Oral contraceptive use and coronary risk factors in women

The relationship between oral contraceptive use and other coronary artery disease risk factors was examined in 215 nonsmoking women grouped as never, current, or previous users. Current oral contraceptive users had higher triglyceride levels (p less than or equal to 0.001) than other groups, higher systolic blood pressure, and lower plasma HDL-cholesterol levels (p less than or equal to 0.05) than previous users. The effect of oral contraceptive use on plasma triglyceride values persists on multivariate regression analysis independently of age, body mass index, dietary sodium and cholesterol intake, cigarette smoking, and level of physical activity. Oral contraceptive use also has an independent relationship to the plasma total cholesterol/HDL- cholesterol ratio. These findings indicate that oral contraceptive use is adversely associated with plasma lipid and lipoprotein values.