Teenagers Who Take Contraceptives Are 130 Percent More at Risk of Developing Depression: Study

Prescription contraceptives for women sit on the counter of a drug store in Los Angeles, Calif., on Aug. 1, 2011. Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
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Women who use oral contraceptives are at higher risk of depression, with teenage users having a 130 percent higher chance of showing symptoms of depression, according to the latest research.

The study, published in the journal Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences on June 12, is one of the largest on the subject to date, according to a June 12 press release by Uppsala University. The research saw the participation of 264,557 females selected from the UK BioBank, a population-based cohort that recruited 500,000 participants aged 37–71 years from across the United Kingdom between 2006 and 2010.

The study proposed that using oral contraceptives in the first two years “increases the risk of depression.” In addition, the use of oral contraceptives during adolescence “might increase the risk of depression later in life,” it concluded.

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Researchers found that women who started using oral contraceptives before the age of 20 had a 130 percent higher incidence of symptoms of depression compared to women who had never taken contraception. Among adult users, this was at 92 percent.

Even after teenage users stopped using the pill, an increased incidence of depression was observed. This was not seen among adults who used the contraceptive pills.

“The powerful influence of contraceptive pills on teenagers can be ascribed to the hormonal changes caused by puberty,” said Therese Johansson of the Department of Immunology, Genetics, and Pathology at Uppsala University, one of the researchers leading the study, according to a June 12 press release.

“As women in that age group have already experienced substantial hormonal changes, they can be more receptive not only to hormonal changes but also to other life experiences.”

Researchers collected various personal information from the participants, including their use of contraceptive pills, when they were diagnosed with depression, and when they first experienced depression, among others.

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The link between contraceptive pill use and depression has been suggested by some earlier studies as well. A November 2016 study published in the journal JAMA looked at more than 1 million women from Denmark to investigate the effects of hormonal contraception on their mental health.
It concluded that using these pills, especially among adolescents, “was associated with subsequent use of antidepressants and a first diagnosis of depression.”

Effects of Pill Components

In the June 12 study, researchers looked at “combined contraceptive pills” that contain progestogen and estrogen.

While progestogen thickens the cervical mucus to block sperms from entering the uterus and prevent ovulation, estrogen thins out the uterine lining to hinder the implantation of a fertilized egg. Progestogen is a compound resembling the hormone progesterone.

A June 2022 post at newsGP, the daily news website of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP), points out that women are more likely to experience high or very high levels of psychological distress than men. Meanwhile, reproductive-aged women have high rates of depression as well.
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Estrogen and progesterone greatly influence neurochemistry and brain functions, which can be linked to behavior changes, depression, and disturbances in cognition, the post said.

Some brain imaging studies have suggested that estrogen regulates the regions of the brain that are involved in cognitive and emotional processing. Meanwhile, progesterone has been demonstrated to have certain anxiety-easing effects, it stated.

Shrinking Brain, Altering Partner Perception

In addition to depression, contraceptive pill use can also shrink brains. In a study of 50 healthy women, researchers examined how extrinsic sex hormones like birth control pills would affect the brain’s gray matter. Out of the 50 women, 21 were taking contraceptive pills.

The team found a “dramatic difference” in the size of the hypothalamic brain structures between the women taking the pills and those who did not.

Dr. Michael L. Lipton, head of the research team, admitted that their analyses “confirm, for the first time, that current oral contraceptive pill usage is associated with smaller hypothalamic volume.”
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The pill can also alter how women feel about the men they have sexual contact with. In a May 2016 study published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, researchers concluded that hormonal contraceptive pills suppressed the oxytocin-induced “brain reward responses” of women toward the face of their romantic partner.

Earlier research from the same team had shown that among men, the release of oxytocin made them perceive their female partners as more attractive and triggered higher activity in the neural reward regions.

The exact opposite was found to be happening in the brains of women who took hormonal birth control pills, per the study.

Naveen Athrappully
Naveen Athrappully
Author
Naveen Athrappully is a news reporter covering business and world events at The Epoch Times.
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