Skin specialists in Australia are raising the alarm over a beauty trend that they fear could carry serious long term consequences. At the center of their concern is melanotan 2, an unregulated peptide that people are using to darken their skin, and which doctors say has surged in popularity on the back of a social media driven craze.
The product works by changing the way the body tans. Melanotan 2 can be injected or taken as a nasal spray, and according to skin specialists it essentially tricks the skin cells into producing more pigment, accelerating the darkening of the skin. It is one of a number of unregulated peptides that are not safe or approved for human use, yet are circulating widely online.
Although the drug has been around for about a decade and has long carried warnings, doctors say its popularity is resurging, particularly on social media. One dermatologist suggested the revival is tied to the way people now take peptides in so-called stacks, using several unregulated substances at once on a protocol recommended to them by an influencer in the hope of combining their supposed benefits.
A major part of the danger lies in the fact that these products are completely unregulated. Because the peptides are often ordered online from overseas and come from black market labs, users cannot know whether the substance is pure or what else might be mixed into it, with specialists warning that contaminants such as heavy metals are a real possibility.
What worries dermatologists most is what they are starting to see in their clinics. Specialists report an increase in patients who use melanotan 2 turning up with more atypical or unusual looking moles, which are a known risk factor for melanoma. While there is only limited scientific data on the drug, some case reports in the literature have linked melanotan 2 directly to melanoma.
The stakes are heightened by Australia's wider skin cancer burden, with the disease among the leading causes of death in young adults in the country. Beyond the skin, doctors say the reported side effects can run much deeper, including nausea, vomiting, headaches, kidney failure and even brain swelling, while the Therapeutic Goods Administration says it is concerned about a rise in the importation and supply of unapproved peptides and the contamination risks they bring.
With the products hard to police, doctors are calling for more creative approaches to getting the warnings across. They argue that official alerts from the medicines regulator rarely reach the social media feeds where the drug is promoted, and suggest putting more doctors online and even recruiting influencers to talk about the risks. One former user summed up the shift in thinking simply, saying that knowing the possible outcomes, they would not do it again and would opt for a much safer spray tan instead.