Everybody nowadays is so focused on and committed to getting and maintaining a deep, dark tan, not only in the summertime but for many all year round.  There are a number of ways to acquire that perfect tan, many of which present with dangers.  One of the most common ways today for acquiring and supposedly keeping a bronzed beautiful tan is by way of a drug known as Melanotan. Melanotan is a tanning injection.

Though research has been ongoing for nearly twenty plus years on this drug, it seems researchers and scientists are still no closer to fruition.  The drug was developed initially to protect people who are remarkably fair skinned and who have a difficult time tanning or may even find it impossible to tan at all.  The drug was also developed to help those people who suffered with various skin disorders and conditions such as Xeroderma Pigmentosum which is a skin condition resulting from sun damaged skin that cannot rebuild or correct itself and develops an overwhelming number of skin cancers.

Melanotan is a peptide that is primarily responsible for duplicating the amino acids in the stimulating hormone known as alpha melanocytic whose function is to turn melanocytes on in order to make pigment in the skin.  With that said, Melanotan does increase pigment and contributes to the development of deep dark tans without exposure to the sun.  The drug, however, in order to be effective must be injected and still presents with safety issues and a range of other questionable health issues as well.

picture of Melanotan and syringe

Though the drug does appear to be safe enough for use according to some research, there are still some questions regarding how long you can safely use the injected drug before any side effects come into play and present with health issues of any type.  To date, there have been no long term clinical trials or tribulations, but the overall side effects of this powerful drug and chemical are still unknown.  You have to be practical, however, and think that if the chemical is so powerful that it can actually darken moles on your body and even change the overall appearance and presence of the moles, as well as darken your skin altogether, then surely we can imagine that the drug is somewhat dangerous and must present with some important side effects.

There are certainly some reactions to the drug that have been discovered and revealed.  These reactions differ from person to person and range from acute allergic reactions and dizziness to typical stomach pain and sickness as well as increased acne.  Because the product cannot be purchased in stores or marketplaces, but only by ordering it on the internet and probably from sources located outside of the UK, there is truly no way of knowing what is actually in the bottle being shipped and how it can potentially react to other medicines that you may be taking at the same time.

Because of all the uncertainties linked to the Melanotan injection drug, and because there are such limited details and very little research statistics and findings on the drug, it appears rather obvious that use of the injected drug should be extremely limited and maybe even avoided altogether.  There does not appear to be enough information on the chemical injections to emphatically say that the injections are absolutely safe all round.