The Pill could protect against womb cancer for five decades: Women who use drug for five years in their twenties can reduce chance of disease in their sixties and seventies by a quarter

  • For every five years on Pill - risk of womb cancer goes down by a quarter
  • Contraceptive prevented 200,000 cases in Western world in past decade
  • One theory is it contains hormones that prevent the growth of tumours

Taking the Pill protects a woman from womb cancer for up to five decades, research shows.

Those who use the contraceptive for five years in their twenties are far less likely to develop the illness in their fifties, sixties or seventies, according to the study.

Oxford academics calculate that for every five years on the Pill, the risk of womb cancer goes down by a quarter.

They also estimate that the contraceptive has prevented around 200,000 cases of the illness in the Western world in the past decade.

Women who use the contraceptive for five years in their twenties are far less likely to develop the illness in their fifties, sixties or seventies, according to the study

Although they cannot fully explain how the drug appears to protect against the illness, one theory is that it contains certain hormones that prevent the growth of tumours.

Around 80 per cent of women in the UK take the contraceptive pill at some point in their lives, with around 3.5million on it at any one time.

For years the safety of the Pill has been under scrutiny after it was linked to breast cancer, blood clots and possibly cervical cancer.

Many stop taking it because of other less severe but unpleasant side effects, such as weight gain and acne.

The consensus among most medical professionals is that, overall, the benefits both for preventing pregnancy and for long-term health outweigh any dangers.

Previous research has shown it protects against ovarian cancer. Cancer of the womb – known as endometrial cancer – most commonly occurs in women after the age of 50, and there are 8,500 cases in the UK every year, leading to 2,000 deaths.

Researchers looked at data on 27,276 women from 36 studies around the world.

Oxford academics calculate that for every five years on the Pill, the risk of womb cancer goes down by a quarter

Oxford academics calculate that for every five years on the Pill, the risk of womb cancer goes down by a quarter

They calculated that the contraceptive Pill had prevented 400,000 cases of womb cancer in Western countries in the past 50 years and 200,000 in a decade.

The findings, which are published in the Lancet Oncology journal, also show that women who took the Pill for ten years in their twenties and thirties were half as likely to develop the illness in their fifties, sixties or seventies.

They estimated that a woman who had never taken the Pill had a 2.3 per cent risk of getting womb cancer before the age of 75. This fell to 1.3 per cent if she had used it for ten years, and still remained low at 1.7 per cent if she had taken it for just five years.

Professor Valerie Beral, from the University of Oxford, said: ‘The strong protective effect of oral contraceptives against endometrial cancer – which persists for decades after stopping the Pill – means that women who use it when they are in their twenties or even younger continue to benefit into their fifties and older, when cancer becomes more common.

‘Previous research has shown that the Pill also protects against ovarian cancer. People used to worry that the Pill might cause cancer, but in the long term the Pill reduces the risk of getting cancer.’

Dr Naomi Allen, also from the University of Oxford, said: ‘The existing evidence suggests that medium-to-long-term use of oral contraceptives results in substantially reduced risk of endometrial cancer.

‘Over the past 50 years we estimate that about 400,000 endometrial cancers have been prevented in women before the age of 75 years in high-income countries through the use of oral contraceptives, with about 200,000 prevented during the last decade.’