Some medicines have benefits in areas they were never intended to affect. For example, it was recently discovered that a drug traditionally used in the treatment for glaucoma can also be safely and successfully used by adults who want to have thicker and longer eyelashes, according to the statement made on Friday by an advisory panel from the United States. The drug is manufactured by Allergan Inc., also responsible for the highly-popular Botox. When it was first studied, it was meant to relieve the eye pressure felt by patients with glaucoma. Soon after they began treatment, patients reported that their eyelashes had begun growing. The company, ecstatic about the potential cosmetic purpose of the drug, is trying to get the approval of the United States to market their drug under a new name, Latisse.

The Food and Drug Administration had a meeting to discuss the new brand and their innovative drug. At their panel meeting, many outside advisors stated that, after taking into consideration the large amount of data gathered along years and years of research of the effects of drug Lumigan on glaucoma, it indeed has a boosting effect on lashes. The efficiency of the drug cannot, thus, be questioned, according to M. Roy Wilson, who is an ophthalmologist from the University of Colorado. Also, Wilson and many of his colleagues praise the lack of serious or numerous side effects of the use of this drug in clinical trials. However, there are some concerns regarding the long-term use of this drug, and of the side-effects that may appear in African-Americans and other minorities, on which the drug has not been tested.