.gif)
Women who have taken the contraceptive pill can expect to live longer and are less likely to die from any cause, including cancer and heart disease, one of the world's largest studies of the pill has found.
UK researchers said their study, which should reassure many millions of women across the world who have taken oral birth control pills, found no link between the drugs and an increased long-term risk of dying sooner.
"The results of this study are enormously reassuring and suggest that in the longer term the health benefits of the contraceptive pill outweigh any risks," Richard Anderson of Edinburgh University and the Medical Research Council human reproductive sciences unit, who was not involved in the study, said.
The research, published in the British Medical Journal on Friday, followed 46,000 women for nearly 40 years, creating "more than a million woman-years" of observation, according to Philip Hannaford from Aberdeen University, who led the study.
The results showed that in the longer term, women who used oral contraception had a significantly lower rate of death from any cause, including heart disease and all cancers, compared with women who had never taken it.
But the scientists said their findings may only be true for women who have taken older-style pills rather than those on more modern types of drugs, since their study began in 1968.
