Turinabol
Also known as: tbol, chlorodehydromethyltestosterone
An oral steroid built for the East German state doping programme, with a notoriously long detection window.
Legal status: UK: Class C controlled drug and prescription-only medicine. Supplying it (including to friends) and importing it by post are criminal offences; personal possession for your own use generally is not. Checked 2026-07-26.
Prohibited in sport: Yes — on the WADA Prohibited List.
What it is
Turinabol is a modified derivative of methandrostenolone, developed in East Germany and used at scale in the state doping programme of the 1970s and 1980s, frequently on athletes who did not know what they were being given. It does not aromatise, so it produces little fluid retention.
What’s claimed
- Steady lean gains without bloating
- Strength gain with a mild side-effect profile
- A 'cleaner' oral than the alternatives
What the evidence shows
There is no legitimate controlled trial base for turinabol: the human evidence is the East German programme's own records and the long-term follow-up of the athletes involved (Bronze). That follow-up is the most important thing about this compound: it documents lasting endocrine, hepatic and psychiatric harm in people, many of them adolescents, exposed without consent. Its long-lived metabolites also made it the compound behind a wave of retrospective doping disqualifications from re-tested samples.
The risks
- Hepatic: 17-alpha-alkylation lets the compound survive digestion and is the same change that burdens the liver; raised liver enzymes, and in rarer cases cholestasis or peliosis hepatis.
- Lipids: marked lowering of HDL ('good') cholesterol and raising of LDL, an adverse cardiovascular shift that is more pronounced with oral compounds.
- Endocrine: suppression of the body's own testosterone production, with testicular atrophy and impaired fertility. Recovery is not guaranteed and can be slow or incomplete.
- Androgenic: acne, male-pattern hair loss in those predisposed, and in women virilising effects, deepening of the voice, facial hair growth and clitoral enlargement, some of which do not reverse.
- Historical evidence of lasting harm: the documented long-term outcomes among East German athletes include persistent hormonal disruption, liver disease, gynaecological harm and psychiatric illness.
What needs monitoring
- Full blood count, including haematocrit and haemoglobin
- Lipid profile
- Blood pressure
- Liver and kidney markers
- Testosterone and the wider hormonal axis: a doctor is the right person to arrange these tests and to interpret what they show.
Sources
- NHS. Anabolic steroid misuse — health risks and the law.
- GOV.UK. Controlled drugs: Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 drug classes.
- World Anti-Doping Agency. The Prohibited List.
- Pope HG, et al. Adverse health consequences of performance-enhancing drugs: an Endocrine Society scientific statement. Endocr Rev. 2014;35(3):341-375.