An everyday birth control pill for men has passed human safety tests. The pill contains hormones designed to stop sperm production. A man produces about 1500 sperms per second making it difficult to find the best reversible birth control method.
This will be an additional option to the male who are limited to vasectomy or use of condom as birth control methods.
However, it will take years for the pill to be brought out to the market according to the doctors. The researchers remain certain that it is a decade long wait for the male contraceptive to be readily available.
Finding birth control methods for women has been achieved with great milestone while that of their male counterparts has been an uphill task to doctors and scientists world wide.
The new oral pill, that most men would prefer than irreversible methods, was developed by researchers at Los Angeles Biomed Research Institute and the University of Washington.
The pill, 11-beta-MNTDC has been reported to safely reduce the hormones that produce sperms and maintain normal testosterone level without reducing their sexual desires.
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The participants, 40 men, took a daily dosage of 200mg or 400 mg with food for 28 days. The pill reduced the hormone production successfully to the level of a male who is androgen deficient.
Side effects reported by the participants were: headaches, fatigue, acne and lower levels of libido.
Contrary to the significant fall of hormones researches said it will have to take 60-90 days for sperm count itself to decrease.
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In what was deemed as a major milestone, the researcher revealed that the drug had successfully hampered the hormones involved in the production of testosterone.
Previous attempts to develop men’s contraception has been marred with a myriad of challenges. With the trial injection found to be 100 per cent effective was stopped in 2016 owing to its severe side effects of depression, pain and irregular heart beat.
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