The Lancet Oncology-published research has found that oral contraceptives prevented 200,000 cases of endometrial cancer in last decade. The research states that every five years of using oral contraceptives reduced the risk of endometrial cancer by around a quarter.

Over last five decades, around 400,000 endometrial cancers were prevented in high-income nations. In the study, the researchers looked at data from 27,276 women with endometrial cancer and as a control group, 115,743 women who were not having the cancer from 36 different studies.

The researchers estimated that 400,000 cases of endometrial cancer were prevented due to women taking oral contraceptives in past 50 years and 200,000 were prevented in the last decade.

With passage of time, a decline has come in the amount of hormones added in oral contraceptives. But the researchers have affirmed that low amount of hormones in pills continue to offer protection. When one takes the pills, it makes the body think that it is expecting.

In this situation, the amount of estrogen circulating in the body drops and reduces the risk of developing endometrial cancer. Even when the women stopped taking oral contraceptives even then also the protective effect continued.

The researchers affirmed that longer the women used oral contraceptives, the greater their risk declined. “Women who use it when they are in their 20s or even younger continue to benefit into their 50s and older, when cancer becomes more common”, stated study’s co-author Valerie Beral, from the University of Oxford.