’Pill can increase chances of stroke'

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33777, 25 February 1975, Page 13

’Pi ll can increase chances of stroke '

[By

JANE BRODY,

, of the "New York Times" (through N.Z.P.A.)]

NEW YORK.] A follow-up study of] strokes among young i women has shown that j the use of the birthcontrol pill by itself can: increase a woman’s | chances of having a stroke. The study has also shown that this increased risk is present even in the absence of other risk factors which have been associated with strokes, including high blood pressure, migraine headaches, and heavy cigarette smoking. But since these other factors may add to a woman’s risk of a stroke, the authors of the report recommend that the pill should not be used by women who have any degree of high blood pressure or who suffer from classical migraine headaches, or from headaches which are aggravated by the pill. Thev also caution against use of the pill by heavy smokers, although their findings do not support any relationship between smoking and thrombotic, or clot- : caused, strokes (the more 'common, but less serious .type). They do show that i smoking may increase the risk of the more severe haemorrhagic stroke, and may potentiate the effect of the I pill in causing this disease, i ■ A report on the study.- : which involves the collaiborative efforts of doctors at

91 hospitals in 12 cities, is -published in the “Journal of I the American Medical AssoI ciation.” Reports on the same sub- . ject, published two years ago in the “New England i Journal of Medicine” indiclated that pill-users face a i nine-times-greater risk of suffering a stroke than did women of comparable age who did not use the pill. Since previous studies suggested that women with such predisposing conditions as high blood pressure, migraine, blood-vessel diseases and diabetes might be especially at risk of suffering a stroke, the question arose as to whether women on the pill who had stokes also had these predisposing conditions. The new study indicates that these women may indeed be particularly at risk of suffering a pill-related stroke, but that the pill can also cause a stroke even when these conditions do not exist. The chairman of the collaborative study, Dr Alberti Heyman, of the Duke Uni-:

j versity Medical centre, 'emphasised in an interview 'that even with the pill, a ’stroke is still an extremely rare condition among women of childbearing age. He and his co-workers estimate that one woman in 10, 00 may suffer a stroke attributable to the pill, which is now used by about 10 million American women. British studies have hinted that the pill-associated risk of stoke and other clotting disorders, such as thrombophritis (blood clots in the leg veins) and coronary thrombosis, may be decreasing now that most women use a pill containing far less of the hormone, estrogen, than did women in the early years of oral contraceptives. Since the vast majority of stroke victims in the collaborative study were using Jow-estrogen pills (containing 50 or 100 micrograms of the synthetic female hormone), the study could not answer the question of relative risk. However, the study did show that strokes could still occur on the low-dose pills.