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A certain emergency contraception produced in Europe has become being packaged to exhibit that it’s less efficient for women weighing over 176 pounds, based on the pill’s maker HRA Pharma.
The company said hello became aware there was “a clear impact of weight” on the effectiveness of its contraceptive pill Norlevo while conducting research on another related issue.
HRA Pharma chief executive Erin Gainer told CNN‘s Jacque Wilson that company scientists saw Norlevo losing its effectiveness when women reached 165 pounds and showed an “absence of effectiveness” at about 176 pounds.
“We felt it had been our ethical duty … to report those leads to our health authorities within Europe,” Gainer said.
Norlevo is indistinguishable in the emergency contraceptive Plan B One-Step obtainable in the united states, said Kelly Cleland, a public health expert at Princeton University. Both pills include the active component levonorgestrel, an artificial form of the hormone progestogen. Emergency contraceptives work by disrupting ovulation, essentially preventing the fertilization of an egg.
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) spokeswoman Erica Jefferson told CNN that it “is currently reviewing the available and related scientific info on this problem, such as the publication upon which the Norlevo labeling change was based.
“The agency will determine what, if any, labeling changes to emergency contraceptives are warranted,” she added.
The American version of the pill happens to be available physician to anyone of any age. Generic versions from the drug are marketed as Next Choice One Dose and My Way.
“Actavis’ Next Choice One Dose meets the approval of the FDA as a safe, effective and therapeutically equivalent treatment option to its brand counterpart,” Actavis spokesman David Belian told CNN. “Therefore, should any update towards the Plan B labeling take place, we’d result in the appropriate switch to our product too.”
Anna Glasier, a specialist in reproductive medicine at the University of Edinburgh who published research on emergency contraception in 2011, said it is unclear why emergency contraceptives may be less efficient for overweight women. The 2011 study revealed obese women had 3 times the risk of conceiving a child after taking emergency contraception compared to those having a normal bodyweight.
“There has been some evidence through the years that low doses of progestogen-only contraceptives have less efficacy in heavier women, but we do not know why,” Glasier told CNN. She added, “it’s well known that bodyweight affects the way in which medicine is metabolized.”
Glasier also noted the amount of obese women in her own study was not representative, which makes it hard to make generalizations concerning the effect of bodyweight.
“You are probably better to take (levonorgestrel) after unprotected sex than just to depart it to chance even if you’re obese,” Glasier said. “Because Plan-B One Step has become available over-the-counter and it is undoubtedly the easiest EC technique to get, this is the method that most women understand.”
According towards the Cdc and Prevention (CDC), “The easiest method to prevent unintended pregnancy among women who are sexually active is to use effective birth control correctly and consistently.”
