Birth Control Shot May Help You Forget You Even Had Sex

Bad news, ladies on Depo Provera: your birth control may be impairing your memory. Bad news, ladies who are not on Depo Provera: you may actually be on Depo Provera, but you don’t remember.

New student-led research from Arizona State University suggests that use of the popular birth control shot, which is administered once every 12 weeks, affects the mind’s ability to retain information.

Rats used in the study were given medroxyprogesterone acetate, the active hormone in the shot, at various points in their lives. A control group went hormone-free. The rats were then compelled to navigate water mazes that contained hidden platforms. While the hormone’s effects weren’t found to be as dramatic as, say, a Forget-Me-Now pill, researchers found that rats that had used the drug even once in their lifetimes exhibited memory impairment once they reached middle age. The impairment even affected the rats who had used the hormone while young and would theoretically not still have the drug in their systems.

The researchers plan on following up the study by seeing if humans’ capacities are similarly blunted by using the shot.

Just to be on the safe side, if you’ve ever used Depo Provera, please— at least for the time being— avoid attempting to find hidden platforms in water mazes with middle aged rats. This can only lead to tragedy.