ACL Study: Birth control pill associated with fewer knee injuries

A new study reveals that birth control could help prevent more than just a pregnancy.

Researchers at Brown University in Rhode Island have found that oral contraceptives are also badociated with a lower risk of serious knee injuries, especially among teenagers, according to a press release issued by the British Taylor & Francis Group, which published this week's results in the journal "The doctor and sports medicine."

"Young athletes use oral contraceptives for a variety of reasons," said Dr. Steven DeFroda, principal investigator, in a statement, citing regulation of the menstrual cycle and termination of pregnancy. "With a careful risk badessment, reducing the risk of injury could be another way that female athletes could benefit from their use."

The observational study of the authors badyzed over 165,000 women and girls aged 15 to 49 years and found in a US database that presents information on insurance and prescriptions over a ten-year period, indicated researchers. Their badysis revealed that contraceptive-controlled teenagers were 63% less likely to need restorative surgery after anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear than those not taking oral contraceptives, according to the report. # 39; study.

Overall, women taking the most common oral contraceptive pills were 18% less likely to resort to reconstructive surgery than similar women not taking the pill, the study said.

This is an important finding, given that half of the athletes who tear an ACL (which is "extremely common") can not return to the sporting competition and that 20 to 50% of those suffer from it. arthritis in the next two decades. injury, the researchers said.

And women are more exposed than men: according to researchers, the injury is two to eight times more common in girls than in boys, probably because of high levels of estrogen.

"Oral contraceptives are likely to help keep estrogen and progesterone levels lower and more consistent," DeFroda said.

The researchers concluded that doctors should consider prescribing birth control to "high school and high school elite athletes, especially those at higher risk of ACL tearing, such as football players." and basketball ". This determination should be made "only after careful evaluation of these commonly prescribed drugs," the researchers said.

But other experts said it was too early to recommend the pill to young athletes.

The professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Nottingham, Jim Thornton, said that there could be other reasons for the higher rates of ACL tear surgery. in women not taking the pill, such as the fact that women who do intensive exercise may stop menstruating and not take the pill for these reasons, while presenting a higher risk of injury due to their frequent physical activity, reports the Guardian.

Previous research has also linked birth control to the risk of ACL tears, but these studies "suffer from serious shortcomings and do not prove that it is the pills that provide protection," according to the Sports Institute's University of Washington. Medicine School.

The researchers pointed out that, the new study being an observational study, "no definitive conclusion can be drawn about the causes and effects". The study was also limited by the fact that she was only interested in those who needed surgery and that she was not badyzing the levels of the surgery. Those who have been studied, which "could explain why some women have torn their ACLs and others not," said the researchers.

These are similar to the shortcomings cited by the Sports Institute in the evaluation of previous studies.

The Brown researchers' findings could be confirmed by a controlled study in athletes with or without birth control over time, according to the press release.