Gut Microbiota Shifts with Lifetime Duration of Oral Contraception Use

Abstract

To investigate the effects of lifetime duration of oral contraceptive (OC) use, we reanalyzed publicly available 16S rRNA sequencing data from fecal samples of OC users and non-users collected at different timepoints in the menstrual cycle. We profiled the microbial composition of subjects and identified 32 significantly differentially abundant Amplicon Sequence Variants (padj<0.05) with increasing lifetime use duration including 16 ASVs belonging to class Clostidia that decreased with longer OC use. Some Clostridia species are known to recycle estrogen; lifetime duration of OC exposure could thus influence womens health through gut microbiome composition and hormone regulation.