But two committees were paying close attention to the study, and they realized that a lot of guys were dropping out because they were experiencing side effects. The most common side effect was acne, and sometimes that acne was pretty severe. Some men also developed mood swings and in some cases those mood swings got pretty bad. One man developed severe depression, and another tried to commit suicide. Because of that, they cut the study short.
But when they spoke with guys in the study who didn't drop out, most said that if this product was available, they would use it.
There's been a lot of eye rolling on the Internet about these side effects, because women have been experiencing things like mood swings and weight gain for decades with hormonal birth control.
No birth control is perfect. Almost everything has some sort of side effect. And the side effects they saw in this study were not that different from those you see with other kinds of birth control — except for the severe emotional problems. That was definitely more than we see with the birth control pill.
But there's a little bit of a different risk-benefit analysis when it comes to men using a contraceptive. When women use a contraceptive, they're balancing the risks of the drug against the risks of getting pregnant. And pregnancy itself carries risks. But these are healthy men — they're not going to suffer any risks if they get somebody else pregnant.
Why is it harder to develop birth control for men than women?
That's the a big question. There are a couple of reasons. One is that it's harder from a biological point of view. If you think about it, it's a numbers game: Women produce one egg a month, while men are producing millions of sperm constantly. With women, you can take advantage of their normal monthly cycle with the birth control pill. There's nothing equivalent to that in men.
What does this mean for male birth control in general? Is this particular study a big setback, or is it no big deal?
It's a setback and it's definitely a disappointment. People had a lot of optimism about this study. But I've talked to a bunch of scientists about this, and they say they're not giving up yet. They're going to tinker with the doses of the hormones to see if they can come up with safer levels. They're also going to try different kinds of hormones and maybe administer them differently, like in a gel or an implant. They could also target how a sperm works by making it not swim as well, making it worse at fertilizing the egg.
There's a lot of research still going on, but most of it is at a fairly early level. Scientists are saying, "We're gonna keep trying," but they're still a decade away from coming up with something for men.
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