Search icon

Health

27th Aug 2019

There’s no evidence to suggest the pill makes you gain weight, says study

Jade Hayden

contraceptive pills

This changes everything.

A new study has said that there is no evidence to suggest that taking the contraceptive pill makes you gain weight.

Research from the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare (FSRH) shows that women of reproductive age tend to gain the same amount of weight regardless of whether they’re on the pill or not.

Weight gain is often cited as a common side effect of the contraceptive pill, with many people opting to avoid the pill for this reason.

The study has said that there is “no evidence” to suggest that this is the case.

“While some users of contraception gain weight during use, there is no evidence that use of intrauterine contraception, the etonogestrel implant, the progestogen-only pill or combined hormonal contraception causes significant weight gain,” reads the study.

“On average, women of reproductive age tend to gain weight over time whether they use any contraceptive method or not.”

The study considered women using either intrauterine contraception, the etonogestrel implant, the progestogen-only pill or combined hormonal contraception.

It showed that the weight gain among these women was extremely varied.

The progestogen-only injectable depo-medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA) was associated with some weight gain in women under the age of 18 with a certain BMI, however there was no evidence to suggest that any other weight gain was directly related to the contraceptives.

Rather, “women who gain more than five percent of their baseline body weight in the first six months of use may be more likely to experience continued weight gain.”

So basically, if you’re gaining weight, you’re just gaining weight.

That’s it.

This comes after new guidelines from the NHS showed that there are no benefits to taking a seven day break from the oral contraceptive pill.

Rather, it was revealed that the pill can be taken every day of the month without any side effects.