How Do Birth Control Pills Affect Muscle Growth?
A new study found that women who weren’t taking birth control pills (oral contraceptives) gained 60% more muscle than those who did. The study also found that the women taking contraceptives lost slightly less fat, though those findings didn’t reach statistical significance.
Birth control pills are one of the most popular contraceptives, with one study showing that 80% of sexually active women have taken them at least once. This is something, then, that could affect most women, especially at ages when they’re most eager to build muscle.
This is the latest of several studies looking at how birth control pills affect muscle and fat gain, but the sample size was fairly large, and the findings are fairly dramatic. Let’s take a look.
Birth Control Pills May Reduce Muscle Growth
A recent study by Riechman et al. looked at the results of 72 women, 20-years-old on average, after doing 10 weeks of weight training. They did full-body workouts and trained three times per week, exactly as we recommend. The control group gained around 60% more muscle than the group taking birth control pills. (Note that when we say “muscle,” we’re talking about gains in lean mass, which can include more than just contractile muscle tissue.)
On the bright side, there weren’t any major differences in strength gains. Mind you, muscle size and muscle strength are very, very closely linked, and so those gaining more muscle will inevitably grow stronger. I suspect that the reason this study didn’t find a difference was because these women were still relatively new to lifting weights. With new lifters, differences in coordination and muscle activation can overshadow differences in muscle strength.
This is a fairly good study. The sample size was quite large (72 women), they used the gold standard of body composition measurement (hydrostatic weighing), and the effect size was fairly big. It also agrees with some of the tentative findings of earlier studies (study, study).
There’s some research that has found the opposite, though, such as this study by Oxfeldt and colleagues. In this study, the group taking oral contraceptives actually gained a little bit more muscle than the control group. This can be easily explained by the fact that the women taking birth control pills were eating more food and gaining more weight, which is one of the very best ways to increase muscle growth. Still, it shows you can absolutely make killer gains while taking birth control pills.
WHY Would Birth Control Pills Affect Muscle Growth?
Birth control pills produce physiological reactions similar to those produced by androgens. If your androgen receptors are busy dealing with the androgenicity of the birth control pills, that can interfere with your androgen signalling, which could, in theory, affect your ability to build muscle.
In this study, we see that the women taking birth control pills with greater androgenicity gained the least amount of muscle. The effect size is quite large, too, with the control group gaining five times as much muscle as the women taking higher-androgenicity birth control pills. The study also found that the women taking birth control pills had higher levels of cortisol, the stress hormone. It’s conceivable that the increase in cortisol also affected muscle growth (and fat loss).
This is just one study. Take all of this with a dash of salt. But it’s possible that the type of birth control pills you take might play into muscle growth a little bit. If you wanted to prioritize muscle growth, you might ask about taking birth control pills with lower androgenicity. But it’s still too soon to say if this effect will hold up with further research.
Do Birth Control Pills Affect Fat Loss?
The control group lost nearly twice as much fat as the group taking birth control pills, but this finding didn’t reach statistical significance. So it’s not unreasonable to suspect that birth control pills could make it harder to lose fat, and this study indeed shows that trend, but it may just be a coincidence.
What’s really cool about this study, though, is that these women weren’t even trying to lose fat. They were on a muscle-building program. They were gaining weight. And yet, in both groups, whether the women were taking birth control pills or not, they all finished stronger, leaner, and more muscular than when they started.
Summary
A high-quality new study found that women who weren’t taking birth control pills gained 60% more muscle and lost twice as much fat as the women who weren’t. The good news, though, is that after ten weeks of lifting weights, eating slightly more protein, and eating in a slight calorie surplus, both groups gained strength, built muscle, and lost fat.
Plus, there’s other research showing the opposite effect—that taking birth control pills may even slightly increase muscle growth. So whatever decision you make, you’ll be able to build muscle.
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Shane Duquette is the co-founder of Outlift, Bony to Beastly, and Bony to Bombshell, and has a degree in design from York University in Toronto, Canada. He's gained sixty pounds at 11% body fat and has over ten years of experience helping over 10,000 skinny people build muscle, get stronger, and gain weight.
Cassandra González Duquette is a certified nutritionist (CNP) who studied at the Institute of Holistic Nutrition in Toronto, Canada. She's personally gained 22 pounds, going from 97 up to 119 pounds.
