(Feb. 11, 2010) Couples in the Chicago area who calmly assume that the birth control pill is safe would be helped by knowing of a new major study that draws a strong connection between oral contraception and a certain type of breast cancer in women.

The Pill is linked to breast cancer.

A study concerning the deadly “triple negative” breast cancer, involving  more than 1200 women aged 20 - 45, found a “distinct etiology,” or cause and effect, for women who used oral contraception for longer than a year, and an even stronger correlation for women who began using it before the age of 18.

The study was published in the April 2009 Cancer, Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, and gathered information over a five-year period. The study’s main author, Jessica Dolle, and other researchers at the Seattle-based Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, found that oral contraceptive use for a year or more “was associated with a 2.7-fold increased risk for triple-negative breast cancer.” Triple negative breast cancer is a subtype of cancer associated with a high mortality and there is little hope for a cure.

Age, Family History, Abortion Are Among Other Causes

“Specifically,” the study said, “older age, family history of breast cancer, earlier menarche age [beginning of menstruation], induced abortion, and oral contraceptive use were associated with an increased risk for breast cancer.”

“Our study has the strength of being population based and is the largest of its kind to evaluate breast cancer subtypes and etiologic [causation] differences in young women,” the study said.

In women 40 years of age and older, the danger was greater, the study said. The use of oral contraception for one year or greater “was associated with a four-fold increased risk for triple-negative breast cancer.”

The National Cancer Institute (NCI), on the other hand, has long denied any real connection between oral contraceptives and breast cancer. Its website cites one study of oral contraceptives which showed only a “slightly elevated risk” for breast cancer. Another study cited showed that oral contraceptives “did not significantly increase” the chance of breast cancer. A third study mentioned on the website admitted only that women who were diagnosed within five years of using the pill, especially younger women, were the most affected with breast cancer.

Other than skin cancer, breast cancer is the most common type of cancer among women in the United States, according to the NCI. Nearly 200,000 women were diagnosed in the U.S. last year with breast cancer.

In the light of recent studies such as the Dolle report, many experts are now claiming that crucial information is being withheld from women about the dangers of oral contraception who could otherwise avoid this disease.

Natural Family Planning a Healthy Alternative

Natural Family Planning (NFP), with its reliance on a thermometer and charts, is completely safe and a good alternative to artificial methods. And, according to the Couple to Couple League International, the method is 99% effective when used correctly by motivated couples. Proper education is necessary for this high effectiveness rate.

Classes in the Sympto-Thermal Method of Natural Family Planning are offered by the Couple to Couple League to married and engaged couples, and can be taken at 15 locations in the Archdiocese of Chicago, IL and surrounding area, including southeast Milwaukee and northwest Indiana. A homestudy course is also available at CCL Central.

The next series of classes in northeast Illinois will begin Sun., Feb. 14, 2010 at 1:30 pm at Holy Trinity Church in Westmont. To register, and for a list of classes throughout the U.S., go to the CCL Central class locator. Or go to the Chicago CCL’s Classes by Location and Maplinks.