Summer, sun, sunshine – many of us wish for a summerly golden complexion, no matter how it currently looks like outside! The same does US actress and singer Ariana Grande.
Although the young Italo-Sicilian, also known from the teenage sitcom Victorious, belongs to the darker skin types anyway, she reaches for the self-tanning tube in winter to get more complexion. Even recently before her Meet&Greet in London. Her failed self-tanning attempt of course also did not escape her fans’ attention. Some of them thought the talented singer thereby lived up to her song Problem. A blotchy cleavage, yellow-colored fingers and palms gave away her problems with the tube.
Of course self-tanning lotion has also its advantages – you get brown without exposing your skin to “bad” UVA and UVB radiation, which are both included in solarium and natural sunlight. As is generally known, these are responsible for damage of genetic material of skin cells, which can lead to skin cancer. To top it all, skin is also aging visibly faster due to the so-called “photo aging”. But here it depends on the dosage, because UV light is also very important for health because it stimulates vitamin D3 (D hormone) synthesis. A certain skin tanning is not looking unhealthy for good reasons.
How can we – apart from self-tanning lotion – tan our skin without damaging it? Obviously people with darker skin are tolerating sun better. Wouldn’t it be possible to get the skins pigment cells to produce more of the dark pigment?
As a reader of my blog you know that there are already treatments of that kind: The administration of melanotropin, a peptide messenger substance, which stimulates our skins pigment cells to produce the pigment melanin and thereby causes a darker skin appearance bit by bit. In the course of this therapy a peptide molecule analogous to melanotropin (Melanotan I, Melanotan II) is administered to the patient.
Especially people of light skin type who have a disposition to painful sun burns benefit from such a therapy. Melanin produced in this way also had a protective effect against UV-induced sun damages of the skin and prevented premature skin aging.
However, at the moment the treatment is not freely accessible to everyone. Only patients with special light allergies in Italy or Switzerland are eligible to a treatment with the melanotropin analogue Melanotan I. In other countries patients could only get supplied with specially made melanotropin analogues in the context of a treatment which is tailored to their individual needs to protect their skin, whilst tanning.
Indeed melanotropin analogues only show their effect when getting off some sun. It doesn’t work completely without sun, because pigment cells are stimulated by sunlight to produce melanin. But especially in Hollywood, where Ariana lives, it would not even now lacking in sun, says
DDr. Heinrich, MD