Melanotan hormone offers accelerated skin pigmentation in response to sun exposure; makes tanning easier, faster

But for many people, getting sunburned is all too easy -- even thirty minutes in the sun can result in a burn. (Nutrition plays a huge role in this, by the way. Removing all processed foods from your diet and consuming superfoods will greatly improve your skin's response to sun exposure.) A new hormone product, Melanotan, could mean a real breakthrough in helping people get more sunlight on their skin without getting burned in the process.

Melanotan, currently under development and likely to be marketed as a prescription drug, is really just a hormone that occurs naturally in the human body. When ingested, it speeds the skin's response to sun exposure, reducing the amount of time a person needs to spend in the sun to achieve darker skin pigmentation. It is this darker skin pigmentation, of course, that protects the blood from mutations caused by UV radiation from the sun, so darker skin allows a person to remain in sunlight for longer periods of time without suffering DNA damage that would normally occur if they had pale skin.

The bottom line? Melanotan is one of the very few prescription drugs (if you can call it that) that I'm supporting. And I'm doing that because it can help people enjoy being outside, in the natural sunlight, for longer periods of time. As a result, I believe Melanotan can be a catalyst for enhanced health in many people: by having a darker tan right off the bat, they can spend more time in the sun, which will of course offer them all sorts of tremendous health benefits granted by natural sunlight.

Some people might take Melanotan in order to simply appear darker, however, and that's a foolish use of the drug (although it will probably be the most popular use). Intelligent consumers will use Melanotan as a way to help them get more sunlight. The research is now clearly showing that most Americans, Canadians and Europeans suffer from a chronic sunlight deficit. We'd all be healthier and happier if we'd simply get more sun on a daily basis, and Melanotan is one way to help us more easily do that.

• Scientists have developed a drug that boosts tanning by speeding up the rate at which skin darkens when exposed to sunlight.
• In tests, people who tanned in the ordinary way required 50 per cent more time lying in the sun than those who took the drug before stripping off.
• The research is at an early stage, but the drug could potentially hit sales of sun cream yet at the same time cut rates of skin cancer.
• It might boost the annual rush for the sun, if people felt better protected, or undermine it if they felt no need to "head for the Med" for a tan.
• The drug, called Melanotan-1 (MT-1), is a synthetic version of the hormone that stimulates the release of melanin in the cells, the pigment that produces a tan.
• In three small trials to test the safety of the drug, volunteers were exposed to varying amounts of natural sunlight or light from a sunlamp.
• Writing in Archives of Dermatology, the authors say that the drug is safe when combined with brief exposure to sunlight or sunlamps and that longer treatment over four weeks "does not produce more intense or new adverse effects".
• Jane Sterling, consultant dermatologist at Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge and a spokeswoman for the British Skin Foundation, said that if a pill could be developed that safely speeded tanning its effect would be unpredictable.
• In 2003, a study commissioned by Au Courant fake tan revealed that, of 2,000 women aged 16-65 in the UK, more than three quarters felt a tan made them feel more attractive and confident.