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" What&amp;#039;s riskier, candy or birth control? Surprise: A diet high in sugar makes you almost 300 percent more likely to have a heart attack \u2014 more than three times than the Pill does. Birth control gets a bad rap. Your mom remembers the risks associated with pills she took decades ago. Headlines blare out alarming stats. And the rumor mill \u2014 your friends, yoga teacher, Facebook feed \u2014 perpetuates the fear. Cosmo pinpoints the actual risks of hormonal contraception, which are real but rarer than you&amp;#039;d think. 1. Will birth control pills spike my risk for heart attack? Reality Check: Recently, the Internet exploded with stories touting the findings from a New England Journal of Medicine study that suggested oral contraceptives containing both estrogen and progestin could increase a woman&amp;#039;s risk for a heart attack or stroke by as much as 80 percent, possibly because of estrogen content. But context is everything. &amp;quot;Even if you&amp;#039;re on a combination pill, your risk for stroke or heart attack is still 100 times less than 1 percent if you&amp;#039;re young and have no additional risk factors,&amp;quot; says Margaret Polaneczky, MD, associate professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology at Weill Cornell Medical College. &amp;quot;These large, in-depth studies should give women some peace of mind because they prove how safe these contraceptives are.&amp;quot; Bottom Line: Unless you have diabetes, heart disease, or hypertension \u2014 in which case you may want to discuss other birth control options with your MD to avoid compounding your risk \u2014 there&amp;#039;s no reason to go off your combination pill if you&amp;#039;re happy with it. 2. Is the Pill linked to breast cancer? Reality Check: Some research has suggested that oral contraceptives may slightly increase your risk for breast cancer (from yearly odds of 1 in 4,000 to 1 in 2,700). But &amp;quot;the risk is extremely low, and young women \u2014 those most likely to be on the Pill \u2014 have the lowest rates of these cancers, so your actual risk is even lower,&amp;quot; says Dr. Polaneczky. &amp;quot;Any elevated risk disappears when you stop taking the Pill, so you don&amp;#039;t set yourself up for developing cancer later on by preventing pregnancy now.&amp;quot; Plus, evidence shows that birth control pills lower your risk for colon cancer, cut your odds of uterine cancer in half, and reduce your chances of getting ovarian cancer by as much as 80 percent, Dr. Polaneczky says. Bottom Line: Even if you have a history of breast cancer in your family, you don&amp;#039;t need to toss your pills. &amp;quot;In fact, we often recommend that BRCA carriers take them since it can reduce the risk for ovarian cancer, which women with the gene [mutations] are at a greater risk of developing,&amp;quot; says Dr. Polaneczky. 3. Doesn&amp;#039;t the Ring cause deadly blood clots? Reality Check: For a woman of childbearing age, the annual risk of having a serious blood clot is 1 in 5,000. If you&amp;#039;re on birth control with estrogen, that number goes up to 1 in 1,000. That&amp;#039;s definitely a big jump. But consider that your risk of a blood clot during pregnancy is 1 in 340! One study suggested that the blood clot risk is six times higher in NuvaRing users compared with those not using hormonal birth control and two times higher for those taking progestins (gestodene, desogestrel, drospirenone) that are used in newer pills (like Yaz and Yasmin). So, why the increase in risk? Estrogen has long been thought to effect the blood-clotting process, plus these newer progestins may inhibit a protein that acts against blood clots, says \u00D8jvind Lidegaard, MD, study author and professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Copenhagen. Bottom Line: &amp;quot;If you have a family history of blood clots or strokes, consider non-estrogen birth control methods to avoid further raising your risk,&amp;quot; says Dr. Polaneczky. Already on Yaz? Don&amp;#039;t panic. &amp;quot;Most clots occur in the first year of pill use, so if you&amp;#039;ve been on Yaz or Yasmin that long, you&amp;#039;ve pretty much defined yourself as low-risk and changing to a different pill won&amp;#039;t lower your odds much more,&amp;quot; says Dr. Polaneczky. You can reduce risk by stretching your legs every half hour when you&amp;#039;re in a cramped space, like a flight or a long car trip \u2014 and see your doc ASAP if you experience unexplained pain, swelling, redness, or warmth in one or both legs. 4. Will birth control make me catch infections? Reality Check: Women using hormonal contraception are almost twice as likely to carry staph bacteria as women not on it, according to a widely covered study in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. Which sounds terrifying, until you know that carrying bacteria doesn&amp;#039;t mean you&amp;#039;ll get sick. Up to 30 percent of the population carries it, and most never know or have any health problems. &amp;quot;Carrying the bacteria has only been found to be a risk factor for infection among certain hospital patients having serious medical procedures,&amp;quot; says study author Dennis Nurjadi, MD, a researcher