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A male contraceptive is a method, device, or drug used by a man that prevents conception in his female partner. The only methods of contraception currently available to men are withdrawal, condoms, and vasectomy. Withdrawal and condoms can be inconvenient, and both suffer from unreliability in typical use. Vasectomies are reliable and have a high satisfaction rate, but are not readily reversible (vasovasostomy).
Past contraceptives
- Gossypol, derived from cotton seeds, was used in trials by the Chinese government for about fifteen years. While was found to be a reliable contraceptive, it has serious health effects, and ten to twenty percent of users become permanently sterile. Research on it as a temporary contraceptive has been abandoned.
Current research
Prospective future male contraceptives are in various stages of research and development. The ideal method would be highly reliable, reversible, and convenient. A variety of avenues are being researched:
- A male hormonal contraceptive, the analogue of the “the Pill” for women, works. It is also how various heat treatments and lonidamine analog compounds work. Because spermatogenesis takes about 72 days, methods of male contraception that act on the testes take about that long to become effective.
- Interference with the maturation of sperm in the epididymis, which is the long, coiled tube through which sperm pass after exiting the testes. This approach is considered the most promising by the major pharmaceutical companies working in this field *,*. Drugs targeting this phase of sperm development would become effective faster. Two pharmaceuticals are testing small, easily synthesized drug compound candidates.
- Partially or completely blocking the vas deferens, the tubes connecting the epididymis to the urethra. While a vasectomy removes a piece of each vas deferens, RISUG, the intra vas device (IVD) and injectable plugs only block the tubes until the devices are removed.
- Other new male contraceptives act once the sperm have entered the female reproductive tract. Some interfere with the sperms’ ability to swim properly, while others prevent sperm from recognizing or binding to an egg. Zaveca, Dr. Joseph Hall’s enzyme inhibitor, and calcium channel blocker drugs all work this way.
- Heat-based contraception involves heating the testicles to a high temperature for a short period of time. While some very small studies have found certain heating regimines to be effective and reversible, there is currently no interest in funding larger studies.
Further reading
- Male Contraception Information Project's “Frontiers in nonhormonal male contraception: the next step”
- MaleContraceptives.org's summary of experimental male contraceptive methods
- Male contraceptives Yahoo! group
References
- "Epididymal genomics and the search for a male contraceptive" by TT Turner, DS Johnston and SA Jelinsky in the Journal of Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology. Released as an Epub ahead of printing on 1 February 2006.
- "New approaches for male fertility control: HE6 as an example of a putative target" by U Gottwald, B Davies, M Fritsch and UF Habenicht in the Journal of Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology. Released as an Epub ahead of printing on 23 January 2006.
See also
"Male contraceptive"