New York, Oct 27 (Inditop.com) A 30-year-old woman’s speech suddenly slurred, her left hand developed clumsiness while eating. She was experiencing the classic symptoms of a stroke at a relatively young age, which may have been triggered by the intake of birth control pills.
Oral contraceptives nearly double stroke risk, according to a study by three Loyola University (L-U) neurologists.
Nearly 100 million women worldwide use birth control pills. Pills nowadays contain much lower concentrations of estrogens than older preparations. The relationship between oral contraceptives and stroke has been studied and debated for decades, and studies have yielded conflicting results.
There are about 4.4 ischemic strokes for every 100,000 women of childbearing age. Birth control pills increase the risk 1.9 times – to 8.5 strokes per 100,000 women, according to a well-performed ‘meta-analysis,’ which combines the results of multiple studies, cited in the article.
An ischemic stroke is death of an area of brain tissue resulting from an inadequate supply of blood and oxygen to the brain.
There’s one additional stroke for every 25,000 women who take birth control pills, according to the article.
But for women who take birth control pills and also smoke, have high blood pressure or have a history of migraine headaches, the stroke risk is significantly higher.
“When prescribing oral contraceptives, doctors should balance the risks and benefits for each individual patients,” said senior study author Jose Biller, who chairs the neurology department at Loyala, according to an L-U release.
The study was published in MedLink Neurology.
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