Lower testosterone means lower sperm production, which means a lower chance of pregnancy. Of course messing with hormones can have very negative consequences, which is why the gel contains some testosterone to ensure levels are not too low, which can cause low libido and delayed ejaculation. Still, there is a long road to go. Right now trails are being performed on couples around globe- if successful, the contraceptive could move onto the next stage, which involves trials on an even larger scale.
The problem with male BC pills is the short half life of sperm-suppressing hormones, meaning the drug decays very quickly, and so do its effects. However, a new study featuring an experimental male BC pill seems to show promise.
Dimethandrolone undecanoate, or DMAU, is a drug that works in a similar way to the gel contraceptive. Fewer were interested if the drug was injected — three-fifths of white men in Cape Town and a third of men in Hong Kong, for example. This was the method used in the first WHO-backed clinical trial that Anderson was involved in, back in With anything upwards of 15 million sperm per millilitre considered normal, the trial set its maximum threshold at 3 million per milliliter mL.
In the brain, it picks out the hypothalamus and pituitary gland. In the testicles, it shows cells that make testosterone, and the tubules they neighbor, where sperm are made. So testosterone replacement is given along with progestogens, to avoid undesirable effects, like weaker muscles and lessened sex drive. Both hormones came from the Dutch drug company Organon, which, after what Anderson calls "a lot of persuading," began to pay attention.
Researchers gave men progestogen implants Organon was developing for women and injections of a Schering testosterone product. They gave around 52 more men placebos — all the participants were also using other contraception — and monitored their sperm count. For almost nine-tenths of the men on the hormonal contraceptive, sperm counts fell below the million mark, and once the trial was over they all recovered normal fertility after around four months.
But not everything was ideal. Some of these were more serious and even life-threatening, including one attempted suicide. Between running the trial and publishing results in , Schering was bought by German rival Bayer, which ended work on the subject. Encouraged by the survey done by Anderson and his colleagues, Coelingh Bennink had pushed the approach, and helped design the joint trial.
There, he has overseen development of an improved female contraceptive pill that offers lessons for the male version. While the risk is very low, it does happen and can lead to serious complications — for the women and for the drug companies. In , the new female pill will enter large-scale phase III human trials — the ultimate test of whether drugs work — to determine whether government regulators will approve its sale. Instead, it has sold rights to the drug to a Belgian company, Mithra Pharmaceuticals, who are running the necessary clinical trials.
Getting to this point has taken Pantarhei 14 years, and finding a partner prepared to risk large-scale testing has been one of the hardest parts. Contraceptive drug companies have all drastically cut funding for new products, Coelingh Bennink says. Contraceptive drug expenditure is set to grow at just 1. The WHO continues to fulfill this role — but it too has hit problems. CONRAD announced two serious adverse events as the reason, although full details are still to be published.
For him, the biggest obstacles are not scientific. Thereafter you get industrial involvement. That champion may not yet have emerged, but in the U. Blithe is director of the male contraceptive development programme at the U. She points out that American men can already buy testosterone gels that could form part of a male contraceptive, and which show how to get a male hormone product approved.
She assumed the not insignificant risk of pregnancy—usually more than once—and yet she cannot get her partner to assume the insignificant risk of a vasectomy. What exactly does that say? And this, quite frankly, is bullshit. The numbers should be reversed. This is what makes me depressed about male hormonal contraception, because it is unlikely that there will ever be a contraceptive as easy and as safe as vasectomy.
This post originally appeared on drjengunter. It is edited and republished with permission. SELF does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Any information published on this website or by this brand is not intended as a substitute for medical advice, and you should not take any action before consulting with a healthcare professional. The study showed some very positive results. There were good reasons to stop the trial early—and not one of them was that men can't handle hormonal birth control like women can.
As for the 20 men who dropped out because of side effects? Topics news contraception contraceptives reproductive health. Sign up for our SELF Daily Wellness newsletter All the best health and wellness advice, tips, tricks, and intel, delivered to your inbox every day. Reducing the number of sperm the average dude is carrying around in his ejaculation — fewer sperm means less of a chance of fertilizing an egg and fewer babies.
The problem is — how do you get there? And, how do you convince men this is a good idea? We ran through all of the options currently in the works for tackling this problem with some experts in the medical world. RISUG is non-hormonal which gives it a boost in the eyes of the medical community and potentially users as well if it ever becomes widely accessible.
DMAU and Nesterone are hormonal options. This positively charged gel attaches to the inner walls of the vas deferens. When negatively charged sperm flow through the vas deferens, the gel damages their heads and tails, rendering them infertile.
All it takes is a simple injection of water and baking soda to dissolve and flush the gel out of the vas deferens. Also, the shot appears to have no side effects. Boom — two of the biggest cons to male birth control, reversibility and side effects, are no longer an issue. Chris Airey, a practicing physician and Medical Director at Optimale , a telehealth clinic for men with low testosterone, shed some light on how hormonal male birth control pills would work and how they differ from female methods.
For feminine bodies, the pill uses estrogen and progesterone to stop the process of releasing an egg into the uterus. Suppressing these hormones actually causes testosterone to lower as well, and so far the evidence looks promising that it can lower testosterone without the negative effects of low testosterone.
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