3 Months to recover from a steroid cycle?

[Pooks]

A study suggests that sperm levels shoot back to normal around three months after men stop taking experimental hormonal contraceptives, raising the prospect of a male contraceptive implant or patch in the near future.

Christina Wang of the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, California, and her colleagues pooled data from 1549 men in 30 studies whose sperm counts dropped below 3 million sperm per millilitre while taking hormonal contraceptives. The World Health Organization defines 20 million sperm per millilitre as fertile (The Lancet, vol 367, p 1412). Extended periods of treatment were associated with slightly longer recovery time.

When male contraception arrives, it will most likely come in the form of a patch, topical gel or bi-monthly injection, say researchers. Making a male birth control pill remains tricky because orally delivered testosterone can have serious side effects, such as liver damage.

"Male contraception is most likely to come in the form of a patch, topical gel or injection"

[dupa95]

Just get the big V for victory

[Pooks]

Yah lame they dont mention how long the study was.. and also what is "slightly" longer

[Lunacy]

A study suggests that sperm levels shoot back to normal around three months after men stop taking experimental hormonal contraceptives, raising the prospect of a male contraceptive implant or patch in the near future.

Christina Wang of the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, California, and her colleagues pooled data from 1549 men in 30 studies whose sperm counts dropped below 3 million sperm per millilitre while taking hormonal contraceptives. The World Health Organization defines 20 million sperm per millilitre as fertile (The Lancet, vol 367, p 1412). Extended periods of treatment were associated with slightly longer recovery time.

When male contraception arrives, it will most likely come in the form of a patch, topical gel or bi-monthly injection, say researchers. Making a male birth control pill remains tricky because orally delivered testosterone can have serious side effects, such as liver damage.

"Male contraception is most likely to come in the form of a patch, topical gel or injection"

Does the study mention what concentration and type of juice they were taking?

[Pooks]

Does the study mention what concentration and type of juice they were taking?

I am curious myself..
I wonder if they use some sort of "FAKE TEST" so people dont get the benefits of the test, but just blocks the receptors,, kinda like Clomid or Nolvadex is for Estrogen.

[Lunacy]

I am curious myself..
I wonder if they use some sort of "FAKE TEST" so people dont get the benefits of the test, but just blocks the receptors,, kinda like Clomid or Nolvadex is for Estrogen.

Yeah, good point. Let us know if you find anymore on this.

[*Narkissos*]

A study suggests that sperm levels shoot back to normal around three months after men stop taking experimental hormonal contraceptives, raising the prospect of a male contraceptive implant or patch in the near future.

Duh.

Makes no mention of any protocol used to assist in regaining testicular function.

So basically the excerpt is saying... "We gave a bunch of guys suppressive compounds and then we discontinued administration..and it took em 3 months to get back to normal."

Nothing new or spectacular Pooks.

No PCT = delayed/slow recovery

..or no recovery.

[Pooks]

Luckily it seems everyone in that study recovered.
Altho we dont know what the longest administration of this drug last for tho..

[Pooks]

THIS IS A WEIRD ONE. PESTICIDES that mimic testosterone and Estrogen.. and how they affect wildlife etc.. Mutations and such.



How modern life's ominous chemical brew is playing havoc with wildlife.

Thirty-two years ago, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring meticulously documented cases where pesticides caused massive wildlife kills. But one sentence in the landmark book foreshadowed perhaps the most disturbing aspect of some pesticides: "Mosquitoes exposed to DDT for several generations turned into strange creatures called gynandromorphs--part male and part female."

Today that sentence could apply not only to DDT (banned in 1972) but to dozens of industrial chemicals; not only to insects but to wildlife and humans as well. In Florida's Lake Apopka, male alligators are born sterile, have shrunken penises and testicles, and manufacture the female hormone estrogen. Females in the same population produce too many eggs. In England, river trout have part male and part female sex organs. Off the coast of Holland, seals are having trouble reproducing. Dead beluga whales, saturated with toxic chemicals and tumors, are washing ashore along the St. Lawrence River. Cancer and reproductive problems in humans continue to grow.

