In the search for contraceptive methods, science has never taken equal steps. Due to social and cultural obstacles, there are still no contraceptive pills for men easily found in pharmacies as there are for women, despite the disastrous side effects.
An experiment carried out in China, however, tries to change this reality. Scientists at the University of Nantong have created a contraceptive method that would use nanoparticles from magnets to heat a man’s testicles, until it stops sperm production.
The study has already advanced to the testing phase in mice and achieved positive (and reversible) results. The mice no longer produced sperm after seven days of treatment and remained so for 30 days. After 60 days of treatment, they returned to normal with no side effects.
It’s not the first time scientists have experimented with using magnets and high temperatures as a male contraceptive method, but the news is that, this time, according to those responsible for the study, the treatment lasts less, is more controllable and less painful.
Details of the experiment were published this week in the scientific journal “Nano Letters”.
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Heat is a natural male contraceptive. Many male mammals, in addition to humans, have their testicles in a scrotal sac on the outside of the body just to keep sperm production less warm. That’s also why the use of notebooks on the lap is not recommended for those who want to “procreate”.
Until today, however, studies of male contraceptives involving heating the testicles ran into risks of external or internal burns, painful injections or nanomaterials that, over time, could harm the human body.
Fei Sun and Weihua Ding of the Institute of Reproductive Medicine at the University of Nantong in China believe they have arrived at a solution to the dilemma. The trick involves iron oxide nanoparticles, which are biodegradable and can be guided to the testicles using magnets.
Scientists injected these nanoparticles bathed in a citric acid solution into the bloodstream of male mice for two days. The nanoparticles were then guided to the mice’s testicles using magnets.
From there, the scientists use a magnetic field to raise the temperature of the nanomagnets inside the mice’s scrotum for 15 minutes, raising the temperature inside to 40 degrees Celsius — hot enough to stop sperm production, but not enough to cause burns.
According to the scientists, the mice could no longer get their partners pregnant after seven days of treatment, and remained so for at least 30 days (some up to 60). But after the 60th day, the females that crossed with them were already generating 12 puppies per pregnancy, just as they did before the treatment.
“The nanoparticles were non-toxic to cells and were gradually eliminated from the body, offering new possibilities for male contraception,” the study authors said in a press release.
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The study suggests a new alternative to birth control for men, with longer-lasting effectiveness than using condoms, and without the side effects of current methods offered to women, such as hormone control pills — not to mention the advantage of being more easily reversible than a vasectomy.
Another possible application for the method, according to scientists, is in livestock, in the artificial selection of cattle, or in domestic animals. But the studies still have a long way to go before they reach human trials.
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