Lilith
04-03-2003, 08:43 AM
(Reuters Health)
By Alison McCook
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Anyone who has talked to a boy in the throes of puberty knows that hormones can influence vocal quality. Now, a small study suggests that the birth control pill, which contains a low dose of hormones, may improve the quality of a woman's voice.
In a comparison of six women taking oral contraceptives and six women who were not, those who took the Pill appeared to have higher-quality voices.
"We found that the voices of Pill-users were of better quality and were more stable than the non Pill-users," study author Dr. Ofer Amir told Reuters Health.
Whether these differences are marked enough to be noticeable to a person listening to people on or off oral contraceptives remains unclear, Amir added.
"Due to the preliminary nature of this study, we did not yet test whether listeners could, in fact, identify these voice-quality differences between the two groups," Amir said.
"We are currently completing a follow-up study that attempts to answer this question," Amir noted.
The current findings contrast with previous investigations into the effects of oral contraceptives on vocal changes in women.
Past reports, which focused on early contraceptives containing higher doses of hormones, found that the birth control pills tended to reduce vocal quality.
Specifically, Amir explained that high doses of the Pill were reported to produce a masculine effect on some women's voices, lowering pitch and increasing vocal roughness.
For this reason, some experts discouraged singers from taking the Pill.
However, based on the current study, Amir and colleagues from Tel-Aviv University and Sapir Medical Center in Israel suggest the opposite is true.
The newer forms of oral contraceptives are less likely to produce changes in voice quality similar to those caused by older forms of birth control pills, the researchers note.
"The most exciting conclusion of this study is the fact that voice quality of low-dose Pill-users, which are more common today, was not worse, but even improved in comparison to that of non-users," Amir said.
However, the authors caution that these results should not be used to encourage singers to take oral contraceptives to improve their voices.
The voices of singers may behave differently from those of women who do not sing professionally, Amir and colleagues note in the April issue of the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.
For instance, although some women say their voice changes slightly with their menstrual cycle, female professional singers report more frequent changes linked to menstruation than non-singers.
According to Amir's team, further studies are needed to look at the effects of oral contraceptives on other aspects of vocal quality, and in larger numbers of women and in professional singers, specifically.
In their study, Amir and colleagues tested vocal quality in study participants repeatedly over a 40-day period by analyzing the quality of their voices as they sustained the sounds "ah" (as in "father") and "ee" (as in "heed").
The authors discovered that the voices of Pill-takers were more stable and had less "jitter' - frequency variation in voice cycles - and "shimmer" -- amplitude variation in voice cycles -- than women not taking oral contraceptives.
Low levels of jitter and shimmer are thought to be characteristics of a "healthier" voice, according to the report.
The researchers speculate that women taking the Pill may have healthier voices because the contraceptive maintains a "relatively unified hormonal balance, thus minimizing the effect of hormonal changes on voice quality."
In contrast, they add, women who do not take the Pill have greater fluctuations in estrogen and other hormones during the menstrual cycle, and these fluctuations may influence the quality of their voices.
SOURCE: Obstetrics & Gynecology 2003;101:773-777.
By Alison McCook
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Anyone who has talked to a boy in the throes of puberty knows that hormones can influence vocal quality. Now, a small study suggests that the birth control pill, which contains a low dose of hormones, may improve the quality of a woman's voice.
In a comparison of six women taking oral contraceptives and six women who were not, those who took the Pill appeared to have higher-quality voices.
"We found that the voices of Pill-users were of better quality and were more stable than the non Pill-users," study author Dr. Ofer Amir told Reuters Health.
Whether these differences are marked enough to be noticeable to a person listening to people on or off oral contraceptives remains unclear, Amir added.
"Due to the preliminary nature of this study, we did not yet test whether listeners could, in fact, identify these voice-quality differences between the two groups," Amir said.
"We are currently completing a follow-up study that attempts to answer this question," Amir noted.
The current findings contrast with previous investigations into the effects of oral contraceptives on vocal changes in women.
Past reports, which focused on early contraceptives containing higher doses of hormones, found that the birth control pills tended to reduce vocal quality.
Specifically, Amir explained that high doses of the Pill were reported to produce a masculine effect on some women's voices, lowering pitch and increasing vocal roughness.
For this reason, some experts discouraged singers from taking the Pill.
However, based on the current study, Amir and colleagues from Tel-Aviv University and Sapir Medical Center in Israel suggest the opposite is true.
The newer forms of oral contraceptives are less likely to produce changes in voice quality similar to those caused by older forms of birth control pills, the researchers note.
"The most exciting conclusion of this study is the fact that voice quality of low-dose Pill-users, which are more common today, was not worse, but even improved in comparison to that of non-users," Amir said.
However, the authors caution that these results should not be used to encourage singers to take oral contraceptives to improve their voices.
The voices of singers may behave differently from those of women who do not sing professionally, Amir and colleagues note in the April issue of the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.
For instance, although some women say their voice changes slightly with their menstrual cycle, female professional singers report more frequent changes linked to menstruation than non-singers.
According to Amir's team, further studies are needed to look at the effects of oral contraceptives on other aspects of vocal quality, and in larger numbers of women and in professional singers, specifically.
In their study, Amir and colleagues tested vocal quality in study participants repeatedly over a 40-day period by analyzing the quality of their voices as they sustained the sounds "ah" (as in "father") and "ee" (as in "heed").
The authors discovered that the voices of Pill-takers were more stable and had less "jitter' - frequency variation in voice cycles - and "shimmer" -- amplitude variation in voice cycles -- than women not taking oral contraceptives.
Low levels of jitter and shimmer are thought to be characteristics of a "healthier" voice, according to the report.
The researchers speculate that women taking the Pill may have healthier voices because the contraceptive maintains a "relatively unified hormonal balance, thus minimizing the effect of hormonal changes on voice quality."
In contrast, they add, women who do not take the Pill have greater fluctuations in estrogen and other hormones during the menstrual cycle, and these fluctuations may influence the quality of their voices.
SOURCE: Obstetrics & Gynecology 2003;101:773-777.