There’s No Such Thing As Safe Birth Control
Putting this psyop to sleep once and for all.
My conversations with functional medicine practitioners have led me to believe one thing about hormones:
Birth control has to be the biggest scam on the health market after skinny teas.
The side effects of most contraceptive methods — oral or internal — are not worth the stress. Longtime and loyal readers may remember the recent article I wrote about my wife’s IUD and subsequent cardiac struggles as a result of an errant prescription of spironolactone to quell acne.
Thankfully, she’s recently removed her IUD (no, we’re not trying for kids yet) and is tracking her natural cycles through her Oura ring.
When I wrote the title of this newsletter, I didn’t mean “safe” in terms of their ability to protect from pregnancy. Most contraceptives will prevent pregnancy with a nearly 100% success rate.
I’m talking about the side effects that come from using birth control. If you’re not using condoms, the inherent health risks that come with IUDs are not worth it.
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Why IUDs and Oral Contraceptives Should Be Reevaluated (And Possibly Avoided At All Costs)
I hadn’t put the pieces together for many of my female clients until this year.
We trained hard. I put them through concurrent strength and moderate intensity conditioning sessions. By my guesstimates (and their Apple Watch readings), we were likely burning anywhere from 350-600 calories during a strength training session.
The after effects of those intense sessions — increased EPOC, or an uptick in calorie burn, and faster metabolic flushing — was not happening the way it should have.
I felt as though I was doing something wrong as a trainer.
Did my UCLA Degree exercise science fail me? Did I miss something in the module on thermogenesis?
Why when my female clients trained progressively harder month over month and restricted calories did they not lose any weight!?
At first I thought…
It’s entirely possible that they’re putting on muscle at the same rate that they’re losing fat. Maybe I’m doing too much strength training with them and not enough cardio.
But then…
If we do too much cardio, then I’d be worried about their cortisol spiking, and their hormones being out of whack.
When I told these clients the first idea, it seemed to make sense to them, but body dysmorphia is a b*tch.
Looking in the mirror and not feeling like they were getting more fit was the problem.
And maybe it wasn’t body dysmorphia.
Maybe my second point was more on the money.
It turns out hormones were the problem after all, but not for the reason I thought.
Oral birth control and IUDs held up at least five of my clients’ weight loss progress for months.
I still feel the guilt of not referring them out to my friend Olivia sooner. But how could I have known?
Much of what we know about birth control and it’s harmful effects on the gut, hormones, and overall levels of inflammation is still being figured out.
But here’s what we know.
Oral Contraceptives
While incredibly effective at preventing pregnancy, oral birth control has a host downstream side effects that simply aren’t worth it.
I know doctors are gonna hate me for this post, but knowing what I know about the drawbacks now has me convinced it’s no longer a viable option for women.
A quick Mayo Clinic scan of side effects shows a laundry list of potential things that sound like those clinical trial drug commercials with smiling old people.
You know, the one where they pay the narrators to speak so fast that you can barely keep up with all of the conditions their listing?
Yeah, it’s that bad.
Breast tenderness, irregular, bleeding, bloating, weight gain, decreased libido, and raised blood pressure all stick out.
None of these coincide with being productive in the gym.
Hell, I’m a guy reading this, and if I had just one or two of these issues, I can’t imagine how unmotivated I’d be to train.
You’re telling me women are supposed to spend years on this at a time, build a career for themselves, find a partner, THEN get off it and have a kid after the above side effects have wreaked havoc on their health for years prior?
It’s likely that none of the side effects just disappear when you stop oral contraceptives, either.
Not listed on the typical Google search are things like elevated TSH, FSH, and LH levels, hormones which we’ve discussed in previous episodes and can be reviewed if you’re a paid subscriber.
in short, for the freebies, know that having these hormones elevated in blood work means it’s not good for your immune system, and it’s definitely not good for your overall health, even pre-pregnancy.
Something that I feel is worth noting here:
Despite the harm that oral contraceptives cause to a woman’s body while taking them, studies have shown that they have no direct effect on miscarriages.
We can’t use that as a steel man in favor of contraceptives, though.
Among women who do have miscarriages, being overweight is one of the top causes, along with chromosomal defects and infections.
So why, then, would a woman take that risk and take a pill cause her to gain weight for years on end?
Make it make sense.
IUDS
Intra-Uterine Devices are even more effective (99% success rate) I’m preventing pregnancy, but they also don’t come without their flaws.
Hormonal IUDS causes many of the side effects of oral contraceptives, and can even lead to internal bleeding or ovarian cysts.
Is this the case with every IUD? Certainly not.
While my wife’s IUD story above was not directly the fault of the IUD, the clearly unnatural thing removed from her body solved most of her problems.
There is, of course, the copper IUD, which seems to be one of the most benign contraceptives out there, depending on who you ask.
I can’t write a full newsletter hit piece on contraceptives without mentioning what good ones there are.
But, as with any intervention, you’ll have a wide range of experiences with them, some very good, and some very bad.
Take these two Reddit threads.
One the prices of copper IUDs, only noting heavy periods as the worst side effects.
I’m happy for those who have pleasant experiences with them, but the thread seems to suggest that more people need to talk nicely about them because Reddit seems to be a place where only bad experiences live.
By contrast, this thread shows some examples of women who either gained weight or stagnated at their weight with copper IUDs.
Many in the same thread also lost weight after switching off of other contraceptives, but another side effect not mentioned in the above thread are the severe cramps and possibility of rupturing that copper IUDs have.
Again, we see a scenario where it’s not malignant to the point of scorn, but it begs the question: why take the risk?
IUD manufacturers like Kyleena and Mirena currently have outstanding lawsuits against them for many of these side effects and the resulting internal damage that they’ve caused, but I’ll let you guys do the googling there and decide for yourselves what’s best.
In summary:
I was the beneficiary of an IUD for years, and I figured that nothing was wrong in my wife’s body because of it.
But I was wrong.
And I was also very wrong about my clients, how to treat them and, which questions to ask when it came to my initial intake with them.
I’m smarter about the side effects and inflammatory reactions contraceptives can have, and wouldn’t recommend anyone use them if they’re trying to make a dramatic change in their health.
These contraceptives, in both forms, stagnate progress in key areas from a hormonal perspective that make them counterintuitive for good longevity.
I’m sympathetic to the fact that getting pregnant early or accidentally is inconvenient, and this is not a call for people to start having babies at a younger age.
But it is a call for more awareness, more questions for your primary care, provider, and more diligence when it comes to getting your blood work done.