No. This isn't a bad dream. It's real. It's happening now and will continue for the forseeable future--perhaps for hundreds of years. The cause, some scientists say, may be the tens of billions of pounds of pesticides and industrial chemicals dumped into the environment over the past 50 years. At least 45 of these chemicals can mimic the hormones estrogen or testosterone and disrupt normal development in wildlife and humans, causing grotesque sexual birth defects, behavioral abnormalities, immune-system failures, and cancer. This phenomenon is occurring at a time when hundreds of species are perched on the brink of extinction and when millions of humans are suffering from diseases whose cures seem out of reach. Some scientists fear that the more they look, the more they'll find. After all, there are tens of thousands of chemicals from which to choose. "The list is endless; it's just overwhelming," laments Theo Colborn, a zoologist at the World Wildlife Fund.

No being escapes these chemicals. Some, like agricultural pesticides, are directly applied to the environment. Others, like PCBs (banned in 1976) and dioxin from paper and plastics manufacturing, end up as industrial waste. They saturate microorganisms and plants and travel up the food chain, accumulating in body fat in increasing concentrations. This process is called biomagnification and explains why higher concentrations of a chemical can be found in an animal than in its environment.

During fetal development, these chemicals fit into the cells' receptors and either act as hormones or block natural hormones. For instance, a genetic male embryo naturally produces testosterone, which helps it develop male sex organs. But as industrial estrogens, as these chemicals are known, freely cross the placental barrier, they send mixed signals, suppressing the production of male sex organs. The males are born sterile or with reduced penises and testicles. In some cases, female sexual organs begin developing. Females can be affected, too--either feminized or masculinized, depending on the chemical.

Wildlife biologists have been observing sexual birth defects in wildlife for years. Since 1979, they have held a series of four conferences to discuss the issue. News of the first two meetings remained largely within the scientific community. But conferences in 1992 and 1994 received media attention because scientists from diverse disciplines around the world revealed that humans, too, are susceptible. No longer are animals the only biological indicators of environmental health; now humans find themselves right alongside the canary in the coal mine, in a biosphere saturated with toxic chemicals. "A sea of estrogens that can affect our development and reproduction has profound implications for the future of not only humans but a wide variety of wildlife species," says John McLachlan, director of Intramural Research at the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences.

While surveying alligator populations in Florida during the 1980s, biologists accidentally discovered that at Lake Apopka the alligator population declined 90 percent from 1980 to 1984. "That was awfully scary," comments Timothy S. Gross, a zoologist on the University of Florida's Alligator Research Team. The problems, however, didn't end there. "We found that the amount of testosterone dropped drastically in males, while estrogen in females increased to abnormally high levels that would inhibit normal reproduction," Gross says. In addition, the team examined hundreds of juvenile alligators and found that 60 percent of the males on the lake had abnormally small penises and testicles. Some males had penises one-fourth the normal size; others had no penises at all. Most were sterile. The turtle population at the lake also dramatically declined. "We are getting massive differences in sex ratios with turtles. We get a lot of females and almost no males; we're also getting a lot of these animals that aren't really male or female," Gross notes. Females in both populations had as many as five or six eggs in a single follicle, rather than the normal single egg.

The population crashes and sexual birth defects can be attributed to an enormous pesticide spill of dicofol--a modified DDT and a powerful estrogen--in 1980. The animals have extremely high concentrations of DDE--an estrogenic breakdown compound of DDT--in their bodies. The level of DDE in some eggs is 10,000 times greater than the normal level of estrogen found in a newborn alligator. The company responsible for the spill, Tower Chemical, "closed up shop after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declared it a Superfund site," Gross says. "They're gone. The EPA basically buried it in concrete, and it sits there." Though most of the dicofol is no longer present in the lake, it remains in the animals. And in general, Gross predicts, estrogenic chemicals are "going to be around for the next 100 years, even if we stop using them today."

