What else the pill can do for you: you know oral contraceptives help prevent pregnancy. But here are five other body benefits, from fewer monthly periods to cancer prevention - Health

Shape, Jan, 2003 by Kristyn Kusek

Besides helping to prevent pregnancy, the pill provides some not-so-obvious health advantages. While some of the noncontraceptive benefits of the pill have been known for years, recent research is uncovering a host of ways that taking oral contraceptives might help your body. (Nevertheless, note that some women shouldn't take the pill. Smokers over age 35 and women with a history of blood clots, hormonally sensitive breast and ovarian cancers, stroke, liver disease, heart attack, untreated high blood pressure or uterine bleeding should use other forms of contraception.) Read on to learn about some of the more surprising ways that the pill could help your health.

1. Fewer monthly periods

"There is absolutely no reason why women need to menstruate every month," says Mary Jane Minkin, M.D., clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn. The pill is currently designed With 21 hormone-containing pills and seven "fake" placebo pills. When you take the placebo pills, it brings on menstruation, explains Patricia J. Sulak, M.D., a professor at Texas A&M College of Medicine, director of the division of ambulatory care and director of the sex education program in the department of obstetrics/gynecology at the Scott & White Clinic/Hospital in Temple, Texas. But by skipping the dummy pills and simply continuing to take the hormone pills, you can completely eliminate having a period -- and the discomfort that may accompany it. "By decreasing the number of days off of the pill, women may have fewer menstrual migraines, bloating and PMS-related symptoms such as breast tenderness," Sulak explains. In addition, women with heavy menstrual bleeding expe rience less anemia by skipping monthly periods, and endometriosis sufferers benefit by cutting down the frequency of painful periods.

Gynecologists generally agree that women can safely take pills continuously for two to three months at a stretch. (However, there are exceptions. A new book on the subject, No More Periods: The Risks of Menstrual Suppression and Other Cutting-Edge Issues in Women's Reproductive Health, by Susan Rako, M.D., will be published by Crown in April.) But after seven to eight weeks, some women experience breakthrough bleeding which, while harmless, obviously can be bothersome.

Before you use the pill to skip monthly periods, speak to your gynecologist. In the future, there may even be a pill designed for this purpose: Researchers at Eastern Virginia Medical School are developing an oral contraceptive called Seasonale that would reduce the number of menstrual cycles users have to only four a year. Seasonale is currently in clinical trials, and researchers hope it will be available to women later this year.

2. A clearer complexion

Many women who take the pill find that one of its positive effects is clearer skin. To understand how oral contraceptives can prevent pimples, it helps to know how they affect your hormone levels. Your body produces three hormones: estrogen, progesterone and androgen (known as testosterone in men), primarily from the ovaries. When you take the pill, you essentially put your ovaries to sleep, Minkin explains, and one of the effects is that you make less androgen.

This "male" hormone is responsible for the production of sebum, the oil in your skin that contributes to acne. So taking the pill means less androgen and, in turn, less sebum, resulting in clearer skin in some women.

You may have seen advertisements on the acne-reduction benefits of Ortho Tri-Cyclen, one type of birth-control pill. While other pills may work equally well in helping clear up your skin, the company that makes Ortho Tri-Cyclen is the only one that has received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to advertise the claim. "In Canada, all oral contraceptives are indicated to help acne. We just don't have government consent to say the same thing about all pills in the U.S.," says David F. Archer, M.D., director of the Contraceptive Research and Development Clinical Research Center at the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine in Norfolk, Va.

3. Reduced risk of certain reproductive cancers

Strong evidence suggests that the pill protects against some female cancers. "Women who use the pill for at least one year have reduced risk for endometrial and ovarian cancers for up to 15 years," Archer says. Moreover, women who use the pill for at least 10 years lower their overall risk for ovarian cancer by 80 percent and endometrial cancer by 60 percent.

Why do oral contraceptives protect? In the case of ovarian cancer, the disease seems to be related to how many times a woman ovulates during her childbearing years -- in other words, the more you ovulate, the higher your risk. Since the pill shuts down ovulation, your chance of developing the disease drops. Endometrial cancer is related to overgrowth of the endometrium, or uterine lining. The pill slows this growth, again reducing risk.

Aside from reproductive-cancer prevention, the pill also lowers your chances of developing endometriosis, ovarian cysts and pelvic inflammatory disease. Some studies have suggested that the pill could even protect against colorectal cancer.