Science Gets Nearer To The Male Birth Control Pill

May 5, 2009 by tanya
Filed under: News

Science is getting closer to developing a male birth control pill, according to a study published on Monday.

The report featured in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. The thought of birth control for men which uses hormones has caused much debate within the medical community.

Trials have been carried out in China on over 1,000 men who have already fathered one child within the last two years. They have then been injected monthly with testosterone undecanoate (TU) in tea seed oil.

Although sperm production is normally triggered by testosterone, too much of the hormone can cause the testes to shut down.

“If you give external testosterone in the blood, this decreases the testosterone in the testes,” said researcher Dr. John K. Amory, from the University of Washington (Seattle).

“It’s because the body has what we call a feed-back loop. The brain sees the hormones and thinks, ‘Oh, we’re making plenty of that,’ and shuts off [sperm] production.” Amory commented.

The study showed a 95 percent success rate for preventing conception. For men whose sperm levels fell to the expected levels within the first few months of the study, the injections were shown to be 98 percent effective.

Researchers are aiming to get the injections to be 99 percent effective in preventing pregnancy. More long term research is needed to find out how safe the injections are, although the findings are very encouraging.