A large-scale study on contraceptive pills stated that women who had taken the pill could live for longer and had lesser chances of dying from a cause related to heart disease and cancer.

Richard Anderson of Edinburgh University and the Medical Research Council human reproductive sciences unit, said, "The results of this study are enormously reassuring and suggest that in the longer term the health benefits of the contraceptive pill outweigh any risks.”

About 46,000 women were assessed for a period of 40 years for the study that stated women who took an oral contraceptive pill had a lesser rate of dying from a cause that included cancers of all types and heart ailments in the long term.

Scientists however stated that the study was limited to women who took pills of the older type as the study was started in 1968.

In the US and UK, around 12 million women take the contraceptive pill.