The male pill under review, will it revolutionize sexual relations?

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The contraceptive

was a complete sexual revolution for women in the 70s and now, half a century later, it seems that a new one is advancing that also arrives in the form of a pill.

And this time it is not for women, but for men, who will have in their hands with a

pill the possibility of controlling the pregnancy of their partners.

It is a novel

male contraceptive that, according to

, effectively prevents pregnancy without obvious side effects, according to the results they have already achieved in their tests with mice.

"A good opportunity to let women rest from the responsibility of hormonal contraception," says Dr. Diego Concha, from the Doctoralia platform.

"And a very good sign", points out the sociologist Cecilia Bizzotto, spokesperson for Joyclub, "because it implies that more and more men are willing to take responsibility for contraception and are aware that fatherhood and the

of raising children is shared and, therefore, they are also concerned with avoiding

not wanted".

And so why is there still no viable alternative in this regard, almost six decades after the female pill was marketed?

"It is not an issue of machismo at all," says Dr. Santiago Palacios, an expert in contraception at the

(SEGO), "it is much more difficult to inhibit millions of cells a day, the sperm, than a single cell, an ovule, every 28 days, has much more complexity, that's why although it has been trying for many years it has not been achieved".

A new sexual revolution?

At the moment, the new contraceptive is being developed at the University of Minnesota, which has presented it at the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), and it can radically change the landscape of

"although they are not men who need an oral contraceptive, but the

sexual

In this sense, "it must be taken into account that it is the woman who becomes pregnant and, therefore,

we are concerned about what this male pill may mean in the case of sporadic relationships, because the repercussions will always be for her," warns Dr. Palacios. "What really liberated women was female

, and that continues to be a reality , because with it the woman exercises her will not to get pregnant.

couple

, very well, welcome this male pill;

for the others, no.

And we gynecologists see this very clearly, because we have to protect women."

The new contraceptive is "better news for them, because it will give them greater

," says Cecilia Bizzotto.

Today, men have only two effective options to prevent pregnancy:

and

.

Both methods that arouse little sympathy in couples, the first because of its discomfort and the second because it is a form of a surgical procedure that also implies permanent sterilization since, although it is sometimes possible to reverse a vasectomy, surgery is expensive and it is not always successful.

Today "almost the same proportion of men have vasectomies as women have

," says Bizzotto.

In this sense, Dr. Santiago Palacios also considers

the arrival of a male pill to be an

"It would come in handy because it would serve to educate men. To take on this task in a stable relationship, they would have to undergo the necessary check-ups, regular check-ups like women routinely do. They would learn to go to the

on a regular basis and much sooner than they do now, and those check-ups will serve much more than to control how a contraceptive works. That will be a step forward in the concept of

between the sexes, one that would allow many male pathologies to be detected in time, we have to think than

is the one with the highest incidence in men", explains Dr. Santiago Palacios.

what does the male pill do

Therefore, men need an

contraceptive similar to the pill for women, who have many

for birth control, from pills to patches to intrauterine devices, making them the ones who bear most of the responsibility for birth control. when it comes to preventing

.

"Scientists have been trying for decades to develop a male oral contraceptive, but there are still no approved pills on the market," said Abdullah Al Noman, a graduate student in the

lab working on this clinical trial, a compound very different from all that have been tried so far.

As its authors explain, previously most research has focused on testosterone, the male

, which can cause side effects such as weight gain, depression and higher levels of what is known as bad cholesterol.

The new pill would avoid all this because it does not work with

but with a protein called retinoic acid receptor alpha, a form of vitamin A that plays important roles in cell growth, sperm formation, and embryonic development.

Do women trust?

The University of Minnesota researchers say their

was 99% effective in preventing pregnancy when administered orally to mice for four weeks, with no side effects.

And after another four or six weeks without receiving the treatment, they were able to sire offspring again.

The

, which will begin testing in humans in the third or fourth quarter of this year, is not the only one they are developing.

"It is difficult to predict whether a compound that works in animal studies will also work in human trials, so we are exploring other formulas," they explain.

However, would women trust a male pill?

Well, not much;

According to data from a survey conducted at the University of Teesside (United Kingdom), the concern about whether they took the pill in the exact dose and at the right time would drive them crazy.

Something that is confirmed by Dr. Carmen Menéndez, head of the Comprehensive Unit for Women's Care at the Palacios de Salud Institute, who assures that an ideal plan could be considered "a good advance in the equality of men and women and in the

of their relationships , but, putting your feet on the ground, it is very

for women to accept the

because any alteration, misuse or carelessness would have a direct impact on her body". "Let us remember the scandal of

who deceived her sexual partners saying she was sterile so as not to use a condom", points out Cecilia Bizzotto along the same lines.

A bath for testicles

All in all, the male pill is not the only

newcomer for them.

A German designer, Rebecca Weiss, has also just patented a device for men that she explains prevents pregnancy.

It is 'Coso', a hormone-free method that temporarily stops the formation of sperm by means of

and in which he began to work due to a personal experience: a diagnosis of cervical cancer prevented him from continuing to take the

.

method

, we realized the lack of male

," says Rebecca Weiss.

A problem that in addition to her "affects many others as well" and that led her to investigate the subject as part of her thesis in the master's degree in industrial design that she was studying at the Technical University of Munich.

The result of their work is a small device that works like a "

bath ", Weiss defines.

To use it, it is filled with water, which the device heats to a certain temperature, and the testicles are inserted into it for a couple of minutes.

By means of ultrasound waves, the generation of

is temporarily stopped , achieving the contraceptive effect two weeks after the first use.

This method is

-free , can be used at home and is completely reversible: for

to return, you just have to wait a maximum of six months after the last application.

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design and engineering award with her 'Coso' ,

an award that will allow her to deepen her research and carry out the necessary

so that it can stop being a prototype and become commercialized .

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