One step closer to a precision medicine approach to birth control?
As you all know, I am a huge advocate of women’s reproductive health. And this means having something of a love-hate relationship with hormonal birth control.
On the one hand, I love it because pregnancy prevention is HUGELY positive for women. On the other hand, I hate it because a lot of women suffer unpleasant physical and psychological side effects from taking it. Changing women’s hormones changes women.
One of the ways that I reconcile my love-hate relationship with the pill has been through targeted research. For example, I recently finalized this piece that talks about the research needed to advance a precision medicine approach to birth control. I have also been working with companies like Flo, Natural Cycles, and most-recently, Tuune to better understand the role that tech can play in promoting healthy menstrual cycles and ease the burden of birth control on women.
One of these companies, Tuune, has just released a new digital decision aid that makes personalized birth control recommendations based on a woman’s unique hormonal profile. Tuune’s decision aid uses the results of a detailed health / hormone assessment and thousands of pages of research on the more than 250 methods of birth control available to provide women with personalized birth control recommendations. The final recommendation includes a walk-through of their symptoms, as well as insights into the ways that each recommended method will affect their hormonal symptoms. The aid aims to educate women about themselves, their birth control options, and provide everything they need to make an informed decision about which birth control is best for them.
I recently worked with the scientists at Tuune to conduct a clinical trial (NCT05177783) to test whether getting a personalized birth control recommendation from Tuune (compared to getting a recommendation from a control* online birth control service) would lead to better outcomes for women.
Results found that women who used Tuune reported feeling:
💆♀️ Less stress deciding on a new birth control option
🌿 Less anxiety about starting or switching to a new birth control
👩🎓 More knowledgeable about their birth control options
💪 More confident that their birth control was chosen based on the needs of their unique body
☀️ More optimistic their birth control will improve their overall health and well-being
*the control birth control recommendation service was modeled after leading online birth control services.
Women walked away from the Tuune experience feeling less anxious, more educated, and more optimistic about their birth control than users of the control birth control service.* This was true for both first-time users and those who have been on hormonal contraceptives in the past, suggesting that the benefits of Tuune aren’t only limited to those who have never used birth control before.
The results of this trial demonstrate that Tuune may be a good way to minimize the burden of contraception on women. This is exciting news for everyone. I don’t love hormonal birth control, but I am so glad we have it. And I am so excited that we are one step closer to women being able to use hormonal birth control without suffering.
Details of the Experiment:
310 women between the ages of 18 – 24 were randomly assigned to use Tuune® or a control online birth control service (a placebo service that was modeled after a leading online birth control prescription service). Each service asked women questions about their health history, etc, and then provided women with a birth control recommendation. The control birth control service asked women health questions typical of a medical intake form for a birth control visit. The proprietary Tuune® health questionnaire included an extensive number of questions about women’s health, hormonal concerns, and life goals. Each service then made a birth control recommendation to women. Women completed the questions assessing their experiences with the two services upon receiving their birth control recommendation.
The study was pre-registered on the Open Science Framework (OSF) and is registered as a Clinical Trial (NCT05177783). The first set of results is currently under scientific review and can be found on OSF here: https://osf.io/bnmx8/ .
KEY STATS FROM OUR STUDY:
- Over half of women said they struggled to make a decision when choosing their contraception, this reduced to one third when women used Tuune.
- 3/4 of women were happier to start a new birth control after using Tuune (compared to half of women who used the control decision aid).
- 74% of women were more positive about starting a birth control method after using Tuune compared to 57% of those who used the control decision aid.
- 2/3 women who used Tuune were more confident that their method of birth control would improve their health and well–being .
- Three quarters (75%) of women who used the Tuune decision aid said they were more satisfied with their contraceptive recommendation than approximately half (55%) of women who used the control decision aid.
I am listening to the Audio Book at this moment, during Chapter 4 in the book it referenced a link where the different generations of oral contraceptives were compared and indicated the differet side effects of each class. Will you please email me the information (or direct me where it is located on the website).