How the Pill could help save women’s bones

TAKING the Pill regularly may protect women from bone fractures.

When researchers from the University of Paris and other centres analysed the medical records of nearly 13,000 women from 135 GP surgeries around the UK, they found that those taking the Pill were 20 per cent less likely to have had a fracture, with the effect increasing with the length of time the Pill was used, according to the journal Osteoporosis International.

One theory is that the hormones oestrogen and progesterone in the Pill stop the osteoblasts — cells involved in the growth of new bone — dying; and this strengthens bone.