Women on hormonal contraceptives have reduced perseverance on cognitive tasks | Hacker News Reader

Women on hormonal contraceptives have reduced perseverance on cognitive tasks

psypost.org

Fifty years from now we're going to look back on medicines prescription rates of hormone and brain altering drugs and (understanding the repercussions better) liken it to doctors prescribing cocaine, heroin, amphetamines, like candy in the early 1900s.

Oh, it’s all just in their heads. In case of the pill, the very first study on it [1] claims that “side reactions” are “in large measure psychogenic” so “means for dealing with them may be devised”.

Unfortunately it’s 2020 and I can imagine too well how seriously these women’s reports of “side reactions” were taken.

[1] Pincus, Garcia, Rock (1959): Effectiveness of an oral contraceptive.

All medicines balance on a knife's edge when it comes to benefits vs side-effects. Even water is dangerous if one drinks too much. Birth control is no different. The pill made it possible for women to decide when they wanted to have children. That's an immense benefit.

What's important is that the side-effects are known by the individuals that take the medicine.

It’s the “like candy” part. People are on antidepressants, anti-ADHD, hormonal birth control constantly for years and much longer than these meds were tested in clinical studies. Some severe side effects are downplayed or ignored if they only develop after this long-term use. Women in particular are often not taken seriously by practitioners, check out current lawsuits surrounding hormonal IUDs (mentioned side effects include heavy migraines that happen to end up in dangerous intracranial hypertension in many). Gynecologists don’t even check for a family history of thrombosis when handing out the pill.

Alternative solutions that don’t involve selling pills for years are underexplored to the point that research is actively prohibited (e.g. psychedelics against addictions or depression).

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