New breakthrough in male contraceptive pill, 100% effective?
Recently, "scientists have developed a male contraceptive pill" topic on the hot search, male contraceptive pill is not something new, some male contraceptives have reported new developments in the past few years, why is this study so much attention from the academic community and the media?
Because, it does sound quite reliable:
Fast-acting, easy to use, very high contraceptive rate, no hormonal changes, no impact on fertility, no observed side effects ......
It's still in the mouse stage, but there's no denying the potential.
100% contraceptive rate in mice New hope for male contraceptives
Sperm motility is crucial for the successful encounter of sperm with the egg.
According to WHO recommendations, sperm motility is classified into 4 levels.
Class A: good sperm motility with fast, lively, linear forward motion
Class B: Motile sperm with sluggish linear or non-linear forward motion
Class C: poor sperm activity, spinning or rotating in place, non-forward motion
Class D: Sperm inactivity
It is more likely that the egg will be fertilized if the sperm of A+B level reaches 50% or more within 30 minutes to 1 hour after the sperm is released.
This medicine reduces sperm motility to D level in a short period of time.
Research has targeted the "switch" of sperm activity, soluble adenylate cyclase (sAC), which can shut down sperm movement if it can inhibit the activity of this enzyme.
A compound called "TDI-11861" can successfully block or inhibit the enzyme activity in vivo, either by oral administration or injection.
In the experiment, male rats were injected with this compound, and half an hour later the drug took effect and sperm motility decreased. The researchers put them together with female mice in heat.
The mice got "busy" as expected. But after two hours of titillation and a total of 52 mating attempts, none of the females became pregnant.
At the same time, one-third of the females in the control group, which was not injected with the drug, became pregnant.
In a follow-up experiment, the contraceptive rate remained 100% for 2 hours after onset of action, declined after 3 hours, and sperm regained full viability after 24 hours.
This drug also has the outstanding advantage of not affecting the production of sex hormones.
The rocky road of male contraceptive pill development
There are three most, most basic requirements for a drug to be successfully marketed: be effective, be safe (benefits outweigh side effects), and have a market.
In the 1970s, scientists studying the use of cotton seed oil accidentally discovered that the "cotton phenol" in cotton seeds could also be used for male contraception. And, numerous animal tests and clinical observations of tens of thousands of subjects confirmed the effectiveness.
However, it has an unacceptable side effect - it may be permanently sterile.
That was the end of the unexpected, and the search for male contraception continued.
In the 1990s, the World Health Organization recruited 271 couples in seven countries for a trial of "testosterone enanthate," a simple contraceptive method that required only one injection per week.
After 4 months, 65% of the men stopped producing sperm and sperm counts returned to normal after stopping the pill. Of the 119 couples who completed the trial, only one became pregnant, and the development of a male contraceptive pill seemed like the dawn of hope.
The excellent contraceptive results caught the attention of pharmaceutical companies, and Oganon in the Netherlands (the company that sold the short-acting contraceptive Mafron) and Schering in Germany collaborated on clinical trials of androgenic male contraceptives.
While everything was in full swing, Schering and O'Gannon were acquired separately, perhaps because the prospects for profitability were not promising, and research on male contraceptives was interrupted.
Despite the long road from R&D to launch, scientists have been working hard to.
The drug does not work, people also found another way to develop the "boiled egg" physical contraceptive method.
This contraceptive tool uses the principle that high temperatures will reduce the activity of sperm, just fill with water, heat, put the "egg", after a few minutes to achieve the theoretical contraceptive effect.
Market acceptance is a big test
There is another key issue to the success of a new drug on the market - the size of the market.
After all, it is difficult to get funding for a drug that cannot be bought by users, is not accepted by the market, and is not profitable.
People have shown great interest in the male contraceptive pill, which looks promising, and there have been many surveys showing that some men have expressed a willingness to use the male pill if the 'side effects are minimal'. One scholar did a study on the male pill in colleges and universities and found that 76.87% of men were willing to take the pill themselves.
However, there is a real problem with the male pill that cannot be ignored: the side effects of the drug occur in men; the risk (unwanted pregnancy) caused by not taking the pill is borne by the woman.
This leads to the fact that, for men, the pill is a detriment to their health even if there are a few side effects; for women, it is not safe to leave something that could cause harm to their bodies in the hands of someone else.
There was a relevant survey in the UK that showed that more than half of women would be concerned about the man missing a dose.
Would you be willing to (let your partner) use a male contraceptive pill if one were available that was easy to obtain and had few side effects?
No matter what your choice is, please feel free to share your views and opinions in the comment section.
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