Hormonal birth control: As bad for you as smoking



Filmmaker and mother Jessica Solce was frustrated by the difficulty of finding healthy, all-natural products for herself and her family. To make it easier, she created the Solarium, which curates trusted, third-party-tested foods, clothing, beauty products, and more — all free of seed oils, endocrine disruptors, carcinogens, and other harmful additives.

In this occasional column she shares recommendations and research she's picked up during her ongoing education in health and wellness.

“Changes in gray and white matter in brains of women taking [oral contraceptives] suggest that OCs have an effect on brain architecture.” —Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology, volume 67, October 2022.

I tried birth control in college. It lasted less than three months, and then I ran for the hills.

Birth control distorts sexual attraction. Women are literally put off the scent of the hunt for the right partner.

I hated how my body was feeling. It was swelling, and my mind was unsettled and lethargic. Luckily I had an old-world mother who always warned me never to take birth control, so I tiptoed into my college experiment with awareness and wariness, hypervigilant for any side effects.

Before we get into exactly why hormonal birth control is systemically wrecking your body and mind — both on a micro (you) and a macro (societal, generational) level — I'm going to skip ahead to the takeaway. This is easily one of the most important things you'll read all week, and I can't risk you clicking off before you finish reading.

Here it is: Ladies, don't use the pill, the patch, or the ring. Or any method of contraception interfering with your body's delicate balance of hormones.

It doesn’t matter if it has some “positive” side effects. Any pharmaceutical intervention will upend your body's natural balance, and whatever the “positive” side effects, they are absolutely overshadowed by the multitude of negative side effects: migraines, anxiety attacks, loss of libido, brain alterations, thrombosis, personality disorders, depression, and cancer.

Your best option, to quote Nancy Reagan, is to just say no.

Of course, the former first lady was talking about illegal drugs. But if we've learned anything in the past couple of decades, it's that the stuff the pharmaceutical companies peddle can be just as bad.

Maybe you've heard this kind of talk linked to the slogan Make America Healthy Again. Even if MAHA is a little too similar to MAGA for your taste, don't buy into the propaganda that ditching birth control is somehow a partisan issue.

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, 29-year-old pop singer Lorde spoke positively about her decision to stop using birth control for the first time since she was fifteen. Still, she felt the need to issue a disclaimer: “I’ve now come to see my decision was maybe some quasi right-wing programming."

RELATED: Lorde and 5 other celebs who broke up with birth control

alex_skp/James Devaney/Joel Nito/Getty Images

Well, if a woman living in tune with her body and not dependent on Big Pharma is right-wing, welcome to the right wing, Lorde. Welcome, all.

Here's what hormonal birth control does in addition to preventing pregnancy.

It changes who you're attracted to

In 2008, 100 women were asked to sniff the shirts of men and rate them by odor, most to least attractive. The results suggested that women on the pill preferred the scent of men with similar MHC genes. MHC genes are crucial to the development of the immune system; offspring of parents with a well-balanced diversity of these genes tend to be more resistant to disease.

By contrast, women not on birth control were drawn to men with dissimilar MHC genes — selecting for offspring with strong immune systems. You're instinctively drawn to a man whose genes fill in what you’re missing — a match that benefits your future children. Incredible, really.

Birth control distorts sexual attraction. Women are literally put off the scent of the hunt for the right partner.

Also, when a woman goes off birth control, she can find herself no longer attracted to her partner’s pheromones.

It messes with our water supply

We in the West love to point out the detrimental environmental effects of automobiles while ignoring the toxic emissions from our own bodies. All of the drugs we consume end up passing through us and right back into the water system.

This pollutes our drinking water as well as the habitats of aquatic animals. Like the herbicide atrazine, estrogen from birth control can wreak havoc on mating cycles, causing intersex conditions, low sperm count, and population collapse.

It increases the risk of cancer

Users of hormonal contraceptives face a 20% to 30% higher risk of breast cancer. And yet most reports tend to dismiss any alarm this figure might raise. This reassuring passage is typical: "Experts say the increased risk is small and the benefits of hormonal contraceptives still outweigh the risks for many people."

Contrast that with the general attitude toward another known cancer risk: smoking cigarettes. Even just five cigarettes a day increases your risk of lung cancer by almost 8%. Once you get up to pack or two a day, that risk rises to something like 25%.

In other words, about the same increased risk as birth control.

When it comes to cigarettes, however, the "experts" sing a different tune: "There’s no 'safe' number of cigarettes you can smoke per day. Any number of cigarettes can increase your risk of developing cancer."

