What Is a Male Contraceptive?

Animal experiments have proven that the male contraceptive gossypol acetate can destroy sperm, spermatids and spermatocytes in the fine ducts of the testicular curve, inhibit the spermatogenesis process, and make the sperm lack of sperm. After short-term administration, the fertility of the animals can be restored after the drug is stopped. As a result of clinical trials, the effective rate of this product is above 99%. However, about 1% of the patients who took the drug developed hypokalemia in the period of taking the drug, so they could not be promoted.

Contraceptive drugs generally refer to oral contraceptives. There are oral contraceptives for women and oral contraceptives for men. In actual life, women use oral contraceptives for contraception more often. With more than 20 years of experience, different women have different feelings. Some women are willing to use this method for contraception, while others do not want to use it. .

Chinese name: Male contraceptive
Foreign name: contraceptive drugs

Using the crowd: Adult male
Types of: Oral contraceptive

Male contraceptive research background

The main contraceptive methods for men are condoms and vasectomy. The former has a high failure rate and the latter is irreversible. Vasectomy is common in developed countries. 50% of couples aged 35 and older in the Netherlands choose surgical contraception, 70% of which are performed by men, while half of men aged 40 and older in New Zealand undergo the procedure. The UK also has 40,000 per year. A man had this operation. And male contraceptives not only overcome the inefficiency of condoms, but also maintain male fertility.

Current status of male contraceptive research

Gu Yiqun, director of the male clinical research office of the Institute of Science and Technology of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, told the Life Times reporter that male contraceptives are being studied and are roughly divided into steroids and non-steroids. Compound steroid contraceptives have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for human trials. CDB-4022 is a non-steroidal substance, and because it does not affect hormone levels and has small side effects, it has certain prospects. But what the results are, there is still data for clinical application research. Contraceptives should meet three basic conditions: safe, effective, reversible, and affordable and easy to use. Some male and foreign contraceptive acceptability surveys show that more than half of the respondents indicated that they were willing to accept and use oral contraceptives, and more men wanted to take control of their sperm. Therefore, if male contraceptives can be successfully developed, they should have a market and promote the humanization and diversification of human contraceptive methods.

Male contraceptives are still in the experimental stage, and their efficacy claims are still speculative, and no drug has passed clinical trials.

Mechanisms of male contraceptive action

Male contraceptives can work in different ways:

Male contraceptive (1) The long-term use of gonadotropin-releasing hormones can reduce the secretion of pituitary gonadotropins (follicle-stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone) through down-regulation and inhibit the spermatogenic effect.

(2) Use the corresponding antibodies of follicle stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone to block the effect of this hormone. However, since these two hormones contain the same a subunit and are the same as the a subunit of thyroid stimulating hormone, when the role of the antibody cannot reach the specific anti-hormone effect, it may cause unnecessary side effects.

(3) Use of autologous hormones, such as testosterone alone, or combined with progestin, through negative feedback, inhibit pituitary secretion of gonadotropins and inhibit spermatogenesis. Regular injection of testosterone enanthate can achieve anti-fertility effects, and can recover after stopping the drug. It is a promising male contraceptive.

These drugs all interfere with the spermatogenic process by inhibiting the hypothalamus-pituitary-gonadal axis. The drug is expensive, inconvenient to use, and at the same time inhibits the function of testicular mesenchymal cells, resulting in a decrease in testosterone levels, decreased sexual desire or sexual dysfunction, so further research is needed to solve it. Among them, although testosterone also inhibits the function of interstitial cells, because it has a substitute effect, it does not affect sexual function, and has a good prospect for use.

(4) Gossypol, a drug that selectively inhibits spermatogenic epithelium, was first discovered by scholars in China for its anti-fertility effect, and a large number of domestic studies and clinical trials have been conducted. The research has attracted international attention. It is a male oral contraceptive, which is cheap and easy to use, but also has certain side effects.

Male contraceptive adverse reactions

Male contraceptives will be 99% effective and will have fewer adverse side effects for users. Anderson, a researcher in human reproduction at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, said in the results of a series of tests that male contraceptives do not have multiple side effects like female contraceptives. Side effects of female contraceptives include affecting mood swings, clotting blood clots, dizziness, and gag And headache. Male contraceptives should have few side effects and only cause a slight increase in weight for those who take them.

Some experts point out that another advantage of male contraceptives is that male contraceptives are not as difficult to restore as vasectomy, because men can resume fertility as long as they stop taking the contraceptive for 16 weeks.

Male contraceptives coming soon

Male contraceptive pill

A shot to stop sperm On August 21, 2012, according to the latest research report from the United States: An anticancer drug has the potential of male contraceptives without any side effects. According to researchers, once male contraceptives are successfully developed, in the future, men may be able to share family burdens with women, reduce the rise in maternal mortality, and may also bring good news to women.

On June 23, 2015, a medical research institution in the United States developed a contraceptive for men. By blocking sperm injection, a single injection can be administered for several years. The male contraceptive, called Vasalgel, was developed by the Passamos Foundation and is expected to be available in the United States from 2018 to 2020. ^[1]

Male contraceptive pill Indonesia

On December 11, 2014, a professor at the University of Erlanga in Indonesia developed a new type of male contraceptive, which is said to be 99% effective and has almost no side effects. The pill is derived from an Indonesian shrub and achieves contraceptive effects by affecting enzyme activity in semen.

This plant belongs to the genus Mackenaceae and Elderberry, and has been used by Papua people for contraception for quite a long time. Active ingredients in plants can destroy three key enzymes in semen, making them unable to enter the egg normally during fertilization.

Many Indonesian media reports said that Professor Bang Bang of the University of Erlanga learned about the efficacy of this plant from 1985 and carried out a long study of 30 years to develop male contraceptives.

He extracted active ingredients from plants into pills, and conducted clinical trials to test the contraceptive effect of the pills.

Bambang pointed out that the drug only responds to enzymes, so it does not affect the quantity and quality of sperm. Researchers have not found any significant side effects caused by the contraceptive.

Indonesian drug regulatory agencies are planning to conduct larger trials to further determine the effectiveness of this contraceptive. Global pharmaceutical companies have long shown great interest in this contraceptive.

Ban Bang said the contraceptive pill will be available by 2016. ^[2]