Melanotan 2 Research: The Small Human Tests
What might this tanning drug change inside you?
Your skin can darken even when you avoid sunlight. Melanotan 2 copies a hormone that helps skin cells make color. The drug carries a similar message through your body. Skin cells answer by making more brown color.
The same drug can reach parts of your brain. There it may lessen hunger and bring on erections. Picture one house key opening several different doors. Each part of your body answers in its own way.
Human proof remains thin. One early test enrolled three men. A later erection test enrolled ten men. Most other work involved rats or mice.
First come the clearest results in people. Then come the limits those tests couldn't answer. Doctors' cases of changed moles follow. None of the study amounts is advice for you.
Do Melanotan, MT2, and Melanotan II name one drug?
Melanotan is often used as a loose name for related drugs. MT2 and Melanotan II both mean the drug discussed here. Afamelanotide is a different man-made drug that mainly affects skin color. You can easily mix up such similar names.
Melanotan 2 is a short piece of protein bent into a ring. The lab paper lists its weight as 1,024 daltons [34]. That weight helps a chemist tell drugs apart. It can't tell you what a shot will do.
The ring helps the protein piece hold together. It also slows the drug's breakdown. That shape can't prove a shot is safe for you. Only sound tests in people can settle safety.
How does Melanotan 2 darken your skin?
Melanotan 2 reaches the cells that give your skin color. It tells those cells to make more brown color [1][34]. Your skin and hair may then look darker. Sunlight isn't needed to start the change.
Many tiny parts inside a skin cell pass that order along. Their lab names won't help you judge safety. What matters is the change you can see. Your skin may darken without time in the sun.
A 2008 paper described how chemists made the drug [36]. That work didn't include people. It didn't study harm over many years. The few human tests remained small.
What happened in the first test of skin color?
A 1996 test gave Melanotan 2 to three healthy men [1]. The men and some staff didn't know when they got a placebo. A placebo was a shot containing none of the study drug.
Researchers raised the amount slowly over two weeks. It began at 0.01 milligrams per kilogram of body weight each day. It later reached 0.025-0.03 milligrams per kilogram. After five low amounts, two men darkened without sunlight.
Erections also lasted one to five hours. Larger amounts caused sickness and sleepiness. Staff stopped raising it at 0.03 milligrams per kilogram because men grew sleepy. Their later daily choice was 0.025 milligrams per kilogram.
Those numbers only tell you how the 1996 test ran. They don't mark an amount that is safe for you. Three men can't reveal your long-term risk. A prescription does not make Melanotan 2 FDA-approved.
Is Melanotan 2 tanning the same as approved skin care?
Melanotan 2 tanning differs from the approved skin treatment. That treatment uses afamelanotide, a separate prescription drug. It finished Phase 3, the last large testing step before approval. Doctors use it when light painfully harms your skin [30][31].
Long-term reports cover that one approved use. Melanotan 2 has no FDA-approved use, even when a provider prescribes it. Bremelanotide, a separate drug, gained approval for a sexual problem [3]. The tanning drug had only much smaller early tests.
The names can make the drugs seem alike to you. They aren't the same medicine. Results for afamelanotide don't carry over to Melanotan 2. You can't use one drug's approval to judge the other.
What did the tests find about erections and hunger?
One erection test enrolled ten men who had trouble getting firm [2]. Each got 0.025 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. Neither the men nor the staff knew when they got a placebo. The placebo was a shot with no Melanotan 2.
Researchers used a gauge to measure firmness. They counted an erection once the gauge reached 80% firmness. Men stayed at that point for 38.0 minutes with the drug. With the placebo, they stayed there for 3.0 minutes.
The men also felt sick, stretched, and yawned. Other work shows that Melanotan 2 acts inside the brain. The erection test alone didn't show why your body might change. Researchers didn't test hunger in people.
They placed the drug into a part of the brain linked with wanting food. They used both the left and right sides in male mice. Afterward, those mice ate less and worked less for food [35]. This wasn't like a shot under your skin.
What happened to moles in doctors' cases?
Your skin's color-making cells also sit inside moles. Melanotan makes those cells more active. A 2012 doctor report described several new or changing odd moles [4]. A medical journal also linked mole changes with a 'sun-tan jab' [13].
A skin doctor measured changes in dark spots [10]. Another person grew many moles after one shot. Older moles became darker within 24 hours [5]. These are single-person reports, not tests with comparison groups.
Doctors found melanoma or very early melanoma in other users [7][8][9]. One teen's family had a high risk of melanoma. He used melanotan with a sunbed and grew an odd mole [11]. Part of that mole improved when he stopped.
The reports don't prove melanotan caused any cancer. They also can't measure your own chance of harm. Still, each case concerns your type of color-making cells. That makes a changed mole worth your doctor's attention.