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Is your period obsolete? No-period pill slated for approval

Categories: Womens Health, Diet & Weight Loss, Reviews & Products

Our male readers likely quit reading after the headline, so fellow females, it should be just us girls in here. And I have a question to ask you: What do you make of the new "no-period" pill Lybrel?

The pill, whose name looks to be a funky phonetic spelling of liberal and is meant to make you think "liberty," is set to be approved by the FDA soon. Traditional birth control pills have women take a 7-day dose of sugar pills after three weeks on the drug, to mimic a women's cycle. Though it seems like you're having a "period," I've read that actually that 7-day break is only there to mimic your cycle and make you feel more comfortable. The period your having has no function at all. That's perhaps why drug makers have been creating drugs that cut back periods more and more. First there were drugs like Yaz that shortened periods to three days or less, then Seasonique cut them back to four times a year. Lybrel promises to eliminate them altogether (although 18% of women in trials reported breakthrough bleeding, so I'm not sure that promise will hold up.)In any case, are periods really obsolete? The majority opinion seems to be saying yes, that periods are merely a biological sign that you aren't pregnant, and if you don't need that monthly message you don't need your period. But at least one health psychologist, Paula Derry -- who wrote an opinion piece on the subject in the British Medical Journal -- disagrees, saying that periods are a necessary biological function. Derry says that the hormones that are "turned off" by taking Lybrel have a greater purpose than just causing a monthly period and is concerned that there are no long-term assurances of safety.

The decision to manage ones monthly cycle is obviously a very personal decision, but I'm curious to hear your thoughts. What do you think of Lybrel? Would you take it and be happy to be rid of the monthly inconvenience, or do you think turning off a woman's period is unnatural and potentially unsafe?

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