New research by the University of California, Irvine, suggests that the popular birth conrol pill may be interfering with the way women remember information and details.
Experts found that women taking oral birth control – which lowers estrogen and progesterone levels in order to prevent pregnancy – remember incidents differently from those with natural menstrual cycles. In other words, while emotional impact is retained, smaller details tend to be forgotten.
The study analyzed how women taking the Pill remembered a car accident compared with those who did not take it. Those using the Pill clearly remembered the traumatic event, including injuries and outcome, but failed to retain specifics of the scene, such as a fire hydrant standing next to the car.
Though aspects of the accident may have been remembered differently, experts emphasize that the Pill in no way damages or detracts from a woman’s memory.
Researcher Shawn Nielsen explained that few studies have explored the cognitive effects of the pill despite its use by more than 100 million worldwide and that the findings – published in the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory journal – may also explain why males often remember details differently than their female counterparts.
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