depression and antidepressant use. The participants did not have a history of depression or antidepressant use, the researchers reported to Medical News Today.
When the participants were asked for a follow-up, Lidegaard and his team discovered of the 55.5 percent of the participants who were current or recent users of hormonal contraceptives, oral and non-oral, 23,077 participants were now diagnosed with first-time depression and 133,178 participants were prescribed with antidepressants.
According to Medical News Today, the team also found the risks were higher for adolescents aged 15-19 and the use of either combined contraceptives or progestin-only pills among this age group was linked with a 1.8 to 2.2 times greater risk of first time antidepressant use. Those who used non-oral hormonal contraceptives were at three times greater risk.
Oral contraceptives, which are commonly known as birth control pills, remain the most popular form of contraception and are currently used by around 16 percent of women aged 15-44 in the U.S.
Contraceptives that contain both estrogen and progestin hormones are called combined contraceptives. Progestin may refer to synthetic forms of the hormone progesterone or progesterone purely itself. These contraceptives work by preventing ovulation and making it harder for any sperm to reach the egg which prevents pregnancy.
Other forms of contraception include the birth control implant, injection, patch, and the vaginal contraception ring. They all release estrogen, progestin, or both as a way of preventing pregnancy.
After reviewing the results of the research, Dr. Lidegaard found it was no surprise that hormonal contraceptives might raise the risk of depression. "Generally estrogen improves mood and progestogens worsen mood. As hormonal contraception generally is dominated by progestogens, it is not very surprising that mood generally has a tendency to be changed in direction for depression," he said, according to Medical News Today.
Dr. Lideggard does not recommend alternative forms of contraception for women of reproductive age. He included, “I think it is important that women, especially young women, are aware of this potential risk with use of hormonal contraception, including oral contraceptives."
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