Early signs positive for male birth control pill

A small study has found that a new pill can safely lower the male hormones, including testosterone, necessary for sperm production. The study concluded that after about a month of treatment, taking a single pill a day, a new prototype called dimethandrolone undecanoate, or DMAU, could effectively act as a working male birth control pill.

The study was conducted by Stephanie Page, a professor of medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine, along with Christina Wang, a professor of medicine at UCLA in Los Angeles.

During the study’s length, none of the 83 men who completed the treatment suffered troubling symptoms which could arise with a dramatic drop in testosterone, researchers reported at the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting.

“Scientists have been working on a male contraceptive for decades,” said Monica Laronda, a reproductive endocrinologist at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, who was not involved in the research. “DMAU shows great promise.”

The drug effects were reversible after stopping treatment.

As the drug would take at least 60 to 90 days to affect sperm production, 28 days of treatment is too short an interval to observe optimal sperm suppression, Wang said. They plan longer studies, and if the drug is effective, it will move to larger studies and then testing in sexually active couples.

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