dihydroboldenone

DHB is a steroid that was sold as a legal supplement in the US until 2005, when it was made a controlled substance. There is essentially one animal study on it and no human research at all, so nothing about its effects or safety in people has actually been measured.

regulatory status

Not approved for any use anywhere; DEA Schedule III since 2005

1-Testosterone was legally sold online in the United States as a prohormone until 2005, when it was reclassified as a Schedule III drug under the Controlled Substances Act. It is named individually in the DEA alphabetical controlled substances table as 17-beta-hydroxy-5-alpha-androst-1-en-3-one under Schedule III. It has never held a medical approval in any jurisdiction and is prohibited in sport.

The composition of the cited literature by study type. This describes the shape of the evidence, not its quality — and it does not by itself set the grade.

documented safety signals

• Unexplained hepatic signal: the only dedicated study found 1-testosterone increased liver weight in rodents where the testosterone propionate comparator did not, and the authors explicitly cited associated health risks requiring regulatory oversight; this has never been investigated in humans.
• No aromatisation means no oestrogen-mediated offset to androgen exposure, removing the bone-protective and lipid-protective oestrogenic signalling that partially buffers testosterone exposure.
• Expected pronounced androgenic effects on skin, scalp and prostate given the already-5-alpha-reduced structure and demonstrated prostate and seminal vesicle growth in the rodent assay.
• HPG-axis suppression with reduced LH and FSH, testicular atrophy, impaired spermatogenesis and infertility, expected as an androgen class effect; class data show 27.2% of former AAS users below the lower testosterone reference limit a mean 2.5 years after cessation, with 27.3% reporting erectile dysfunction and 40.1% decreased libido (Rasmussen 2016).
• Adverse lipid shift with HDL suppression, documented across AAS users (Hartgens 2004: HDL-C 1.08 to 0.43 mmol/l; HDL2-C 0.21 to 0.05 mmol/l).
• Polycythaemia and raised haematocrit as a general androgen class effect.
• Cardiomyopathy and accelerated coronary atherosclerosis documented in long-term AAS users generally (Baggish 2017).
• Total absence of human dose-response data means there is no basis for identifying a threshold at which any of these effects appear, and no contraindication list exists.
• No approved product exists in any jurisdiction, so identity, purity, sterility and concentration of any circulating material are unverifiable; AAS product-testing data found only 47% of submitted samples contained the labelled substance (HAARLEM).
• Injection-related infection risk applies to any non-clinical injectable use (Hope 2015: 42% injection-site inflammation, 6.8% abscess or open wound among 366 men injecting image- and performance-enhancing drugs).