Researchers reported that women who are now taking the newer kinds of birth control pills risk developing clotting of blood compared to women taking the older types of pills. Their report provided a clarifying evidence on the seemingly safer options availed by modern contraceptives, which could in fact be riskier compared to the earlier formulations. When reaching their conclusions, the researchers studied two medical records that included over 50000 women in Britain aged between 15 and 49 years.

Increased risk factor

And as it has been known for decades now, women who take combined oral contraceptives, i.e. formulations containing two hormone versions, progestin and estrogen faced a much higher risk of being diagnosed with venous thromboembolisms, which is a dangerous blood clot unlike women that don’t take these pills. However, when the researchers decided to categorize the data by the medication and other risk factors control, it was discovered that some birth control pill versions posed much higher risk compared to others. Medications that use synthetic hormones, i.e. drospirenone that is found in Yasmin and desogestrel that is present in Mircette and Kariva as well as other newer hormone formulations posed a risk of between 1.5 and 1.8 higher than other drugs that contain synthetic hormones like levonorgestrel.

This study is in fact a confirmation of other findings reported previously. The results availed herein offer high compelling evidence to the fact that the newer oral contraceptives come with a much higher risk of leading to venous thromboembolism unlike in the older options. The researchers also noted that about 10 percent of women across the age who are at a childbearing age make use of the oral contraceptives and this number has increased to 18 percent for women in the developed countries. Such women have a much higher risk of getting a blood clot but for the generally health women, there is a low but real risk of getting the clot.

Attempts to make safer pills

According to the researchers, manufacturers of birth control pills were hoping that by using newer synthetic hormones such as drospirenone, they would be able to create pills that are much safer. And with all these reasons, no one would ever think that the drugs would pose any risks whatsoever, but the truth of the matter is that the pills were not as safe as thought. It is difficult to confirm the higher risk posed by these drugs, mainly because of the different studies that have been undertaken differently. Some of the methodologies used have contributed to mask the effects of the medications. The researchers noted a strengthened association between clotting risk and use of newer contraceptives and this further indicated that the team faced real effects.