Melanotan ~ The Barbie Drug

[Ezliving_Jim]

Feature story from Wired Magazine current edition
(excerpt below)

It was chemical serendipity of billion-dollar proportions: a tanning drug with all the right side effects.

A hundred years ago, being tan was bad, because it meant you worked outside, which meant you weren't rich. By the 1970s, tan lines had become associated with exercise, tropical vacations, and bumming around in skimpy clothing while others worked. Tan was cultural, tan was affluent, tan was healthy. UV-induced tan was also, unfortunately, the cause of a sharp rise in skin cancer rates and premature wrinkles.

Hence a mid-'80s research push at the University of Arizona to attack the problem from inside. Being tan is healthy; ironically, people who work outdoors and see the sun every day are at low risk for skin cancer. But getting tan is where the danger lies. The faster it happens - worst case: a tanning booth - the more harmful it is. The U of A team, which included endocrinologist Mac Hadley and dermatologist Norman Levine, came upon a synthetic hormone a thousand times more potent than the body's own tanning triggers. They called it Melanotan and pinned high hopes on its sunless ability to protect, beautify, and gently fleece the pale peoples of the world.

But that was only the beginning: The molecule turns out to activate five different chemical systems throughout the body. It's a potent anti-inflammatory, and in 1996 further tests of the drug showed that it also promotes sexual arousal. Not simple vascular stimulation, as with Viagra, but a direct action in the hypothalamus, the brain's emotional switchboard.

Impotence is largely an organic, mechanical problem, but here was something that could potentially address the murkier issues of frigidity, and even that old-time marriage killer: simple lack of enthusiasm. (On Melanotan, female lab rodents triple their levels of courtship behavior.) And as if that weren't enough, the molecule also targets an appetite-suppression receptor popular with the makers of weight-loss drugs.

more: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.06/melanotan.html (with link to the 2nd page of the story)

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I am reserving comment.

[Chippp]

thin,dark and horny !
Look out men, soon your won't be able to out run the women chasing you.

[BooBop]

Wow! Any Doctors in the house to comment on this?

[Ezliving_Jim]

I am really surprised that more experienced members haven't jumped all over this story in a mainstream publication. I'm new, but to me this sounds serious and deserves a serious response.

Granted, the story is really about new drug technology. But there are serious body slams on indoor tanning.

I am looking at statements like:

Quote:UV-induced tan was also, unfortunately, the cause of a sharp rise in skin cancer rates and premature wrinkles.

and old research references like:

Quote:Hence a mid-'80s research push at the University of Arizona ....

and bell ringers like:

Quote:... But getting tan is where the danger lies. The faster it happens - worst case: a tanning booth - the more harmful it is.

Did this bomber slip past everybody's radar?

Did any of our advocate organizations respond to this article?

[viptanner]

I bumped this for any additional comment.
This is serious stuff.... 2 years before FDA approval.

[eileen]

still no fda approval though.

[Ezliving_Jim]

Ahhh, the memories....

I was once so young. That was posted before I bought my salon. I had more hair and it wasn't as grey as it is today.

[Gidget]

What is this, there is 3 threads about this product!

[Neon Beach]

And more to come.

[Gidget]

Originally Posted by Neon Beach

And more to come.

And why is that ? I've just noticed that Eileen has been bumping them all !