Birth Control Deep Dive: How it Changes Your Brain, Its Link to Autoimmune Conditions, and Why We Need Better Options with Sarah Hill Ph.D

Dhru Purohit Show

Dhru Purohit

Medicine, Health & Fitness, Alternative Health

4.7 • 3.4K Ratings

🗓️ 10 February 2025

⏱️ 69 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This episode is brought to you by Cozy Earth, LMNT, and Lumebox. There’s no denying that birth control has given women greater freedom and control over their fertility. However, many young girls and women have been on birth control for decades without fully understanding the long-term effects of hormone-altering medication. Today’s guest shares her research on birth control and provides key insights into its potential impact on long-term health and wellness. Today on The Dhru Purohit Show, Dhru sits down with Dr. Sarah Hill to discuss the impact of birth control on women’s health and brain function. Dr. Hill shares her personal journey with birth control and how it led her to research this topic. She reveals what her findings say about the long-term effects of birth control on the brain and explores alternative options for women. She also explains why informed consent should include comprehensive education on birth control’s potential impacts. Dr. Hill discusses her hopes for the future of women’s health and highlights the research still needed to provide women with accessible, well-informed options for managing their health and fertility. Dr. Sarah Hill earned her PhD in evolutionary psychology from the University of Texas at Austin, where she studied under Dr. David Buss. She is currently a researcher and professor at TCU, the lead research advisor at 28, and a recognized thought leader in women’s hormones and sexual psychology. Her groundbreaking research has led to nearly 100 research publications. She is also the author of This Is Your Brain on Birth Control, which sheds critical new light on the psychological impact of women’s sex hormones and the birth control pill. Her upcoming book, The Period Brain, is set for release in September. In this episode, Dhru and Dr. Hill dive into: What Dr. Hill noticed after stopping birth control (00:25) The long-term impact of taking birth control (4:08) The benefits of birth control for women’s rights (12:20) The lack of fully informed consent in birth control decisions (16:06) Using birth control as a prescription for period problems (21:06) What happens to your brain on birth control (27:18) How birth control influences partner choice (38:15) The possible link between autoimmunity and birth control (44:15) Recommendations for young women considering birth control (51:15) Alternatives to birth control (54:15) The research we still need on birth control (59:25) Dr. Hill’s hope for more options for women (1:05:15) Also mentioned in this episode: Dr. Hill’s book This Is Your Brain on Birth Control: The Surprising Science of Women, Hormones, and the Law of Unintended Consequences For more on Dr. Hill, follow her on Instagram, Facebook, X/Twitter, LinkedIn, and her Website. This episode is brought to you by Cozy Earth, LMNT, and Lumebox. Right now, get 40% off your Cozy Earth sheets. Just head over to cozyearth.com/dhru and use code DHRUP. Right now, LMNT is offering my listeners a free sample pack with any purchase. Head over to drinkLMNT.com/dhru today. For 48 hours, from February 13th through 15th, Lumebox is offering my community $284 off their FDA-approved portable Red Light device! That's over 45% off! Go to thelumebox.com/dhru and get your Red Light device. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Dr. Sarah Hill, you have a pretty wild story. Around the time your youngest child was around two years
0:07.1	old, you stopped taking hormonal birth control. And at that point in time, for what I understand,
0:12.6	you had been on the pill for about 10, 11 years. And when you stopped taking it, you noticed some
0:18.2	pretty shocking changes. I'm going to hand it over to you. Can you pick up
0:22.0	the story from there? Yeah, I really had no idea that birth control was having any sort of an
0:28.4	effect on me until I discontinued it. And because I was on it for, as you noted, besides the
0:34.9	period I spent pregnant and lactating, I was on it pretty much nonstop
0:39.5	for about 10 to 12 years. And while I was on it, I felt fine. You know, I didn't have any major
0:46.9	mental health breakdown or anything else that you sometimes hear it happens to women. But when I
0:52.3	went off of it, I realized that I was different. And I realized
0:58.1	this because when I went off at about three months after the fact, I noticed that I had more
1:04.3	energy. And I was interested in sex a lot more than I used to be. And I was like noticing attractive men.
1:12.7	And I was cooking and I was downloading new music on at that point. It was like and it was like
1:19.5	when iPods were still a thing. I was like downloading new music on my iPod. And I was cooking.
1:25.8	And it was like doing all these things that just were pleasurable in doing them
1:30.0	to an extent that I hadn't in a while and I just felt more vividly alive and I was like like,
1:35.2	what is this? What is this? And I'm like, I wonder if this is because I went off of the birth control
1:40.1	pill. And, you know, I thought, well, maybe, but, you know, that sounds crazy. And so I kind of filed it away in the
1:48.3	way that women do, you know, it's like we have something that happens to us. And then we assume that it must be
1:53.1	all in our head since we've been conditioned to believe that that's true from doctors, from the time that
1:59.5	were pretty small. But then flash forward
2:02.4	about it was about a year later. And I was in a research talk where a researcher was talking about
	...

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