Tom Lloyd, Ph.D. is the principal investigator for YWHS and is a professor of Public Health Sciences within the Penn State College of Medicine.
Nan Rollings, R.N., M.Ed. has been the research coordinator for the YWHS and is presently the senior research support associate in the department of Public Health Sciences.
Richard S. Legro, M.D. is associate professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Penn State College of Medicine and has been responsible for analysis and interpretation of the reproductive endocrinology aspects of the study.
We published in the August 2002 issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology a paper entitled, "Oral Contraceptive Use by Teenage Women Does Not Affect Body Composition," which gained national recognition as it is the first study to demonstrate that the use of oral contraceptives by teenage women does not result in increases in body weight or increases in percentage of body fat. This study involved 66 participants of YWHS - 39 of whom used oral contraceptives for a minimum of six months and were still users at age 21. The 27 non-users had never used oral contraceptives. The study is important, as it provides physicians with a significant piece of information that they can use in counseling their patients to begin using and/or to continue using oral contraceptives, since the number one reason for women abandoning oral contraceptive use is their perception that they are getting fatter.
