By Jess McCabe | 27 May 2005, 09:22

The contraceptive pill may permanantly damage women’s sex drives, new research has revealed.

It has long been known that taking the Pill led to a loss of libido, but it was thought this was a temporary effect that wore off once you quit.

Dr Goldstein, an author of the report, said: \x93There\x92s the possibility [the Pill] is imprinting a woman for the rest of her life.\x94

The Times reports: “A research team at the University of Boston, Massachusetts, studied 125 young women attending a sexual dysfunction clinic. Sixty two were taking oral contraceptives, forty had previously taken them and twenty-three had never been on the Pill. The team measured levels of a substance called sex hormone binding globulin \x97 which inhibits testosterone and blocks its effects \x97 every three months for a year and found that it was seven times higher in users of the Pill.

Levels declined in women who had stopped, but remained three to four times higher than those with no history of using oral contraceptives.”