Some Biochemical Changes Associated with Taking Oral Contraceptive Pills among Healthy Women in Gaza City

Abstract

Aim: To evaluate some biochemical changes associated with oral contraceptive (OC) pills administration on healthy women in Gaza City (GC). Methodology: The study design was a case control. The sample size was 80 healthy women aged 20-35 years from the Swidey Clinic who had taken OC pills for at least three continuous cycles. The control sample was healthy married women who were not going on OC before and match the cases in age and residence. The study questionnaire included issues about the following information: age, gender, weight, height, health history, blood pressure, Nature of menstrual cycle, bleeding, insomnia, pain in the stomach, difficulty in breath, pain in hands and feet, appetite and headaches. Blood parameters analysis of the study population included complete blood count (CBC), C-reactive protein (CRP), high density lipoproteins cholesterol (HDL-C), low density lipoproteins cholesterol (LDL-C), total cholesterol (TC), and triacylglycerol (TAG). Leptin determination was carried out using a commercially available diagnostic system test kits. SPSS were used to analyze obtained data. Results: The results showed statistically significant differences among study population with respect to regular of menstrual cycle (MC) (c2=5.371, P= 0.024), increased appetite (c2= 4.386, P= 0.002), increased headache (c2= 6.82, P= 0.000), increased body mass index (c2= 7.31, P= 0.015), cholesterol were significantly higher among the cases compared to control (179.1± 4.3mg/dl vs 157.5± 4.12mg/dl, and p=0.000), LDL-C were significantly higher among the cases compared to control (97.6±3.8mg/dl vs 86.2± 3.4 mg/dl, and p=0.002), increased C-reactive protein (c2= 5.381, p= 0.034), there were a significant increase in the mean level of leptin among the cases compared to the controls (36.3± 2.3 ng/ml vs. 28.6± 2.1 ng/ml, and p= 0.003), and the levels of WBC, Gran and Mch were significantly higher among the cases (7.2±2.1 K/µL, 60.7±8.3 % and 26.9±2.2pg) compared to the controls (6.6±1.7 K/µL, 54.9±11.7 % and 25.7±3.4 pg), with p=0.001, p=0.000 and p=0.003, respectively. In contrast, the results showed no statistically significant differences among the study population with respect to frequency of bleeding (c2=0.192, P=0.135), frequency of insomnia (c2=0.411, P=0.353), pain in stomach (c2=0.386, P=0.183), difficulty in breathing(c2=0.497, P= 0.209), frequency of pain in hands and feet (c2=0.631, P= 0.309), Systolic blood pressure ((c2=2.351, P=0.139 ), diastolic blood pressure (c2=1.372, P=0.382 ), HDL-c (51.2±1.7mg/dl vs 47.6±1.3mg/dl and p=0.148), TAG (119.2± 6.0mg/dl vs 108.2± 8.6 mg/dl and p=0.218), the changes among the study population in Mid, RBc, Hb, Hct, Mcv, Mchc and PLt (7.8±8.7 %, 4.6±0.7M/µL,12.2±0.9g/dl, 38.0±2.4%, 80.8±11.9fl, 32.5±1.1g/dl and 279.3±87.6K/µL) compared to control were not significant (8.6±6.6 %, 4.6±0.47M/µL, 12.3±1.1g/dl, 37.5±3.7%, 80.6±8.5fl, 32.3±1.7g/dl and 267.8±74.0 K/µL), with p=0.352, p=0.394, p=0.387, p=0.571, p=0.415, p=0.272 and p=0.185, respectively. Moreover, the results showed strong correlation between BMI and leptin (p= 0.000) among the study population.