Friday, January 30, 2009

Beauty News: Tanning Drug Approved for Clinical Trial

Photo by Angeluzzo at Flickr.com

Did you hear about a drug that makes you tanned?

A drug that stimulates melanin production and turns skin caramel for up to two months has received U.S. government approval to begin clinical trials.

A man made hormone called afamelanotide is injected into the skin to stimulate tanning. The drug is being developed as a treatment for patients whose health due to rare genetic disorders is endangered by sun's rays.

Even though it has not yet been approved for tanning, a similar unlicensed product under a very descriptive name Melanotan II based on a similar compound, has become available from online retailers and is gaining popularity. American and British officials are concerned that use of this drug can cause serious short-term and long-term health problems. For example, a recent research has proved that injecting this compound into skin can cause a change in size and shape of moles which could be precursor to skin cancer.

What makes Melanotan II even more popular is that in addition to tanning, it also appears to produce aphrodisiac and erectile function effects.

Sources:
BBC NEWS UK
Wired.com
Pressrelease at mhra.gov.uk
CNN
Bmj.com

Copyright: by Skin Care and Beauty Blog

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wired's article had a spelling error in it that they've since corrected. The generic name for melanotan one is actually spelled, "afamelanotide".
You might want to update your blog entry.

Cheers

Galina said...

Hi! Thanks for letting me know.

Anonymous said...

lol, this tanning drug sounds like a dream drug! Now if only it didn't cause skin cancer and erectile functioning we could all be tanned, beautiful people who are always getting jiggy with it! Na na na na na na na ...yes I just quoted the Will Smith song. ;)

-Blissful Bitch-

Galina said...

Hey! Thanks! Nice singing! lol! Don't kow why but to me it sounds a bit scary to get injected with something that will change the color of your skin... :-) aphrodisiac effect is a nice bonus though!

ami said...

Hello BeautyTalk,

There's a big update to this story:

melanotan-1 (afamelanotide / Scenesse) has been approved in Italy as photoprotective pigmentation inducing drug for sufferers of painful photosensitivity stemming from the orphan disease erythropoietic protoporphyria.

Here is the news about this.

more info: melanotan-1 Scenesse

This is a big first step towards a possible future approval for more general usages.

See ya (Waves :-)

Related Posts with Thumbnails