It messes with your brain

A 2019 study found that women who take oral contraception had a significantly smaller hypothalamus than those who don't. The hypothalamus is the region of the brain regulating any number of bodily functions, from sex drive and sleep cycles to appetite and heart rate.

A smaller hypothalamus correlates with depression and decreased emotional regulation.

Vice soon responded with an article "debunking" the study: Yes, birth control alters the structure of the brain, but who's to say that's a bad thing?

Yeah, no thanks.

A 2023 study revealed that women on oral contraceptives did not experience the typical reduction in the stress hormone ACTH after social activities. This suggests that hormonal contraceptives may alter how the body regulates stress and directly causes elevated cortisol levels.

It makes being a teenager exponentially worse

A 2016 Danish study found that females 15 to 19 using oral contraception were likely to be diagnosed with depression at a 70% higher rate than non-users. The patch and vaginal rings had even higher correlation with depression.

Many of those diagnosed go on to take antidepressants, another lifetime prescription keeping them dependent on the pharmaceutical companies.

Still, birth control defenders say there's nothing to see here. In the words of Dr. Cora Breuner, a Seattle pediatrician who chairs the committee on adolescents for the American Academy of Pediatrics, “An unintended and unwanted pregnancy far outweighs all the other side effects that could occur from a contraceptive."

Oh, and taking birth control during adolescence can also disrupt brain development, especially processes related to the fear response.

Could rampant birth control use have anything to do with women's higher rates of anxiety disorders? Seems like a question worth asking.

It gets into breast milk

What we eat goes directly into our breast milk and into our babies. Do we really need a science experiment for this logic? We're advised not to eat too much broccoli because it may give our babies uncomfortable gas.

RELATED: MAHA study unveiled: The truth behind autism

Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

But don’t worry about those drugs you're taking, and have you considered updating your vaccines?

Do you want to fill your babies' bodies with synthetic estrogen or progestin? Logically these synthetic hormones go downstream and directly into our breast milk. If there is a negative risk to my infant’s growth, that is enough warning for me.

We are already aware that oral contraceptives increase chances of cancer and may cause behavioral and personality disorders.

So why is cancer increasing so drastically in children? We actually know. Leukemia is the most common type of cancer in children, and a Scandinavian study found a direct link to birth control.

It messes with your metabolism

Some birth control pills, especially those with certain hormones like androgenic progestins, can negatively affect glucose metabolism, i.e., make it harder for the body to handle sugar. This means blood sugar and insulin levels may spike after eating, which can lead to problems like insulin resistance, a higher chance of developing type 2 diabetes, and heart disease.

It can cause other life-altering side effects

“I would get these migraines that would shock my body into so much pain that I would then have seizures,” said one woman in a 2018 BBC documentary. Also on the menu are anxiety attacks, weight gain, pulmonary embolisms, and blood clots.

Good luck addressing any of these problems. Most doctors aren't trained to recognize birth control side effects, often leading women to seek additional pharmaceutical solutions.

It's coming for men, too

That's right, guys. Thank to the wonders of science, soon all of this can be yours too. Who knows what interesting new effects we'll see when we start tampering with male hormones?

Health begins with the awareness that our bodies are incredibly complex, elegantly constructed systems. My mission with the Solarium is to help us be better stewards of this natural gift.

Lorde and 5 other celebs who broke up with birth control



Move over, ayahuasca.

The hottest new drug among the beautiful people doesn't require a shaman or a week at a posh jungle resort.

Uncut ovulation ... is said to induce feelings of mental clarity, attractiveness, heightened sexual desire, and overall well-being.

Instead, all you need is a set of XX chromosomes.

More and more women are ignoring Big Pharma's shrill "Just Say No" scare tactics and tripping out on their own natural fertility cycles.

The latest acolyte to admit it is pop star Lorde. In an interview with Rolling Stone, the "Royals" singer described going off the pill in 2023, after taking it since she was 15 years old.

"I hadn’t ovulated in 10 years," said Lorde. "And when I ovulated for the first time, I cannot describe to you how crazy it was. One of the best drugs I’ve ever done.”

Uncut ovulation — the period midway through a woman's menstrual cycle during which the ovaries release an egg for potential fertilization — is said to induce feelings of mental clarity, attractiveness, heightened sexual desire, and overall well-being in those who regularly experience it.

Still, the New Zealand-born artist admitted she still grapples with residual shame about participating in a practice that has been linked to the Trump administration's MAHA mandate.

“I’ve now come to see my decision was maybe some quasi right-wing programming."

Such misgivings are a common occurrence in those with strict liberal upbringings.

