What you should know about birth control and breast cancer

One quarter of all women take birth control in the United States. Did you know that it may be linked to an increase in your chance of breast cancer? This is a very delicate topic to study because although hormonal birth control has been a popular contraceptive tactic used, there are newer methods that were not used in other generations, therefore they have not been studied for as long. There have been studies done that lowered the hormonal dosage ingested, thinking that this would minimize the risk but that is not the case. Many years of taking oral hormonal contraceptives adds up over years, increasing the amount of estrogen and pro estrogen in the body. The long someone is exposed to female sex hormones the greater the risk factor they have. This can have several implications when presenting the different birth control options. Although there is a very small risk increase for breast cancer, there are also benefits to birth control as well.
I think this was an interesting article that made me think of how some of the medicines we take day to day can affect us in the long run. Birth control is an extremely popular contraceptive that many women take. But do they know that they may be increasing their risk for breast cancer? If they already have the breast cancer gene, will this increase their chances of getting it even more? Some women may opt to stay with the birth control even with the potential risk for its benefits. I think that there may be other factors in play that need to be taken into consideration to determine whether it is specifically the hormonal increase, or other factors that contribute to it.


https://www.popsci.com/birth-control-risk-breast-cancer#page-2

https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/hormones/oral-contraceptives-fact-sheet

http://www.breastcancer.org/risk/factors/genetics