Pill may reduce women's libido

Published: 4:49PM Monday June 13, 2005 Source: AAP

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Taking oral contraceptives may result in permanent loss of libido even after a woman stops taking the pill, according to research at a US sexual dysfunction clinic.
  
It has long been known that most women suffer a reduction in libido while taking the pill, but the study published in New Scientist is the first to suggest the effect could be permanent.
  
"There's the possibility it is imprinting a woman for the rest of her life," lead researcher Irwin Goldstein told the US scientific journal.
  
The team under Goldstein and Claudia Panzer of the University of Boston in Massachusetts studied 125 young women, of whom 62 were on the pill, 40 had taken the pill but had stopped and 23 had never taken oral contraception.
  
The pill is known to reduce levels of testosterone - a hormone linked to sex drive in both men and women. Apart from reducing libido, the pill is also linked to muted or absent orgasm and painful intercourse.
  
Oral contraception also raises levels of sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG), which blocks the effects of testosterone.
  
The Boston team measured SHBG levels in the women. They found that those on the pill had level seven times that in women who had never taken oral contraception.
  
Significantly, they also found that SHBG levels in women who had previously taken the pill but had stopped were three to four times higher than in those who had never taken the pill.
  
Some 100 million women worldwide are thought to take the pill.
 

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