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New drug product promises end to menstruation

Posted on May 23rd 2007 11:30AM by Brian White

Filed Under: Womens Health, Diet & Weight Loss

After reading Bethany's post on this the other day, I was quite intrigued: no more periods for women? In the race to always create a new and exciting product to attach itself to an existing medical problem, here's one for the non-natural books. The first-ever pill meant to control birth by stopping a woman's monthly periods has been approved the the FDA.

It's true that this kind of pill can stop periods -- thereby eliminating pregnancies indefinitely -- is probably the closest thing to 100% birth control effectiveness we've ever seen. At what cost?

Lybrel (the drug's name) is being planned for a July release, and studies show it is as effective as current birth control methods. I thought it would have been more effective, honestly. So, are you ready to buck what comes naturally and stop having periods? If there's pain, cramps and hot flashes involved, you just might be.

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Tags: menstruation, menstruation drug, MenstruationDrug

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Christi 5-23-2007 @ 12:32PM

Quote: It's true that this kind of pill can stop periods -- thereby eliminating pregnancies indefinitely -- is probably the closest thing to 100% birth control effectiveness we've ever seen. At what cost?

Response: There's nothing about periods in and of themselves that relate to pregnancy. The endometrium can build up and shed or, not build up and not have anything to shed for any number of reasons. Women who've been trying to conceive and have realized that their "periods" were really early miscarriages can attest to there being no correlation between not bleeding and not being pregnant. What really prevents pregnancy -- how hormonal birth control really works -- is the prevention of ovulation and the lighter, shorter periods (to the point of them not happening at all as in the case of Lybrel) are really just a side effect.

To be nitpicky and technical: Technically, it's not a menstrual period unless it happens during a menstrual cycle and because hormonal birth control methods prevent ovulation, it's not really a menstrual cycle. The bleeding that women experience on HBC are really withdrawal periods where the drop in hormones (caused by the placebo pills or not taking pills at all) causes the endometrium to shed.

Also, a small percentage of women have already been taking pills and skipping the placebo pills to stop their periods. Lybrel is just the first pill to get FDA approval for what some women have already been donig. There's nothing radically new happening here, it's just that the idea of having no periods is now going mainstream.

To get to the heart of the debate, this is really about determining whether or not the endometrium really needs to be shed in the absence of ovulation.

Christi 5-23-2007 @ 1:21PM

Oh and...

Quote: So, are you ready to buck what comes naturally and stop having periods?

Response: Women on hormonal birth control are already bucking what comes naturally by not ovulating. Though, it is up for debate whether having so many ovulations in a lifetime is natural for women considering that in the past adult women were either pregnant or nursing and in general led very stressful lives. Although, the flip side is that pregnancy and nursing are much more stressful on the body than menstruation.