The Risk of Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Increases by Using Oral Contraceptive Pills
A meta-analysis was made on
14 studies done with 78,815 women between 1983 and 2007 and compared
those using the oral contraceptive pills and those who never used
them on the etiology of Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn’s Disease.
Adjustments were made for smoking.
The results showed that
there is evidence of an association between the use of oral
contraceptive agents and the development of inflammatory bowel
disease, particularly Crohn’s Disease. The overall average of
increased risk for inflammatory bowel disease was 1.5 times. It
also suggests that the risk for those who stop using OCPs reverts to
that of women who were not exposed to them.1
1Cornish, Et
al., The Risk of Oral Contraceptives in the Etiology of Inflammatory
Bowel Disease: A Meta-Analysis, Am J Gastroenterology
103:2394-2400, 2008
