The Pill, notorious for being carcinogenic, has just taken a different and more important role in the lives of women. Through a study conducted at the Oxford University, researchers discovered that the oral contraceptive has prevented 200,000 cases of endometrial cancer in the past ten years alone.
The new study published at The Lancet Oncology and funded by the Medical Research Council and Cancer Research of the United Kingdom, dealt on information gathered from 27,276 women suffering from endometrial (uterine) cancer, and from 115,743 women who were without it, as documented in 36 different studies.
It was estimated that for the past 50 years that the Pill has been made available, primarily for birth control, it has also likewise prevented 400,000 cases of the dreaded disease.
Moreover, results of the study established that for every five years that the Pill is taken, the chance of acquiring this particular type of cancer becomes less by 25 percent. The longer the contraceptive is taken, the bigger the chance for the cancer to be prevented.
In a chosen set of women who have been taking the contraceptive for the past 10 years, the rate of womb cancer diagnosis under 75 years old has fallen from 2.3 per 100 women to just 1.3.
Moreover, as the Pill makes the body of those who are taking it believe that the body is pregnant, natural estrogen found in the body drops and therefore lowers the development of cancer cells.
"Previous research has shown that the Pill also protects against ovarian cancer," says Professor Valerie Beral of the team which made the study.
What is even greater is the fact that even if a woman has stopped taking it, the protective effect goes on even 30 years after.
Endometrial cancer begins at the endometrium which is the inner lining of the uterus or what we call as the womb. According to statistics obtained from the American Cancer Society, Inc., "Endometrial cancer is rare in women under the age of 45. Most (about 3 out of 4) cases are found in women aged 55 and over. The average chance of a woman being diagnosed with this cancer during her lifetime is about 1 in 37. There are over 600,000 women who are survivors of this cancer. This cancer is slightly more common in white women, but black women are more likely to die from it."
