Those taking brands with the highest levels of oestrogen may even find their hormone-driven suspicions place their relationship in jeopardy, researchers have warned.
The finding is one in a long line of ‘emotional’ side-effects attributed to the pill, which is taken by some 3.5 million British women, a quarter of all 16 to 49-year-olds.
The drug is also credited with making women broody, changing their taste in men and even boosting intelligence, reports Daily Mail.
Working with the Dutch psychologists, Stirling University’s Craig Roberts in Britain asked 275 women a series of questions designed to gauge how much they trusted their partner, according to the journal Personality and Individual Differences.
Topics included how they feel when their other half flirts with another woman, whether they were worried that he would leave them for another woman and how possessive they were.
Comparing the brands used with the women’s answers revealed a clear link between the drug and envy.
And the higher the dose of oestrogen in the contraceptive, the more likely a woman was to be jealous. The chemical imbalance caused by the pill can make women chose more boyish men, like Zac Efron, over more rugged men, such as Sean Connery.
