At Dama, we continue to conduct research to close the women's health data gap, and build tools that help clinicians make more personalized, evidence-based decisions from the start.
Most women's health conferences push the same narrative: not enough funding, not enough data, not enough research.
Clinically and anecdotally, we've known for a long time that there's a huge variability in how patients respond to hormonal treatments such as contraceptives and MHT. However, there has not been much research to understand why exactly that is and how this could be predicted. Biobanks often don't collect this data, and even the EMR data is often not specific enough to answer these questions.
At Dama Health, we continue to prioritize doing the groundwork research. Our team just published some of the findings from the Dama Health Genetics and Contraception Study - a UK-based case-control study of 1,133 hormonal contraceptive users, which we conducted during the Illumina Accelerator Programme. We set out to identify which medical, lifestyle, and genetic factors are associated with experiencing severe side effects leading to discontinuation. More in our abstract:
Introduction:
Contraceptive counselling typically employs a one size fits all approach and little is understood about variation in experiences of contraceptive side-effects and their drivers. This study set out to identify lifestyle and medical factors associated with experiencing side-effects when using hormonal contraception.
Study Design:
We conducted a retrospective case-control study among users of four hormonal contraceptive methods (within the past 10 years) in the United Kingdom. We defined cases as those who discontinued a contraceptive method due to side-effects compared to controls who experienced no side-effects with that respective contraceptive method. We described the prevalence and severity of different side-effect symptoms and examined participant characteristics for associations with being a case versus control using minimally-adjusted multivariable logistic regression.
Results:
Of 1133 individuals, 796 were cases and 337 were controls. Mood disorders were the most commonly reported side-effect among those that had discontinuaed a contraceptive method due to side-effects. We found that reporting premenstrual syndrome symptoms when not using contraception was associated with higher odds of having discontinued a combined oral contraceptive pill or minipill due to side-effects (aOR: 2.5, CI 95%: 1.7-3.6, FDR < 0.001; aOR: 2.3, 95% CI: 1.5-3.8, FDR = 0.02 respectively). However, a history of premenstrual syndrome did not show evidence of an association with discontinuation of the hormonal intrauterine device. Individuals reporting anxiety or mood disorders before contraceptive use also had increased odds of having discontinued due to side-effects among combined oral contraceptive users.
Conclusion:
Individuals with certain pre-existing gynaecological or mental health symptoms may be more likely to experience side-effects whilst using hormonal contraceptive methods that lead to discontinuation. As such, these individuals may require counselling to reflect such risk or extra support to manage contraceptive-related side effects and facilitate switching if desired.
This evidence gives clinicians something to act on today:
This evidence validates what some clinicians have seen in their clinic rooms. This evidence gives clinicians something to act on today: asking about PMS history and counselling accordingly, asking about mood side effects, and intervening early.
Read the full paper here: Stevens R, Ochi T, Wojcik J, Cecula P, Rueda Carrasco E, Lazorwitz A. Patterns of contraceptive side-effect variation: Assessing medical and lifestyle factors associated with side-effects among those using hormonal contraception in the United Kingdom. European journal of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive biology [Internet]. 2026 Autumn;323:115125. Available from: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42105668/
Enormous thanks to the team who made this happen: Rose Stevens, Jérôme Wojcik, Taichi Ochi, Elena Rueda, Paulina Cecula, Aaron Lazorwitz, MD, PhD