Turinabol (Oral Turinabol)

Turinabol — also called chlorodehydromethyltestosterone (CDMT/DHCMT) — is an anabolic steroid you take by mouth. Chemically, it’s a tweaked version of another steroid, metandienone (“Dianabol”). It’s most famous as the signature drug of East Germany’s state doping program, where it was given to thousands of athletes — including minors and teenage girls — often without their consent. It is an anabolic steroid, not a peptide.

What it is

Turinabol’s full chemical name is 4-chloro-17β-hydroxy-17α-methylandrosta-1,4-dien-3-one (formula C₂₀H₂₇ClO₂; molar mass ~334.9 g/mol; CAS 2446-23-3). It has two notable features bolted onto a testosterone-like skeleton: a “17α-methyl” group and a chlorine atom at the 4 position. The 17α-methyl group is what lets the drug survive being swallowed — it slows down how fast the liver breaks the drug down on its first pass, so enough of it stays active when taken as a pill (this is called oral bioavailability, meaning how much of a drug gets into your bloodstream). But that same chemical trick is exactly what makes these oral steroids hard on the liver (see Safety). Unlike injectable steroids such as testosterone enanthate/cypionate or nandrolone decanoate, Turinabol isn’t attached to a slow-release “ester,” so there’s no injection timing to think about with it.

How does it work? Like other anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS, the class of muscle-building male-hormone drugs), it latches onto and switches on the androgen receptor (AR — the cellular docking point for male hormones) inside cells. That drives anabolic effects (building muscle protein and holding onto nitrogen, a marker of muscle growth) along with androgenic effects (the male-hormone effects). Because of its 4-chloro structure, it does not convert to estrogen — a process called aromatization — so the water bloat and breast-tissue growth that some steroids cause through estrogen are minimal with Turinabol itself. That’s the historical selling point: “dry,” lean gains. The numbers usually quoted for how the body handles it (good oral absorption, processing by the liver, a half-life of about 16 hours — the time for half a dose to clear — and exit through the kidneys) come from reference books rather than a dedicated study, so treat the exact half-life as a rough estimate.

The claims

Turinabol is sold on the promise of “lean” or “dry” muscle and strength gains, with the idea that it’s strongly muscle-building but only mildly androgenic (gentle on the typical male-hormone side effects). That favorable ratio comes from older animal tests (measuring muscle versus prostate growth in rats), not clean human data, so it deserves caution. As an East German prescription drug, it was used the way steroids generally were in its era — for example, to help the body rebuild and recover in serious wasting or debilitating illnesses — though the exact conditions it was officially approved for aren’t well recorded in reliable English-language sources.

What the evidence actually shows

There are no modern, well-run clinical trials of Turinabol that actually measure muscle gain or strength in athletes. The claims that it works rest on two shaky legs: (a) the East German program’s own internal records and the medals its athletes won — which are not controlled trials — and (b) borrowing conclusions from the broader research on how androgens behave at high doses.

That broader androgen evidence is solid: large doses of male hormones reliably add lean (fat-free) mass and strength in men, which has been shown for testosterone in proper controlled trials. That’s why people assume Turinabol adds muscle and strength too. But how much Turinabol specifically does is not pinned down by any rigorous human trial. In fact, most of the credible recent science on Turinabol is about catching it in drug tests — including a controlled study where DHCMT was given to people to map how the body processes it (Loke et al., 2021) — not about whether it works.

Where it really matters in modern sport is as a doping drug with a notable history of being caught. Around 2011–2012, scientists identified new “long-term” breakdown products the drug leaves behind, which let labs re-test stored samples from the 2008 and 2012 Olympics — and Turinabol turned out to account for a large share of the IOC’s after-the-fact doping violations from that re-testing.

The honest bottom line for an evidence-first reader: the big “lean/dry” gains are widely reported in history books and gym lore but are not backed by controlled human trials of this exact drug. The only trial-quality data that directly apply are animal ratio tests and human drug-testing pharmacology — not proof that it works.

Legal and regulatory status

Turinabol was never approved by the FDA in the United States; it was an East German (Jenapharm) product and was never sold as an approved drug here. That sets it apart from several other anabolic steroids — oxandrolone, oxymetholone, nandrolone, methyltestosterone, fluoxymesterone — which did or do have FDA approval for specific medical uses.

In the US, anabolic-androgenic steroids are Schedule III controlled substances under the Controlled Substances Act. This comes from the Anabolic Steroids Control Act of 1990 (part of Pub. L. 101–647, effective Feb 1991) and the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 2004 (Pub. L. 108–358, effective Jan 2005, which lengthened the official list and dropped the requirement to prove a substance actually builds muscle). Turinabol/CDMT fits the legal definition of an anabolic steroid, so it’s a Schedule III controlled substance (21 CFR 1308.13(f)); having or selling it without a prescription is illegal.

In sport, Turinabol is a banned anabolic agent under WADA Class S1 (Anabolic Agents), specifically S1.1 (man-made anabolic-androgenic steroids). S1 substances are banned at all times — both in and out of competition.

