Latest Birth Control Pills Increase Clot Risk
Women's Health News
Obie Editorial Team
Deep venous thrombosis is diagnosed when a clot forms in a vein deep inside the body. Most DVTs occur in the thigh or lower leg. A clot that breaks away from the wall of the vein and moves freely through the bloodstream is an embolism, or venous thromboembolism (VTE). An embolism can travel through the body to the heart, lungs, or brain, where it can get stuck in a smaller vein and block all blood flow to or from the area. When blockage occurs, the loss of blood to vital organs can trigger strokes and heart attacks.
Yana Vinogradova, a medical statistics research fellow at the University of Nottingham, England, United Kingdom, led the study which involved analyzing data gleaned from two UK medical databases. The researchers were looking for women, 15 to 49 years of age, who were diagnosed for the first time with venous thromboembolism from 2001 through 2013. For each woman in the study group (diagnosed with VTE), five women were selected for the control group (no VTE); each group of six study participants were the same age and under care at the same medical facility in the same year. The study group consisted of 10,562 women with VTE.
The research indicates that, when compared with women who are not taking birth control pills:
All birth control pills rely on the hormone progestogen but different types of progestogen are used in different pills:
Globally, approximately 9% of all women of childbearing age (15 to 49) take oral contraceptives. In developed countries, oral contraceptive use is approximately 18% on average. In the UK, where the study was based, approximately 28% of all women of childbearing age use oral contraceptives.
Even though the risk of VTE is as much as 4.3 times higher in women taking birth control pills when compared to those not taking oral contraceptives, the researchers indicate the risk of VTE during pregnancy is 10 times higher than when not pregnant.
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