Study Finds Injectable Contraceptive Leads
To Obesity
A
study by Drs. Abbey B. Berenson and Mahbubur Rahman of The University
of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, has found women who use the
injectable hormonal contraceptive DMPA (depot medroxyprogesterone
acetate) experience a significant increase in body weight and fat, and
the obesity may persist even after stopping DMPA use.
The research, published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and
Gynecology, involved 703 women who were beginning the use of either
birth control pills or DMPA, and compared them to women who used a form
of non-hormone contraception.
Over the 3 year study period, DMPA users gained significantly more body
fat than oral contraceptive (OC) and non-hormone (NH) contraception
users, the researchers reported, adding that women of normal weight
were found to gain much more body fat than women who were obese at the
beginning of the study.
"It is a concern that women who were not obese at the start of the
study were twice as likely to become obese over the next 3 years if
they selected DMPA over non-hormone contraception," Berenson and Rahman
write.
Though OC use did not cause significant weight gain, the researchers
reported the often observed loss of muscle mass associated with use of
the pill.
"OC users did not gain more weight than NH users but did increase their
fat mass and percent body fat and lost significantly more lean body
mass than did NH and DMPA users," the report states
In a 2 year follow up of the original study to examine the
reversibility of the observed changes, the research team found that
women who discontinued use of DMPA and switched to non-hormone
contraception lost most of the fat they had gained. However, women who
discontinued use of DMPA and began using oral contraceptives either
kept the fat they had accumulated or gained more weight.
A huge amount of research information is available on the negative
effects of contraceptives, with injectable hormonal contraceptives and
the "patch" being especially harmful. Adverse reaction reports of
stroke and heart attack are increasing annually and studies linking
hormonal contraceptives to everything from osteoporosis to diabetes,
cancer and heart disease.
Mercedes Wilson, founder and president of the natural family planning
(NFP) organization, Family for the Americas, observed that hormonal
contraception is devastating women's health in the third world.
"The pill, IUDs, injections, and the patch are devastating to the poor
because they all carry the same steroids, which are known to be toxic
and carcinogenic. 21 scientists with the World Health
Organization in
2005 confirmed that estrogens in birth control methods are carcinogenic
of the number one type, which is the most dangerous type of all,"
Wilson told LSN in an interview in 2008.
"In the third world, however, they are still using the 3-month
injections the most," Wilson noted. "It does so much harm to the poor.
They are given it while mothers' are breastfeeding their babies. The
steroids are going right through the breast milk to the babies and that
is a calamity. It causes cancer, heart disease, you name it; the list
is interminable. And with the lack of the health facilities in the
third world, it is criminal."
Contact: Thaddeus M. Baklinski
Source: LifeSiteNews.com
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Date: August 12, 2009
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