Safety

Turinabol is the signature drug of the East German state doping program (“State Plan Topic 14.25”). According to the landmark report by Franke and Berendonk (1997), starting in the mid-1960s the GDR systematically gave male hormones to several thousand athletes a year — including minors and, deliberately, women and teenage girls (because the hormones boosted female performance the most) — often without their consent and frequently disguised as “vitamins.” Harmful side effects, some serious enough to need medical care or surgery, were written down in the regime’s own files. There isn’t much human safety data on Turinabol by itself, so what follows reflects the well-documented risks of 17α-alkylated oral steroids as a group — risks that apply to Turinabol.

• Liver harm (specific to 17α-alkylated oral steroids): According to NIH LiverTox (“Androgenic Steroids”), these oral androgens can cause brief, usually symptom-free bumps in liver enzymes; a sudden “bland” jaundice from backed-up bile (typically within 1–4 months); peliosis hepatis (blood-filled pockets in the liver that can burst and bleed); and liver tumors — usually harmless adenomas and, rarely, liver cancer (hepatocellular carcinoma) — generally after years of use. The injectable (esterified) testosterones are only rarely linked to this, which shows it’s the 17α-methyl group that drives the liver danger.
• Heart and cholesterol: Anabolic steroids sharply lower HDL (“good”) cholesterol and raise LDL (“bad”) cholesterol — a mix that clogs arteries. The controlled study by Baggish et al. (Circulation 2017) found that long-term steroid users had a weaker pumping heart (average LVEF, the share of blood the heart’s main chamber pumps out, was 52±11% versus 63±8% in non-users — and even lower, around 49%, in current users), worse heart relaxation between beats, and more plaque buildup in the heart’s arteries that tracked with how much steroid they’d used over their lifetime. Reported heart harms from steroids include high blood pressure, a weakened or enlarged heart muscle, faster artery clogging, and irregular heartbeats with a risk of sudden death.
• Hormone shutdown and fertility: Taking outside androgens tells the body to stop making its own. This dials down the brain signals (LH/FSH) that drive the testicles, lowering natural testosterone and causing the testicles to shrink, sperm production to drop, and infertility — which can linger even after stopping the drug.
• Gynecomastia (breast tissue in men): Even though Turinabol doesn’t turn into estrogen on its own, the hormone chaos that steroid use causes can still add to the risk of breast-tissue growth.
• Virilization (masculinizing effects in women): Some male-hormone effects are permanent or only partly reversible — a deeper voice, extra body hair (hirsutism), an enlarged clitoris (clitoromegaly), and disrupted periods. The East German program produced well-documented masculinization in female athletes (Franke and Berendonk 1997).
• Other: Possible thickened blood from too many red blood cells (erythrocytosis/raised hematocrit), which raises clot risk; acne; male-pattern hair loss; mood and aggression problems and dependence; and — in teenagers — bones that stop growing early (premature epiphyseal closure). The Endocrine Society scientific statement (Pope et al. 2014) pulls together the broad list of side effects for the steroid class.

Bottom line

Turinabol is an oral anabolic-androgenic steroid (a 17α-alkylated one), not a peptide. Despite its reputation for “dry, lean” gains, there are no modern controlled human trials showing the drug itself works — its claimed effects lean on old animal ratio tests and general assumptions about androgens, while the credible modern science about it is mostly about catching it in drug tests. It was never FDA-approved, it’s a Schedule III controlled substance in the US, and it’s banned at all times in sport (WADA S1.1). It carries the full set of liver, heart, hormone, and (in women) masculinizing risks of oral steroids — and its history can’t be separated from the coercive, non-consensual East German state doping program.

Evidence grade: 3/10 · Animal only.

Sources

• Franke WW, Berendonk B 1997 — Hormonal doping and androgenization of athletes (GDR), Clin Chem (PMID 9216474)
• Pope HG Jr et al. 2014 — Adverse Health Consequences of Performance-Enhancing Drugs, Endocrine Society Scientific Statement (PMID 24423981)
• Baggish AL et al. 2017 — Cardiovascular Toxicity of Illicit Anabolic-Androgenic Steroid Use, Circulation (PMID 28533317)
• NIH LiverTox — Androgenic Steroids (NBK548931)
• Loke S et al. 2021 — Controlled administration of dehydrochloromethyltestosterone in humans, J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol (PMID 34418529)
• Federal Register — Implementation of the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 2004, 70 FR 74653 (Dec 16, 2005)
• 21 CFR 1308.13 — Schedule III (anabolic steroids at subsection (f))
• 21 U.S.C. § 333 — Penalties (subsection (e), human growth hormone)
• WADA Prohibited List — Class S1 Anabolic Agents (S1.1 exogenous AAS; prohibited at all times)
• Chlorodehydromethyltestosterone — Wikipedia (background chemistry/history)
• Doping in East Germany — Wikipedia (background)