Contraceptive properties found in cotton seed oil

Press, 26 June 1984, Page 14

Contraceptive properties found in cotton seed oil

NZPA staff correspondent Hong Kong

Chinese clinical researchers have found that a substance called gossydol, derived from cotton seed oil is ‘“99 per cent” effective in preventing male fertility, it was reported. A Hong Kong researcher also said the effects of the drug were reversible and that the established side effect, the depletion of potassium in the body causing fatigue, did not occur in places where salt consumed contained a high percentage of potassium. Further research was needed, however, he said.

Although gossydol was discovered by European scientists in 1889, its contraceptive properties were first suggested by a Chinese herbalist in an article published in a medical journal in 1957.

The herbalist discovered that in some villages where people used cotton seed oil for cooking, all the villagers were infertile.

Dr Liu Guo-Zhen, a leading researcher into gossydol, from Peking’s Capital Hospital, said research in China since the 1960 s had succeeded in identifying gossydol as a contraceptive ingredient and tests on monkeys had proven it effective.

Clinical trials on Chinese men began in 1973 and so far the results had been promising, he said.

Scientists ere working to eliminate the drug’s side effect so that it could go into production, he said. A Hong Kong researcher, Dr Tso Wang-Wai, of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said the drug reduced the number of sperm cells and their mobility. An advantage of the drug was that the effects disappeared three months after a man stopped taking it and fertility was restored.

The views were aired at an international symposium in Hong Kong on Chinese herbal medicine which also discussed the effects of ginseng, trichosanthin — a drug that causes abortions — the effect of herbal medicine in curing liver diseases, cancer, and the general state of research into herbal medicine.