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https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1135008
EXCERPTS: Birth control pills are safe and effective for millions of women, but researchers are still working to understand how the hormones they contain may influence eating behavior.
A new study in JAMA Network Open followed 422 women who were already using combined oral contraceptives, tracking their eating patterns daily for 49 consecutive days. The goal: to examine whether binge-related eating changes depending on whether women are taking hormone-containing pills or hormone-free pills within the same cycle.
In a typical birth control pack, women take about three weeks of “active” pills that contain hormones, followed by about a week of “inactive” pills that contain no hormones.
“Because we tracked the same women day to day, we could see how eating changed with hormone exposure,” said Dr. Shaunna Clark, a co-author and associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Texas A&M University’s Naresh K. Vashisht College of Medicine.
[...] The analysis focused on average changes across the group, but the study emphasizes that not all women experience these shifts in the same way. ... “These findings show a pattern at the group level,” she said, “but individual responses can vary.”
The study does not establish that birth control pills cause binge eating. Instead, it identifies a specific association between hormone exposure and increased emotional eating within individuals... (MORE - no ads)
EXCERPTS: Birth control pills are safe and effective for millions of women, but researchers are still working to understand how the hormones they contain may influence eating behavior.
A new study in JAMA Network Open followed 422 women who were already using combined oral contraceptives, tracking their eating patterns daily for 49 consecutive days. The goal: to examine whether binge-related eating changes depending on whether women are taking hormone-containing pills or hormone-free pills within the same cycle.
In a typical birth control pack, women take about three weeks of “active” pills that contain hormones, followed by about a week of “inactive” pills that contain no hormones.
“Because we tracked the same women day to day, we could see how eating changed with hormone exposure,” said Dr. Shaunna Clark, a co-author and associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Texas A&M University’s Naresh K. Vashisht College of Medicine.
[...] The analysis focused on average changes across the group, but the study emphasizes that not all women experience these shifts in the same way. ... “These findings show a pattern at the group level,” she said, “but individual responses can vary.”
The study does not establish that birth control pills cause binge eating. Instead, it identifies a specific association between hormone exposure and increased emotional eating within individuals... (MORE - no ads)