Can the pill help protect you from ovarian cancer?

Yes. A group of scientists in the North Carolina Research Triangle put together all the studies printed after 1990 that look at women using the pill and their rates of ovarian cancer. They found that women who had ever used the pill for birth control were 25% less likely to develop ovarian cancer later in their lives.

The pill offered the strongest protection from ovarian cancer when women used it for a year or longer. Women who used the pill for 10 years were 50% less likely to develop ovarian cancer. The pill’s protective effect lasted for a long time, too—up to 20 years after women stopped taking it.