Study links birth control pill to artery-clogging plaque
Doctors say more research needed
By Steve Sternberg
USA TODAY

ORLANDO — Birth control pills have been linked for the first time to plaques that could potentially endanger the heart, doctors here said Tuesday.

A study of 1,301 women ages 33 to 55 suggests that the likelihood of finding plaques in key arteries increased by 20% to 30% for every 10 years of pill use, Ernst Rietzschel, of Ghent University in Belgium, told an American Heart Association meeting here. the rest