Skin Bleaching Pills: Do They Really Work?

Skin bleaching pills have always been the topic of popular discussions over internet forums as they are very controversial. It is decidedly difficult to make people understand that to permanently change the color of skin is impossible; either way, from white to tan or dark to white. Now the question that arises is how come the makers and sellers of skin bleaching pills make these tall claims in the first place?

We know about the whitening agents that are used for skin bleaching, both orally and topically, especially in the treatment of age spots or liver spots. Different ingredients and drugs such as hydroquinone, kojic acid etc have been found to be effective only temporarily and at best, the skin would revert to its original color after you stopped using the creams.

Makers of skin bleaching pills claim their products as being absolutely harmless. The basic ingredient of these pills is oral glutathione and it is touted as the ultimate skin bleaching agent but the results of using it is extremely disappointing, to say the least. Let’s dig a bit deeper and see what makes the skin bleaching pills the target of controversy.

First off, the temporary whitened looks, that may be possible in some persons, are the results of paling of skins due to nausea of upset stomach and definitely this is not something anyone would want to pay for. Secondly, bringing about permanent changes to skin color needs the drugs to work at the genetic level to alter the genes and DNA so that the problem is solved for ever. But the truth beckons to be different. To begin with, I did a small research to find out whether it is possible to change genes by skin bleaching pills based on their ingredients.

The first thing I found out is that FDA never approves of anything that claims to do permanent changes to our bodies, let alone the DNA system. And when you talk of bleaching the skin color permanently, the drug or the pills must work on altering the preprogrammed and structured composition of melanocytes in order to intervene in the way they functioned.

Don’t forget that all the path breaking drugs we have today have taken about 10-15 years before they got FDA to approve them, without considering the time taken to develop them; all these are for prescription drugs and not for the OTC types.

These points apply to all skin bleaching pills irrespective of their ingredient drugs be it oral glutathione or Arbutin.