On Santa Barbara Island, off the coast of Southern California, female western gulls are laying more than the usual number of eggs, sharing nests with other females, and sharing what few males are left in the population. In some nests, up to three females are sharing one male. In 15 percent of the nests, two females live together with no male, perhaps to protect their eggs, biologists speculate. The shortage of males and the odd behavior of females may be related to the 2 million pounds of DDT released as industrial waste into the Los Angeles sewer system from the 1950s to the mid-1970s, explains Michael Fry, wildlife toxicologist at the University of California, who first noticed the skewed sex ratio in the 1980s. "In species not susceptible to eggshell thinning, like gulls, DDT acts like estrogen and causes abnormal development of male embryos," with some males developing female sexual organs. "The males are chemically neutered and not interested in breeding, so they don't even show up at the colony," Fry says. In females, the oviducts and ovaries are normally on the left side of their bodies. But when exposed to industrial estrogens, the birds' right oviduct and ovary grow, allowing them to lay more eggs.

Fry is collaborating with researchers at Boston University and has recently found similar estrogenic effects in birds on Bird Island in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts, near a toxic-waste site drenched with PCBs. The area is home to common terns and half of the North American population of endangered roseate terns. "Both populations declined in the 1960s, and I believe the decline to be caused by toxic chemicals," says Ian Nisbet, a wildlife toxicologist studying the birds. The birds recovered in the 1970s and leveled off in the 1980s. But since 1991, both populations have been slowly declining. The toxic site is being cleaned up, "but there are lots of PCBs in other parts of Buzzards Bay, and there is very little that can be done about it," Nisbet notes.

The problem is global. Biologists in Holland have discovered that seals eating chemically contaminated herring in the Baltic Sea have suppressed immune systems and have difficulty reproducing. A fledgling population of 500 beluga whales at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River is declining; 15 whales wash ashore each year, heavily laden with toxic chemicals, including DDT, PCBs, and the pesticide mirex (banned in 1976). Forty percent of the whales had tumors, and many suffered reproductive problems. Pallid sturgeons, an endangered fish native to the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, appear to be aging; reproduction in the wild hasn't been seen in the sturgeon in 10 years, possibly because of high concentrations of PCBs and DDT in the fish. Some researchers speculate that the worldwide amphibian collapse and the steady decline of songbirds and migratory birds may be related to estrogenic chemicals. Scientists are even exploring whether the endangered Florida panther has succumbed to environmental estrogens. Most of the males have undescended testicles, a condition that can develop when males are exposed to estrogen in the womb.

In the Great Lakes, 16 top predator species of fish are being feminized, and young bald eagles were found last summer with reproductive abnormalities and physical deformities such as cross bills. "Every cross-billed bald eagle has been female. So there's something going on out there," Colborn says. Other birds have reportedly given birth to chicks with adult plumage. Though the lakes are getting cleaner, the animals are still exposed to industrial estrogens that can persist in the environment for decades.

In rivers throughout England, anglers have been reporting hermaphrodite rainbow trout near sewage treatment plants. Studies of the fish show that males are producing female hormones and manifesting female sex organs. British scientists suspect the high concentrations of industrial chemicals in the rivers are the cause. One chemical--nonylphenol--seems to pervade this industrial effluent. Nonylphenol is widely used in the plastics and paper industries; it's also found in spermicide foams and is the main ingredient in detergents. More than 300,000 tons of nonylphenol are released into the environment each year. Unfortunately, it's also a powerful estrogen.

That chilling discovery was made purely by accident by Ana M. Soto, a Tufts University physician and cell biologist. For 20 years, Soto has been studying breast cancer and how estrogen promotes tumor growth. Recently, however, her cell cultures became contaminated by nonylphenol, which had leached from plastic tubes in the lab. The tumor cultures proliferated just as if they were in the presence of estrogen. Soto also tested chemicals found in animals having reproductive problems in the Great Lakes. "I found that both toxaphene and dieldrin are extremely estrogenic. Though both pesticides are banned, they are still present in the animals." Soto also says that endosulfan, one of the most widely used pesticides today, is also estrogenic. According to the Environmental Working Group, 2 million pounds of endosulfan are applied to 45 crops each year. It was also found to be as toxic as DDT.

