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Pill for men a step closer
Updated: June 5, 2011 10:06 p.m. info.
LONDON - After many years research on contraceptive pills for men - with little success, due to hormonal side effects. The new pill works as an "anti-vitamin 'and let the libido alone.
Temporarily disable the fertility in men is somewhat more difficult than in women. Instead of one ovulation per month, men produce millions of sperm cells per day to avoid.
For hormonal contraceptives this works only with relatively high doses - which may again be associated with side effects such as decreased libido.
A group of American researchers therefore decided to find another route to the so-called "spermatogenesis" temporarily interrupt.
Synthetic vitamin deficiency
Earlier research had already known that the production of sperm cells in humans and animals can end with severe vitamin A deficiency. Now is such a shortage in the western world not only very rare, it is also undesirable, because vitamin A is important for many other body functions, such as night vision.
But the vitamin appears in testes do its work through a specific receptor - a type of antenna that gives a signal as soon as vitamin A stick. And this receptor seems to play no significant role in other functions of the vitamin.
No sperm
The new pill therefore contains a substance chemically similar to the vitamin, but not the same effect. The vitamin receptor is occupied by this substance, and the production of sperm stops.
The results were published in the journal Endocrinology. According to the researchers, a low dosage already effective to prevent pregnancy. They found no adverse short term and will now see if the male pill, even after several years use poses no health risks.
Source:
http://www.nu.nl/wetenschap/2532777/pil-mannen-stap-dichterbij.html
