Oral contraceptives and hypertension

A variety of studies have noted that the use of oral contraceptives generally leads to mild increases in blood pressure which are usually reversible when the medication is discontinued. Representative data from the Walnut Creek Contraceptive Drug Study and the Royal College of General Practitioners Study concerning the magnitude of excess risk and relation to duration of use and pull content are shown. Preliminary data from women, aged 25-34 years, taking multiphasic health checkups in Oakland and San Francisco, suggest that black as well as white women are susceptible to this side effect of oral contraceptives. A method is given for estimating the proportion of hypertensives among a population of young women that is attributable to oral contraceptive use. Although the risk of pull-induced hypertension is small for the average user, oral contraceptives appear to be an important identifiable cause of hypertension in samples of women studied.