A systematic review of effects of combined oral contraceptives on weight in adult women

Abstract

Objectives: To investigate the association of the combined oral contraceptives (COCs) on the weight change in adult women through evaluation of existing literature.

Methods and Results: Relevant studies published between 2005 and 2015 in PubMed and Chinese Journal Full-text Database were searched and identified using specific keywords. A total of 7randomized controlled trial out of 774 articles from PubMed and 2articles out the 91 articles from Chinese Journal Full-text Database were included in this paper. Differences in demographic characteristics were studied and compared to determine the association between COC on the weight change. Among the seven studies from PubMed, two of them revealed a positive conclusion supporting the association between COC and weight gain, three of them did not show any association whilst the remaining two studies demonstrated that COC can reduce weight or weight related variable. For the two studies from Chinese Journal Full-text Database, both of them didn’t reveal any association between COCs and weight change.

Conclusion: This study concluded that there is no evidence to support any association between weight gain and COCs’ administration, and women’s common concern of the association between weight change and COCs is more likely a subjective perspective, which points out that changing people’s stereotype about COCs is of the practical importance for public health department and scientific community. Limitations from lacking papers from pharmaceutical industry, intrinsic study design problem, compliance issue, risk of bias and problem with generalizability were raised. Further research of different ethnic group and adopting bio-psychosocial approach would benefit on exploring further the causal relationship between COC and the weight problem. Key Words: Oral contraceptive pills; body weight; adult women;