By Mackey K. Smythe
Ladies Home Journal

Some old misperceptions die hard. Take the Pill: Many people still worry about this birth control metho's link to breast cancer and heart attack --concerns that really haven't been valid for decades. In fact, the latest research does more than confirm the Pill's safety: It suggests that the drug may be one of the most powerful preventive medicines around. In the years after 1960, when the Pill was introduced, use of the contraceptive was found to pose serious health hazards. But back then the Pill had about five times more estrogen and ten times more progestin than today's formulations. A recent analysis of virtually every study addressing the breast-cancer issue found that lower-dose Pill use does not increase a woman's risk of disease. As long as you don't smoke and are otherwise healthy, you can probably safely take today's Pill until menopause. But it is our growing understanding of the Pill's health benefits that is prompting more doctors to prescribe it, even when it isn't needed for birth control. Being on the Pill for as little as one year cuts risk of ovarian cancer by about 40 percent and uterine cancer by 40 to 50 percent. And the benefits mount the longer you take it. After a decade, for example, a Pill user's risk of ovarian cancer is 80 percent lower than a nonuser's. "I don't know of any other prescription I can write that will cut a woman's risk of a deadly cancer by that amount," says David Grimes, M.D, a clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, in Chapel Hill, N.C. Similarly, the Pill helps prevent uterine fibroids, endometriosis, and ovarian cysts--all noncancerous conditions that can cause pain and infertility. Still other benefits of the Pill include fewer acne flare-ups, less-painful periods, protection against pelvic inflammatory disease and a reduction in ectopic pregnancies.