Birth Control Pills Might Make Women Risk-Takers: Study Finds

Forget alcohol — birth control pills could lower your inhibitions.

New research out of Canada suggests daily contraceptives could thin regions of the brain responsible for decision-making and impulse control.

This explains a lot…

Nearly two-thirds of women between the ages of 15 to 49 take oral contraception and a new study analyzed the effects of such medication on the brain…

Specifically, the researchers from Montreal investigated the role of naturally and synthetically produced hormones on how fear is processed.

We know that there are physical side effects to medications, but not much is known about how the pill impacts the brain.

They enlisted 139 women, ages 23 to 35, who were using oral contraceptives at the time, who had stopped taking the pill, or who had never used hormonal birth control, as well as 41 men.

Compared to the men, the women on birth control had “a thinner ventromedial prefrontal cortex,” which is responsible for “emotion regulation, such as decreasing fear signals” in safe situations.

The thinning could mean an impairment of emotional regulation, researchers noted.

However, it appears the thinning could be reversed once consumption of the pill stops since the former birth control users did not demonstrate the same results.

So next time you’re out with a chic who does something fearless- it’s not her fault- it’s the pill’s…