Globe and Mail - Risk of gallbladder disease only marginally higher with new birth control pills

The new generation of birth control pills - which includes popular products like Yaz and Yasmin - increases the risk of gallbladder disease only marginally, a new Canadian study concludes. The research, published in Monday's edition of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, challenges popular wisdom on the issue.

"The media has created some hysteria about this based on anecdotal reports, but our study shows the risk of gallbladder disease is pretty much the same for all oral contraceptives," Mahyar Etminan, of the Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Evaluation at Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, said in an interview.

Researchers at the University of British Columbia and McGill University examined seven forms of birth control pills and found that their use increased the relative risk of women developing gallbladder disease between 5 and 20 per cent.