at the Institute for Tropical Medicine in Tubingen, Germany. Bottom Line: The study reveals how hormonal levels can impact the immune system. &amp;quot;These hormonal changes are part of a normal, healthy life \u2014 like pregnancy, puberty, and the menstrual cycle,&amp;quot; Dr. Nurjadi says. Quitting the Pill can&amp;#039;t prevent you from being a carrier. The best way to prevent infection? Wash hands with warm water and soap.  5. Does the Shot lead to bone loss? Reality Check: Injectable contraceptives can cause a 1- to 4-percent loss in bone density, raising concerns that women who use it could be at risk for fractures or osteoporosis later in life. Luckily, it appears to be reversible. &amp;quot;Bone density recovers once women stop getting the injections \u2014 and there&amp;#039;s no evidence to suggest that women who get Depo-Provera are more likely to experience fractures or develop osteoporosis,&amp;quot; says Anne Burke, MD, associate professor of gynecology and obstetrics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Bottom Line: The benefits of Depo-Provera far outweigh the risk of bone loss, especially for women with polycystic ovaries, endometriosis, or heavy periods, who often find the shot is the only thing that helps them. &amp;quot;The only women I would not prescribe it to are those with an eating disorder, as they may have a greater risk for brittle bones,&amp;quot; says Dr. Burke. 6. Can an IUD puncture your uterus? Reality Check: While lawsuit ads imply IUDs have left thousands of women with punctured uteruses, the research tells a different story. IUD perforation rates are just 0.4 per 1,000 insertions, and no brand has a higher rate than any other. Perforation happens when the IUD is placed \u2014 usually causing lower abdominal pain and sometimes bleeding \u2014 and doctors usually catch it right away. &amp;quot;They remove the IUD, then wait a week for your uterus to heal before inserting another one,&amp;quot; says Dr. Burke. &amp;quot;If it&amp;#039;s not immediately recognized, some perforations may require laparoscopic surgery \u2014 a minimally invasive surgery where a tiny camera is used to help fish out the IUD.&amp;quot; Bottom Line: &amp;quot;Perforation is extremely rare, and it&amp;#039;s even more rare that it will lead to any severe or lasting complications or affect your future fertility,&amp;quot; says Dr. Burke. Still, you can minimize your risk by finding a medical provider who has a lot of experience inserting IUDs and scheduling a follow-up visit four to six weeks after to make sure everything is in the right place. 7. Could the Pill really cause blindness? Reality Check: No, birth control pills won&amp;#039;t make you go blind. But the risk for developing glaucoma \u2014 an eye disease that could lead to blindness if untreated \u2014 rises from 2.5 percent in the general population to 5 percent in women who take oral contraceptives for more than three years, according to research from the University of California at San Francisco. &amp;quot;The release of estrogen in women appears to protect against damage to the nerve cells in the eye that leads to glaucoma \u2014 but birth control pills suppress this estrogen release, which may make you slightly more vulnerable to the eye disease,&amp;quot; says study author Shan Lin, MD, director of Glaucoma Service at UCSF. Bottom Line: &amp;quot;If you&amp;#039;ve used the Pill for longer than three years and you&amp;#039;re worried, you can get a baseline eye exam for glaucoma and have follow-up appointments as suggested by your doctor,&amp;quot; says Dr. Lin. 8. Does Essure cause debilitating pain? Reality Check: Essure is a bendable coil inserted into the fallopian tubes, creating scar tissue that permanently prevents pregnancy. It is touted as a cheaper, nonsurgical alternative to tying your tubes. As of March 2014, the FDA had received 2,120 claims of chronic pain, hemorrhaging, and other issues with the procedure \u2014 but that&amp;#039;s out of about 750,000 women who&amp;#039;ve used it. The FDA stands by Essure, although the packaging warns against it if you have an unusually shaped uterus (your doctor can tell) or a nickel allergy, as trace amounts in the coils may cause rashes for those with sensitivity to the metal. It&amp;#039;s also possible that Essure may not cause the pain. &amp;quot;When women are sterilized, they stop taking birth-control pills, which may have controlled pelvic pain and menstrual cramps,&amp;quot; says Mary Jane Minkin, MD, clinical professor of OB-GYN at Yale University School of Medicine. Bottom Line: Ask your MD for a nickel-allergy test. If she does not recommend Essure, consider equally effective birth control methods, like an implant (which lasts three years) or an IUD (which can last up to 12 years). This article was originally published as &amp;quot;What&amp;#039;s Riskier, Candy or Birth Control?&amp;quot; in the July 2014 issue of Cosmopolitan. Click here to subscribe to the digital edition! RELATED: 24 Things Twentysomethings Need to Know About Their Health How to Treat the 4 Most Common Sex Injuries 9 Things Every Women Needs To Know About Sexual Health Photo credit: Studio D "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/confessions/advice/a7096/birth-control-myths/>