Are Tanning Pills Effective?

Tanning pills are probably the biggest myth in the history of sunless skincare products. They have proliferated on a market that supports and promotes their use as supplements by all means possible, from magazines, ads and web pages to promotions in drug stores. Tanning pills are sold as dietary supplements but they are not FDA approved and they all include the disclaimer that they are not designed to treat, cure or prevent any health issue whatsoever. It has happened several times that the tanning pills safety should become subject for controversial debates, but no decisive measures have been adopted to discourage their use. What efficiency rate do tanning pills have? What is their safety level?

Knowing the main factors that have an impact on tan formation could turn out to be helpful for the understanding of the working principle behind tanning pills and their efficiency or lack of efficiency. This means that genetic predisposition and the level of exposure to ultraviolets are the two main elements that influence tanning. As for nutrition, diet has a very light word to say in the matter of getting tanned. Consider for example a fair-skinned Caucasian person; regardless of how many tanning pills she/he will use, getting brownish naturally will still be difficult given the low melanin concentration in the skin cells.

Some tanning pills contain canthaxanthin which is also used as a color additive in the manufacturing of food products. Though the Food and Drug Agency has approved this use, not the same thing can be said about the assimilation of cantharxanthin as a tanning agent. The difference comes from the fact that in food, only a small quantity of chemical is necessary, whereas in tanning pills, very large concentrations are required. The result of this chemical administration consists in the depositing of the substance under the skin layers giving it the brown orange-brown pigmentation; unfortunately, serious adverse reactions are related to the administration of this kind of tanning pills.

Liver disease cases have been related to the use of canthaxanthin tanning pills; FDA banished these products and passed warnings in relation to their use. Another kind of tanning pills that are currently tested in Australia rely on a hormonal compound to stimulate the secretion of melanin; it seems that this drug increases results when combined with UV exposure too. Besides these two drug variants, there are all sorts of herbal supplements labeled tanning pills. Yet, nutrition does not seem to play such an important role in the quality of the tan, and thus the efficiency level of tanning pills remains pretty low.

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