Navigating the Intricacies of Birth Control: Unveiling its Impact on Cardiovascular Health

Abstract:

Oral Contraceptives (OC) and Birth control pills can cause a lot of side effects in the human body. Taking birth control pills increases the risk of having a stroke or heart attack. Based on the case report, a woman entered the hospital with unknown causes of how she was having artery blocking. That woman was taking only a low dose of oral concentrative for only just a month. She was a healthy woman without any history in her family of a heart attack. Doctors, after doing different examinations and research, concluded that the OC was the reason that the arteries were starting to close. Another study that diagnosed that OC causes heart attacks and strokes in women was the research of Roach, RE. In their research paper, they included and compared different research from other people who did in the past.

Introduction:

Birth control or oral contraceptives are pills that women take daily to prevent pregnancy. In order for the pill to work in preventing pregnancy, each woman must take the pill every day and at the same time. Birth control pills, like every pill, have their side effects; some of the good side effects could be regulating the menstrual cycle and preventing pelvic inflammatory disease and other medical problems. (Swartout-Corbeil, D. M. 2011). Therefore, women don’t use birth control pills only to prevent pregnancy.

There are women and young girls taking these birth control pills to regulate their periods, limit acne, regulate hormones such as testosterone and dehydroepiandrosterone-sulfate (DHEA-sulfate), slow down hair growth, and any other menstrual disorder. Birth control pills can regulate all of that because they contain two main hormones, which are estrogen and progestin. However, there are serious side effects like increasing the risk of strokes, heart attacks, and blood clots in women with a family history of history of heart attacks. (Swartout-Corbeil, D. M. 2011). Also, women who smoke and use birth control have a high chance of developing high blood pressure, diabetes, breast or uterus cancer, and also the risk of having a myocardial infarction (MI) or stroke.

Methods or Experimental Procedures:

This research was based on a 20-year-old woman who was admitted to the hospital with hand numbness and retrosternal burning pain. (Aslan, A. N. et. al. 2016). While the woman was in the hospital, the doctors were doing different examinations to find what was the cause of this problem. The woman was a healthy woman with no history of heart attacks, a non-smoker with regular blood pressure and heart rates, and the only pills that she was using were oral contractive. (Aslan, A. N. et. al. 2016). However, there was a study that used women who used or didn’t use oral contractive, and their age was from 18 to 50. (Roach, RE. et. al. 2015). This research was done to compare the risk of myocardial infarction and ischemic stroke in the users and non-users of oral concentrations. They used different methods to compare their results with other research that happened in the late 90s to prove that OC affects women’s health and can cause myocardial infarction and strokes.

Results:

The results doctors concluded in the case of the woman was that taking the birth control pills had. As a result, arteries start closing. “Since there were no other identifiable risk factors for an acute cardiovascular event, and normal biochemical and hematological investigations, acute inferior MI was ascribed to OC use.”. (Aslan, 2016). This result was concluded from another study that happened in the past. This study that they found was important for them to understand what was going on with the woman. According to the study of Roach with the women, the results of their case were that there was a fatal and nonfatal outcome on arterial thrombosis and myocardial infarction. Based on Roach’s study case, their result was that the women who were using birth control pills had a higher chance of having myocardial infarction and strokes than non-users.

Discussion:

Like every pill, the use of birth control pills has its side effects too, according to the case report “Low-dose oral contraceptive-induced acute myocardial infarction.” It was concluded in the study case of Aslan. A. N. Their investigations found that the women taking the Oral contraceptive were at higher risk of arterial thrombosis than the women who didn’t take the pill. (Swartout-Corbeil, D. M. 2011). To get to this conclusion, they had to pay close attention to the patient and do a lot of examinations and research to find out why her arteries were blocked. In the research of Roach, the mistake that they made was that they chose the groups wrong.

To get a solution that is valid, they should have many groups of women of the same age, weight, height, and years that have been taking the pills, and most importantly, these women should be healthy. The women that are used in the experimental group and the ones as a control group should not have a family history of heart attacks and strokes. Therefore, this research should be developed again to get appropriate results that will indicate the results. Both studies are not sufficient research because of their sample groups. However, both cases state that oral contraceptives have a high incensement of myocardial infarction and strokes.

References:

Aslan, A. N., Süygün, H., Sivri, S., Keleş, T., Süygün, H., & Keleş, T. (2016). Low-dose oral contraceptive-induced acute myocardial infarction. European Journal of Contraception & Reproductive Health Care, 21(6), 499–501. https://doiorg.rpa.laguardia.edu/10.1080/13625187.2016.1225715
Roach RE, Helmerhorst FM, Lijfering WM, Stijnen T, Algra A, Dekkers OM. Combined oral contraceptives: the risk of myocardial infarction and ischemic stroke. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2015, Issue 8. Art. No.: CD011054. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD011054.pub2.
Swartout–Corbeil, D. M. (2011). Oral Contraceptives. In J. L. Longe (Ed.), The Gale Encyclopedia of Children’s Health: Infancy through Adolescence (2nd ed., Vol. 3, pp. 1634-1638). Detroit, MI: Gale. Retrieved from http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/CX1918500555/GVRL?u=cuny_laguardia&sid=GVRL&xid=c1d64dc9