United States: Active women using the pill seem to have an extra benefit from their birth control; the new study evidences that.
More about the study
Such women have a lower risk of injuries such as sprains and strains, on average, than the women from the population sample of the same age and weight not using birth control pills, according to the researchers who reported their results in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise recently.
Moreover, women using the contraceptive pill had significantly lower rates of tendon and muscle injuries compared to equally titled men and non-oral contraceptive women, results showed.
These types of injuries are among the most common sports concussions; the research showed that.
Luis Rodriguez, the lead researcher stated, “This understanding holds promise for informing the development of targeted preventive strategies and interventions aimed at reducing injury risk in women, benefiting both athletic and nonathletic populations,” as the US News reported.
Rodriguez is a doctoral candidate in the Joint Biomedical Engineering Graduate Program at the University of Texas-Dallas and the University of Texas-Southwestern.
How was the study conducted?
For the study, scientists did a factual analysis of health data from more than 126,000 men and women who are matured from 18 to 39 years and were having either normal weight or overweight status with the orthopedic injury.
It was reported that sprain or strain occurred in about 0.5 percent of women on the pill, whereas it was detected at the rate of 2.5 percent among women not taking birth control and 3.5 percent among men, researchers found.
Overall, the women who were on pills experienced 85 percent lower impairment as compared to men for pulled muscles and strained tendons, as the study results showed.
To compare the medication with no treatment, women not taking the pill leveled only 26 percent less than men for having any kind of injury like sprain or strain.
The outcome revealed that the hormones in birth control pills might give an armor against the problems of muscles or tendons, as scientists reported.
Yasin Dhaher, a senior researcher and a professor of physical medicine & rehabilitation and orthopedic surgery at UT Southwestern, said, “This research offers valuable insights into how synthetic sex hormones may mitigate the risk of … injuries in women,” as the US News reported.
The findings also open up the question of whether women with health conditions that cause hormone imbalances, like polycystic ovary syndrome or menopause, might have an increased risk of injury, researchers added.