ORAL CONTRACEPTIVES Birth control pill cuts heart disease, strokes, study finds

This research contradicts previous studies.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Women on the birth control pill had surprisingly lower risks of heart disease and stroke and no increased risk of breast cancer, according to the largest women's health study ever done.
The findings by the Women's Health Initiative, the biggest study on oral contraceptives, are contrary to what many previous studies have found. Results from nearly 162,000 participants were presented Wednesday at an American Society for Reproductive Medicine conference.
Safety reassurance
The same federal study that led millions of women to abandon use of hormones after menopause now provides reassurance that the pill is safe. Doctors say the type of hormones and the stage of life when they're used may be what makes them helpful at one point and harmful at another.
About 16 million American women currently take birth control pills and hundreds of millions have used them since the first one came on the market in 1960. Most combine synthetic forms of estrogen and progestin in various doses.
After menopause
Women taking these hormones after menopause were more likely to have heart disease and certain cancers -- a finding that prompted part of this study to be stopped in 2002.
Previous research on oral contraceptives suggested that they, too, raised the chances of heart disease. But the new study found the opposite -- lower risk of heart attacks, strokes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and other heart-related problems among the 67,000 women in the study who had ever taken the pill.