Though most of the research on industrial estrogens centers around wildlife, humans are affected, too. In fact, there is a scientific model involving humans that can help explain how estrogen affects a developing embryo. From 1948 to 1971, the synthetic estrogen DES was given to pregnant women to prevent miscarriages. Six million babies were exposed in the process, and scientists are discovering that the drug has long-term effects in this population. "We know what can happen with estrogenic compounds when we look at the catastrophe of DES. It can feminize permanently males and alter the reproductive function of females," McLachlan says. DES has also been associated with vaginal cancer, testicular cancer, increased incidence of undescended testicles, and decreased sperm counts. In addition to the DES given women, the drug was also used in the cattle industry during the same time. Each year, 13 tons of DES were fed to cattle to fatten them for slaughter, adding to the tons of industrial estrogens already in the environment.

These findings are particularly frightening because they indicate that over the last 30 years, estrogenic chemicals may have contributed to the 7 percent increase in breast cancer, the 23 percent increase in prostate cancer, the tripling of testicular cancer, and the 50 percent crash in sperm counts in humans worldwide. In Europe, estrogenic chemicals are also suspected in the increased reports of hypospadias, a disease that causes sexual deformities in humans. In mild cases, boys are born with reduced penises; in extreme cases, it's difficult to tell the sex of the child.

The chemical industry is concerned about the situation but wants to wait until all the data are in before adopting changes. "We have listened to these researchers, and they have raised serious and important questions. We are actively participating in research forums to discuss these issues. But remember, most of the information is of a preliminary nature," says Ann Mason, director of chlorine science for the Chemical Manufacturers Association.

Among biologists, however, there's a definite sense of urgency. "We need to figure out what the hell is going on as fast as we can, so we can advise policy makers," laments McLachlan. "It's not something we can afford to wait 15 years to see what the rest of the research does. Some of the research we already have is a little scary." McLachlan and other scientists testified before Representative Henry A. Waxman's (D-California) Subcommittee on Health and the Environment last October. Colborn's comments were particularly sobering: "I strongly doubt mothers would appreciate that their lifetime exposure to a mix of chemicals could have more control over how their babies develop than the genes their children inherit from them and the training they give their children. Nor is it comforting for a woman to realize it takes only one very low dose--it's called a hit--of [one of these chemicals] during her pregnancy to change the sexual development of her baby."

Most scientists are clearly worried and are calling for dramatic changes. Colborn says it's cavalier to think the global environment can assimilate more chemicals and not suffer dire consequences. We shouldn't replace old chemicals with new chemicals; we should seek nonchemical alternatives, she says. "We've got to encourage organic farmers. They should be subsidized just like the other farmers. The whole thing is backwards; we're subsidizing the wrong system. This is a serious problem. Our animals are out there suffering."

You can help reverse the troubling tide of industrial estrogens by supporting the Pesticide Food and Safety Act of 1994 (H.R. 4091 and S. 331), which would phase out all estrogenic pesticides over five years. Another bill, H.R. 2898, would phase out the use of chlorine in paper mills, the source of many estrogenic chemicals. Write your senators at the U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510; and your representative at the U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. 20515.

PHOTO: Each year 15 dead beluga whales wash ashore along the St. Lawrence River, victims of estrogenic chemicals, including mirex, a pesticide banned 18 years ago but still found in the region's marine life.

PHOTO: Turtles in Florida's Lake Apopka suffer a myriad of reproductive problems caused by industrial chemicals that mimic estrogen.

PHOTOS: Researcher Timothy S. Gross (left) draws blood from a juvenile male alligator from Lake Apopka, where the alligators (right, swimming through duckweed) are still suffering from a 1980 spill of 30,000 gallons of pesticides and sulfuric acid.

PHOTOS: Sea gulls (above) exposed to DDT in California and PCBs in Massachusetts are being chemically sterilized. Their eggs, however, (right) aren't prone to eggshell thinning.

PHOTO: Since 1940, American agribusiness has sprayed more than 30 billion pounds of pesticides into the environment.