From a biological perspective, it is illogical for women to use contraception. If a woman's contraception merely prevents the release of a single egg each month, then a man producing millions of sperm daily, which are more mobile and thus more likely to cause pregnancy, should be more restricted. Moreover, given the current social structure, the contraceptive effect of one man is likely to extend beyond a single couple.
Using drugs for contraception, it is easier to conceive of and implement for women. Currently, the goal can be achieved by altering a woman's hormonal secretion cycle to prevent ovulation. However, it seems difficult to develop an ideal drug that can eliminate hundreds of millions of sperm in men without side effects and still allow fertility to be restored after discontinuation. Nevertheless, scientists throughout history have not given up on pursuing this direction.
Can eating celery be a contraceptive for men?
Contraceptive prescriptions derived from food experiences in ancient medicine are also the source of inspiration for modern contraceptive drugs. For example, Native Americans were the first to use gromwell for contraception. Later research revealed that gromwell acid is a mixture of at least three substances that can inhibit the activity of gonadotropins and the development of sex organs in mice. Another example is the Indian wild pea, which, when fed to male and female rats, resulted in no offspring. After purification, it was found that its intermediate component, dimethylhydroquinone, when given to women on the sixteenth and twenty-first days of their menstrual cycle (300-350 mg each time), reduced fertility by 50-60%. In men, it reduced sperm count by 50%.
In addition, there are many biologically active plants with contraceptive effects, whose active ingredients are not yet fully understood. For instance, extracts from wild banana seeds have been experimentally proven to have anti-implantation and anti-gonadotropic effects in mice, rats, and rabbits. In Chinese folk medicine, rapeseed, dried and powdered calyxes from persimmons, and flowers from eggplant plants of the Solanaceae family are all used for contraception. Other traditional Chinese medicines, such as white peony, angelica, Chuanxiong, and raw rehmannia root, are also decocted and consumed for this purpose.
A ten-year study by Dr. Bocharlee of the Department of Physiology at Siriraj Hospital in Thailand found that celery, a common and harmless food, can reduce the number of sperm in men. She conducted experiments on healthy, fertile men aged 18 to 20, having them consume 75 grams of celery (raw or cooked) daily for one to two consecutive weeks. After this period, the sperm count decreased significantly to a level that made pregnancy difficult. This condition returned to normal sixteen weeks after they stopped eating celery. However, this study still lacks more rigorous controlled experiments.