A new study has confirmed for the first time that the risk of cardiovascular disease from the birth control pill is negligible for women under 35 who do not smoke or have high blood pressure.
The risk of heart attack increases dramatically for smoking women who take the oral contraceptive after age 35, the World Health Organization said Friday in a report on a study conducted with other UN agencies and the World Bank.
“This study is important because it provides for the first time reliable data on the risk of heart attack,” said Giuseppe Benagiano, director of a World Bank reproduction research program.
The findings are based on research in 17 developing and developed countries, involving 368 women with acute heart disease and 941 healthy women, WHO said. The study will be published Saturday in the British medical journal Lancet.
Very few of the women in the study, which started in 1986, were using pills containing the newer progestogens — gestodene and desogestrel — so little could be learned about these pills and their coronary risk factor.
