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Male Birth Control Pill Shows Promise in Trial

posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday March 20 2018, @02:16PM   Printer-friendly
from the hairy-knuckles dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://gizmodo.com/a-once-a-day-male-birth-control-pill-shows-promise-in-h-1823890390

One of the latest experimental candidates for a male birth control drug is a compound that would be taken much like the daily birth control pill available for women. A pilot study presented Sunday at the Endocrine Society's annual meeting suggests that the compound—called dimethandrolone undecanoate (DMAU)—can be safe and effective in human test subjects.

[...] DMAU is meant to act on the same receptors as testosterone and progestin. But it seems to be more easily absorbed by the body and longer-lasting. That theoretically means a single dose a day (when taken with food) should cause sterility without leading to other serious consequences, the authors say.

[...] The few side effects Page's team observed were weight gain and lowered levels of HDL cholesterol (the "good" kind). But they feel a tweaked dose could alleviate these symptoms. Importantly, the pill didn't seem to cause any other lasting symptoms of low testosterone. Eight men in the treatment group did report lower libido, but the effect faded away after treatment had ended.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by goodie on Tuesday March 20 2018, @03:57PM (2 children)

    by goodie (1877) on Tuesday March 20 2018, @03:57PM (#655437) Journal

    I feel that I have to state that so far these effects are on a very short range. We are only starting to see some of the side effects of long-term use of the pill for some women on a timescale that is much longer than the one used to test this. Don't get me wrong, if it proves successful and safe, great, more options for people (and the onus won't be on the woman to not get pregnant). Only time will tell, but in general, the more options the better :)

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 20 2018, @04:20PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 20 2018, @04:20PM (#655457)

    The pill has many negative effects on women that are very rarely talked about, even avoided. I imagine the same thing will happen with this pill. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this somehow chemically castrates men by mistake one day.

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by milsorgen on Tuesday March 20 2018, @10:31PM

    by milsorgen (6225) on Tuesday March 20 2018, @10:31PM (#655675)

    . We are only starting to see some of the side effects of long-term use of the pill for some women on a timescale that is much longer than the one used to test this.

    Yeah like the hormones ending up in the environment and water supply?

    See: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/jun/02/water-system-toxic-contraceptive-pill [theguardian.com]
    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/birth-control-in-water-supply/ [scientificamerican.com]

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