healingways
Contraceptive Pill Chill Dangers Include Cancer, Strokes and Fatigue by Kathleen Barnes
F
or more than 50 years, women have appreciated the freedom that birth control pills offer. They simply take a little pill every day and rest easy, fairly assured that an unplanned pregnancy won’t occur. However, there’s actually a lot not to love about “The Pill”, especially its long-term side effects. “The sexual freedom that women have fought so hard to obtain has been won at a terrible price,” advises Naturopathic Doctor Sherrill Sellman, of Tulsa, Oklahoma, author of The Hormone Heresy: What Women Must Know about Their Hormones. That price includes blood clots and even death from heart attacks and strokes in young women. As early as 1963, an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association linked The Pill to venous thrombosis, or blood clots. By 1968, at least one cancer journal, CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, had linked cancer to the use of the steroid hormones contained in oral contraceptives. In 1973, Scandinavian researchers warned of the link between oral contraceptives and strokes. “In December 2002, the U.S. government published its biannual Report on Carcinogens that added all steroidal estrogens to the list of known
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human carcinogens,” says Sellman, “The gravity of this finding cannot be overstated: All estrogens used in HRT [hormone replacement therapy] and oral contraceptives have now been proven unequivocally to cause cancer.” Yet, regardless of the many downsides, The Pill remains the most common method of birth control worldwide, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with usage by 16 percent of married American women. Elsewhere, users include 29 percent of British women and 40 percent of women in France and the Netherlands.
risks that accompany the use of The Pill,” says Ross Pelton, a registered pharmacist, certified clinical nutritionist and author of The Pill Problem. Oral contraceptives deplete more bodily nutrients than any other class of drugs, says Pelton, who blogs regularly at NaturalPharmacist.net. However, he adds, women taking The Pill even as long as 10 years may not notice any obvious health problems. “Maybe she’ll first notice a lack of energy, but doesn’t connect the dots and realize that magnesium, B12 and numerous other nutrients involved in energy production are depleted,” he explains. The nutrient-depleting effects of The Pill were recognized as early as 1975 in a study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, but it carried no recommendations for replacing them. Some of these nutrients are essential for the production of brain chemicals, called neurotransmitters, including mood-elevating dopamine. An affected woman can become depressed, a condition closely linked to the use of The Pill, according to a German study published in 2013 in the journal General Hospital Psychiatry. The Pill’s steroidal hormones also reduce the body’s natural ac-
Filches Vitamins
“Birth control pills are vitamin robbers, and this is the source of the health
Nutrients Women on The Pill Need 4 BHRT* 4 Chrysin 4 Coenzyme Q10 4 DHEA 4 Folic acid 4 L-methlyfolate 4 Magnesium
4 Melatonin 4 Natural progesterone 4 Nettle root 4 Omega-3 oils 4 Probiotics 4 Selenium 4 Tyrosine
4 Vitamin B2 4 Vitamin B6 4 Vitamin B12 4 Vitamin C 4 Zinc
* Bio-identical hormone replacement therapy (for perimenopausal and menopausal women) Source: Ross Pelton, NaturalPharmacist.net
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