The birth control pill might come with more risks than assumed. A study out this week suggests the most common oral contraceptive can raise the odds of a particular form of binge eating. Researchers at the University of Michigan and others examined survey data from women taking contraceptive pills containing estrogen and progesterone. Women actively on birth control had a higher risk of emotional eating, they found. Further research is needed to identify the women most vulnerable to this added risk, the researchers say. The “findings were remarkably consistent in showing increased [emotional eating] during periods of active hormone vs inactive pills,” they wrote in their paper, published Wednesday in JAMA Network Open. Hormones and binge eating risk Some studies have suggested that fluctuations in the hormones naturally produced by a woman’s ovaries can influence the risk of binge eating, especially emotional eating (overeating in response to emotional stress). The team’s past research in particular found that high levels of both estrogen and progesterone—which typically happens in the second half of the menstrual cycle, after ovulation—seem to heighten this risk.
Many forms of birth control for women rely on synthetic versions of these same hormones, raising the question of whether the pill could also increase binge eating. The researchers decided to study the potential effects of the combined oral contraceptive pill on binge eating, since it most mimics the riskiest conditions they had previously identified. Notably, the combined pill is also the most common type of hormonal birth control that women will take in their lifetime.
