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This Male Birth Control Pill has Just Been Shown Safe in Humans for the First Time:
For years, scientists have been trying to develop a safe and effective version of the pill for men, and a new drug candidate could be the contraceptive we've been looking for.
This week, scientists in the US announced that an experimental oral drug called 11-beta-MNTDC looks to be safe and tolerable, based on results from a phase 1 clinical trial involving 40 men.
"Our results suggest that this pill, which combines two hormonal activities in one, will decrease sperm production while preserving libido," says male reproduction biologist Christina Wang from the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute (LA BioMed).
[...] 11-beta-MNTDC is a modified form of testosterone with both progestational (in effect, sperm-blocking) and androgenic (hormone-balancing) characteristics.
Before you get your hopes up too much, this was strictly a test for toleration; further studies are required to test efficacy.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @02:14PM
Not only dangerous for the permanent testis damage.
It's well known since more than 40 years ago already that long term use of methylated testosterone ester variants causes serious liver damage [nih.gov] and life-threatening medical conditions. There are plenty of medical literature about it, and the therapeutic testosterone levels for HRT and male birth control are similar.
Oral testosterone is absorbed in the intestine and must pass through the liver before being distributed to the rest of the body.
The liver naturally destroys the testosterone present in the food as does with many other hormones that otherwise would be harmful and disrupt the endocrine system.
Using the a methylated molecule helps to prevent the liver to do its job. Unfortunately even if that helps to maintain terapeutical levels of testosterone in blood after being processed in the liver that has a long term cost.
Don't know about the 11β-Methyl-19-nortestosterone dodecylcarbonate [wikipedia.org] since can't find anywhere any actual long term study proving it safer than other methylated testosterone esters, and are more related to ease of use and avoiding aestetic secondary effects since 11-beta-MNTDC is not 5alpha-reduced so it's suposed to avoid promoting male baldness pattern.
That's one of the main reasons methylated testosterone esters are not uses as HRT anymore despite being the most convenient to use and dirty cheap to produce and instead much more cumbersome and expensive gels or shoots are prescribed.