In many traditionally "sex-positive," Planned Parenthood-going communities, women who decline to disrupt their natural cycles with powerful and unpredictable synthetic hormones are often seen as a threat to "reproductive freedom."

Here are some other famous female faces who've opened up about getting off on not chemically neutering themseves!

Annie Murphy

Araya Doheny/Getty Images

First prescribed the pill "no questions asked" at 16, the "Schitt's Creek" star eventually realized it had been causing intense mood swings for years. "I would have goblin days where I just didn't even recognize myself; I was feeling really, really sad, really down, really anxious."

Hailey Baldwin Bieber

Taylor Hill/Getty Images

The model, socialite, and wife of Justin Bieber stopped taking the pill after she had to be hospitalized for a "mini-stroke" in 2022 at age 25. She later took to the media to share a valuable lesson: "Having a stroke is a potential side effect from birth control pills."

Natalie Portman

Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images

In a speech at her alma mater Harvard's 2015 graduation ceremony, the actress recalled some "pretty dark moments" during her own student days, thanks in part to "birth-control pills that have since been taken off the market for their depressive side effects."

Khloé Kardashian

Andreas Rentz/Getty Images

The protein popcorn mogul went off the pill in 2017 after a doctor told her she had fewer ovarian follicles — key markers of fertility — than healthy women her age.

Nicole Bendayan

The Washington Post

The health and nutrition influencer was prescribed hormonal birth control at 16 but eventually stopped after years of doctors dismissing her concerns about side effects she was experiencing. "I would get yeast infections almost every month, recurring UTIs, feelings of anxiety and depression, low libido, and in the last three or four years I would bleed after sex ... every single time."

It Took Me Only 30 Seconds To Order Deadly Abortion Pills In A State Where They’re Illegal

Like an Amazon for abortion pills, Plan C proudly boasts it can help users obtain 'pills by mail in every state.'

Planned Parenthood Oral Arguments Will Further Expose Abortion Giant’s Filth

Planned Parenthood has used the massive government funding it receives to promote abortion while financially starving its “clinics."

Why Is Fertility-Tracking App Natural Cycles Promoting Abortion To Pregnant Women?

My friend told Natural Cycles she was expecting a baby. The app responded with a plug for abortion.

Want to win women over to conservatism? Take a cue from Ivanka Trump



There’s no question that November was the “dudes rock” election.

After President Trump took his college-age son Barron's advice and took his message to a bunch of comedic, manosphere-adjacent podcasts, the young male demo turned out for him in droves.

On 'Skinny Confidential,' Ivanka preached female empowerment without invoking cringey, feminist victimhood or posing family as an obstacle to women’s success.

While Trump also saw a 7% jump in votes from young women, the gender gap that's been dogging the GOP since the 1980s persists. The female vote simply remains elusive to Republicans.

The wrong approach

Why? One theory is that conservative outreach to women has been ineffective because it has applied a heavy political hand instead of an inspirational, nurturing, and creative one. From a marketing standpoint, the secret to winning women may be to play a sisterly role, as exemplified by Ivanka Trump’s recent appearance on popular female-focused podcast, "Skinny Confidential."

In the episode, the poised, business-savvy Trump daughter revealed intimate details of her childhood as well as insight on her life as a mother and entrepreneur.

Ivanka also praised her own mother, Ivana. “She really was this unbelievable role model for what a working woman could be, almost in mythological terms,” she said. “She was impossibly glamorous, while also being a working woman at a time when there were many, many more barriers, much higher expectations, for both her in a boardroom context, much less forgivable absences for a school play or a doctor’s appointment …”

To illustrate the point, Ivanka recounted a childhood memory of her mother strutting through a casino construction site.

“She points like one perfectly lacquered finger up to the sky and doesn’t even tilt her head, at least in my memory, and says to the general manager: ‘There’s a light bulb out.’ And I look up and there’s more lights than there are stars in the sky.”

To the podcast’s many female viewers, this was an aspirational story of a fabulous woman of refinement, intelligence, and confidence — traits we all hope to develop.

'Daddy' issues

It was a refreshing change from Alex Cooper’s "Call Her Daddy," the podcast presidential candidate Kamala Harris chose to appear on in her outreach to young women voters.

"Call Her Daddy" appeals to a far different feminine ideal — that of the sexually "liberated" woman unafraid of manipulating men to get what she wants. It's no wonder that fans were scandalized when Cooper quietly got engaged and married, choosing a conservative lifestyle after misleading her female audience into participating in hookup culture.

Yet Cooper's podcast is undeniably popular, second only to Joe Rogan's.

