Summary: 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

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