U researchers work on male birth control
Researchers at the University of Minnesota created a birth control pill for male mice, which proved 99% effective in preventing pregnancy. The contraceptive targets a protein in the body that receives a form of vitamin A, which is involved with sperm production and fertility. Researchers gave this compound, referred to as YCT529, to male mice for four weeks; the animals showed drastically lower sperm counts. Four to six weeks after they stopped receiving the contraceptive, the mice could impregnate a female mouse again.
Since the 1970s, scientists have been researching ways to create a male birth control pill. While the team behind this new study is encouraged by their promising results, others are skeptical, and see it as just another intriguing advancement that may not actually make it to market.
"I would be very skeptical until I see human data," Dr. Amin Herati, director of the male infertility and men's health program within Brady Urological Institute at Johns Hopkins, said about the study. There are key differences between how human and mice genes interact, he said, and in the reproductive systems.
"These are novel compounds," said Dr. Christina Wang, an expert on contraceptives at the Lundquist Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. "You really don't know what they do unless you do toxicology studies." The researchers have conducted toxicology studies in mice, but Wang stressed that human trials are needed to assess the safety of the pill.
However, even if this pill fails in future trials, now that researchers have discovered the compound, they may be able to create backup options for the pill, said Md Abdullah Al Noman, a graduate student at the University of Minnesota who presented the findings at a meeting of the American Chemical Society on Wednesday. "This is a trailblazer of non-hormonal birth control."
Clue to long COVID may be found in feces
COVID-19 patients can harbor the coronavirus in their feces for months after infection, researchers found, stoking concern that its persistence can aggravate the immune system and cause long COVID symptoms.
In the largest study tracking SARS-CoV-2 RNA in feces and COVID-19 symptoms, scientists at California's Stanford University found that about half of infected patients shed traces of the virus in their waste in the week after infection and almost 4% of patients still emit them seven months later. The researchers also linked coronavirus RNA in feces to gastric upsets, and concluded that SARS-CoV-2 likely directly infects the gastrointestinal tract, where it may hide out.
"It raises the question that ongoing infections in hidden parts of the body may be important for long COVID," said Ami Bhatt, a senior author on the study published online in the journal Med, and an associate professor of medicine and genetics at Stanford. Lingering virus might directly invade cells and damage tissues or produce proteins that are provoking the immune system, she said.
