Page 67 - Fall2020

All Thumbs Book Reviews

This Is Your Brain on Birth Control: syndrome. The doctor never mentioned any
The Surprising Science of Women, Hormones, potential downsides.
and the Law of Unintended Consequences While the possible downsides are many and
By Sarah E. Hill, PhD comprise a large portion of the book, Dr. Hill is
Avery quick to state—and repeat—that she does not
think that birth control pills are unequivocally
Many women have been on a birth control a bad choice. She believes that women should
pill at some point in their lives. Sarah E. Hill, absolutely be in charge of their own fertility. She
PhD, is a researcher who has dedicated her simply thinks that women have not been given
career to evolutionary psychology. She herself anywhere close to the full story.
was on birth control pills throughout her young Part of the problem is that the research is
adult life, as she pursued her academic degrees rather new, and much still requires exploration.
and launched her career. In This Is Your Brain However, what is unambiguously clear is that
on Birth Control, she recounts how she realized these pills influence women’s hormones, and
in retrospect that when on birth control, she women’s hormones influence nearly every single
seemed like a less vibrant version of herself. aspect of women’s physiology. To summarize
After cutting the birth control method out, she (without explaining all the technical terminology
noticed that she experienced increased energy, behind these elaborate biological mechanisms),
heightened sexuality and even a renewed interest birth control pills, when taken on a daily basis,
in music, which she had loved as a teenager but can change a woman’s personality, including
had ignored throughout her twenties. the way she behaves, thinks and feels. The pill
After first coming across a study that linked can decrease motivation and sex drive, dampen
women’s romantic partner choices and sexual response to stress (including the good kind of
satisfaction with their pill-taking status, she stress that manifests itself as excitement and en- Women
then learned that women on birth control pills thusiasm) and even affect romantic and marital
seem to be missing a key feature of their stress partner choice. This, as Dr. Hill emphatically on the pill
response. At that point, Dr. Hill realized that states, is huge. have either
she had bumped right into the proverbial tip of One particularly disturbing finding is that
the iceberg, and she began investigating all of birth control pills can instigate dysfunction of a blunted
the myriad ways that birth control pills (there the HPA (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal) axis. cortisol
are dozens on the market) can interfere with Studies have shown that women on the pill have response to
women’s biological makeup. either a blunted cortisol response to stress, no
Our body’s hormones are an intricately cortisol response or even a decreased level of stress, no
balanced symphony, so it should not be surpris- cortisol in response to stress (which is highly cortisol
ing to recognize that taking a drug designed abnormal). In addition, daily cortisol rhythms,
to rearrange a woman’s monthly cycle drasti- which help people wake up in the morning response
cally might throw other things off-kilter as well. and make it through the day (hopefully with a or even a

However, few doctors give women any sort bit of joie de vivre), become lower and flatter. decreased
of primer on the potential side effects of birth Additional studies suggest that this flatlining of
control pills. In many cases, the prescriptions the stress response (although overall cortisol level of

are handed out without so much as a warning. levels remain high) can continue even after a cortisol in
In my case, I was given a prescription for a birth woman stops taking the pill. It seems that pill- response to
control pill when I wasn’t even sexually active taking women are so overwhelmed with chronic
(nor planning to be). The doctor’s rationale? My high cortisol signaling that the HPA axis tries stress (which
periods were three weeks apart (something I now to shut down. This can lead to issues such as is highly
realize was not abnormal), and the pill “might” brain-volume loss, mental health disturbances
reduce cramps and symptoms of premenstrual Continued on page 67. abnormal).

FALL 2020 Wise Traditions 65