Leaving aside female political junkies who love to consume the news, the average young female listener, I would venture to say, is more responsive to conversational, fun content like Cooper’s, where the values are communicated more tacitly than explicitly. This is a prime opportunity for conservative-minded creators to attract more women by leaning into the topics that women enjoy first, putting politics second.

On "Skinny Confidential," Ivanka preached female empowerment without invoking cringey, feminist victimhood or posing family as an obstacle to women’s success. Ivanka beamed as she talked about her daughter’s maturation, noting that Arabella asked her for self-defense classes of her own accord. Now, weekly jiujitsu is a Trump family affair and “moving meditation” for them, prompting Ivanka to discuss another topic of female enjoyment and new gateway to the GOP: health and wellness.

Default progressivism

With RFK Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again movement, the subject of health and wellness is prompting many women to reconsider their default progressive setting. Since Jane Fonda and the "Let’s Get Physical" era of the 1980s, fitness has been a female interest — holistic body awareness, not so much. The latter has likely been overshadowed by so-called "reproductive health" — doublespeak for abortion.

But now, women are increasingly sensitive to what they are ingesting and suspicious of authoritative claims of “safety,” especially after the draconian Democratic response to COVID. There is also the resentment and shock of many women struggling with the fertility-complicating effects of hormonal birth control, long pushed as harmless by the medical industry, despite its many side effects and unknown long-term consequences. They’re questioning an FDA that is overwhelmingly deferential to food companies when it comes to introducing ingredients that lack long-term studies.

Brands like "Skinny Confidential" and Alex Clark’s "Culture Apothecary" are tapping into this ripe market by offering women knowledge of their bodies in cute packaging as well as a comforting hand to hold as they navigate the Wild West of wellness.

Want to breathe better and maximize the oxygen your body takes in at night, while developing a chiseled jawline (without invasive plastic surgery)? Try the mouth tape "Skinny Confidential" offers. Want to reduce face inflammation? Try the ice roller. As body positivity comes under scrutiny too, more women are questioning whether processed foods could be sabotaging their weight-loss efforts.

There are many other attractive and appealing female personalities and celebrities who haven’t declared a party affiliation but are conservative-coded. They’ve given clues with their wholesome lifestyles and proud features of their family on social media. Paige Lorenze, Sofia Richie Grainge, and Kristin Cavallari are among them.

After years of liberal propaganda, women want to see the full range of their experience represented: a rich, life-affirming vision of womanhood that prizes homemaking without shaming professional ambition and that encourages beauty and health without demonizing aging.

Their hearts and minds are there for the right to win, if we only take up the challenge.

Yes, Democrats And Their Propaganda Media Support Late-Term Abortion And Infanticide

Infanticide is fast becoming an essential policy position for Democrats.

Deliver us from the 'natural birth' fallacy



What is the opposite of “natural?”

The obvious answer is “artificial.” The obvious answer is not the correct one.

I worry that the rhetoric around 'natural birth' has gone too far by neglecting the question of prudence, the possibility of good doctors, and the reality of the dangers of childbirth.

“Artificial” come from the Latin artificialis/artificium: "handicraft." It is defined by that which is made or produced by human beings. “Art,” as expression through a medium, shares the same etymology.

Art and nature

I recently attended a lecture by Oxford philosopher Dr. Jan Bentz entitled “Objective Beauty in a Subjective World: Introduction to the Philosophical Question of Beauty.” Bentz began with the same question but argued in favor of the classical worldview — held by Plato, Aristotle, and later Aquinas — that art, properly understood, is a continuation of nature, rather than its opposition. Nature, to the ancients, was not the wilderness per se, but God’s imagination: logos. So, Dr. Bentz argues, the opposite of nature is in fact the opposite of logos: It is chaos.

Good art, he went on to say, corresponds to nature by reflecting its material and spiritual reality. Beautiful art must have three components: integritas (wholeness), consonantia (proportion), and claritas (clarity). By these standards, we can judge beauty.

Good art is not capricious or random in its execution, as we so often see in modern art galleries. Truly good artists must be trained (brought out of chaos through order) to imitate nature through their chosen media. Furthermore, good artists are made better by interdisciplinary study. The art forms, in the classical worldview, are not discrete mechanisms of autonomous expression but varied modes with a unified purpose: discovering and articulating truth.

Just prior to the lecture, I’d been chatting with my girlfriends about one conflict in the ongoing mommy wars: “natural” birth versus medically assisted birth, which is coded in the discourse as “unnatural” or artificial. A dear friend has just been through a very difficult experience: an early cesarean section after placenta previa followed by several days in the NICU with her little warrior.

