According to the Huffington Post, sexually active women in the study who used condoms had larger colonies of beneficial microbes in their vagina compared with women who used other forms of birth control.
“The scientists focused on lactobacillus, a group of bacteria that dominates the natural flora of the vagina for many women. The microbes, which produce lactic acid and hydrogen peroxide, help the vagina maintain an average pH of 4.5, comparable to the acidity of beer or tomato juice.”
For the study, researchers at Beijing Friendship Hospital recruited 164 healthy, married women between 18 and 45 years old who were not using hormonal birth control, such as the pill, for their regular method of contraception.
The Huffington Post report stated that of the participants, 72 were using condoms, 57 were using an intrauterine device (IUD), and 35 were using the so-called rhythm method, in which a couple abstains from sex on the days pregnancy is mostly likely to occur.
The study showed that the population of lactobacillus was significantly higher in the group who used condoms regularly.