False dichotomy

It struck me during the lecture that perhaps the home-birth vs. hospital debate is mired in the same false dichotomy as the modern art world, which emphasizes non-relational autonomy and prioritizes ideas over technique.

Many home-birth advocates imagine that any form of medical intervention necessarily disrupts the “natural” process of birth, which requires only instinct to facilitate.

But if we consider medicine as an art form, as it was for Hippocrates, then the practice itself is not “unnatural” but rather a continuation of nature, as evidenced by the original Hippocratic oath.

I swear by Apollo the physician, and Aesculapius the surgeon, likewise Hygeia and Panacea, and call all the gods and goddesses to witness, that I will observe and keep this underwritten oath, to the utmost of my power and judgment.

I will reverence my master who taught me the art. Equally with my parents, will I allow him things necessary for his support, and will consider his sons as brothers. I will teach them my art without reward or agreement; and I will impart all my acquirement, instructions, and whatever I know, to my master’s children, as to my own; and likewise to all my pupils, who shall bind and tie themselves by a professional oath, but to none else.

With regard to healing the sick, I will devise and order for them the best diet, according to my judgment and means; and I will take care that they suffer no hurt or damage. Nor shall any man’s entreaty prevail upon me to administer poison to anyone; neither will I counsel any man to do so. Moreover, I will give no sort of medicine to any pregnant woman, with a view to destroy the child. Further, I will comport myself and use my knowledge in a godly manner.

I will not cut for the stone, but will commit that affair entirely to the surgeons.

Whatsoever house I may enter, my visit shall be for the convenience and advantage of the patient; and I will willingly refrain from doing any injury or wrong from falsehood, and (in an especial manner) from acts of an amorous nature, whatever may be the rank of those who it may be my duty to cure, whether mistress or servant, bond or free.

Whatever, in the course of my practice, I may see or hear (even when not invited), whatever I may happen to obtain knowledge of, if it be not proper to repeat it, I will keep sacred and secret within my own breast. If I faithfully observe this oath, may I thrive and prosper in my fortune and profession, and live in the estimation of posterity; or on breach thereof, may the reverse be my fate!

If medicine is so practiced, with reverence for the body and nature, and the determination to restore it to wholeness in proportion to whatever condition it presents with clarity, then it is indeed the art of medicine and is not only not unnatural, but a beautiful cooperation with nature. The act of helping other people is arguably the most natural part of the human experience, in the sense that God created us for one another, to live in harmony and cooperate with His will in community.

Something less than art

Growing skepticism toward the medical community, however, has been earned. I gave birth to all my children at home with an excellent team of midwives. I began my journey as a home-birth mom during 2020, when nurses, doctors, and hospital administrators were behaving in such a way as to inspire distrust, peddling falsehoods about the COVID vaccines, making care inaccessible and inconvenient, and violating HIPAA as a matter of course.

In obstetrics specifically, the cause for mistrust goes back farther. The standardization of abortion — the willful destruction of human life — made the art of medicine something less than art, because such an act fundamentally violates nature. The “cascade of interventions,” as well as the administration of medications with financial gain in mind, is also frequently cited by home-birth or free-birth advocates as a reason they avoid hospitals. Many of us know women who have had terrible outcomes because of medical abuse or neglect. This represents, in many cases, a failure to respond proportionally to the patient and an essentially hubristic approach that too frequently results in more damage than necessary.

A good doctor is hard to find. Still, I worry that the rhetoric around “natural birth” has gone too far by neglecting the question of prudence, the possibility of good doctors, and the reality of the dangers of childbirth. The hubristic, radical autonomy implicit to the exponents of the “free birth” movement is not a proper “return to nature,” as they have branded themselves, but a fetishization of chaos made plausible by the betrayals of modern medicine. Ironically, this is a true betrayal of nature, despite the crunchy exterior.

Perhaps the conflict is necessary to bring to light the shortcomings of both sides and to help women make prudential decisions about where to give birth. I fear that the highly politicized battles, one-upsmanship, and snide condescension on both sides may encourage the opposite. Either way, I think the question of art adds a new dimension to the discussion that might help.

Doctor Warns Hormonal Birth Control Is Causing Anxiety, Depression, And Heart Trouble

Hormonal birth control is bad medicine — 'curing' nothing and causing all sorts of unexpected problems of its own.

Science Has Discovered Natural Fertility Enhancers That Work Far Better Than IVF

Too many Americans don’t know that only 2 to 7 percent of IVF-created babies are ever born, or that there are much more natural ways to overcome fertility difficulties.