RAD-140 results and side effects: what cell, animal and human studies measured

What does RAD-140 do? The published studies do not establish what RAD-140 does in people: results in rats and mice conflict, and the one human trial, a phase 1 study in 22 women with advanced breast cancer, reported raised liver enzymes as the most common adverse finding and grade 3 or 4 adverse events in 16 of 22 participants. If you have searched for testolone and wondered what RAD-140 is, this article sets out what the scientific literature actually reports: what was measured, in which population, and with what adverse findings. RAD-140 is an experimental, non-steroidal compound in the class known as selective androgen receptor modulators (SARMs). It has been studied in cells, rodents and one early human cancer trial. Later sections group the measured results, tabulate the main adverse findings in the sources, and set out how RAD-140 differs from YK-11, LGD-4033 and ostarine.

Key takeaways

• RAD-140, also called testolone, is an oral, non-steroidal SARM described in a 2011 discovery paper (Miller et al., 2011).
• The only human efficacy and safety trial found is a phase 1 study in 22 women with advanced breast cancer (LoRusso et al., 2022).
• In that trial, raised liver enzymes were the most common adverse findings, and grade 3 or 4 adverse events occurred in 16 of 22 participants (LoRusso et al., 2022).
• Several case reports describe liver injury in people who had used RAD-140 products, but case reports cannot show how often this happens.
• Animal results conflict: some rat work reported muscle and neuronal effects, while mouse work reported no strength benefit and, in one study, higher frailty and mortality risk.
• RAD-140 is prohibited in sport at all times, and anti-doping laboratories have published detailed detection methods.
• The main adverse findings in the sources are tabulated in the side effects section, and the comparison section sets out how RAD-140 differs from YK-11, LGD-4033 and ostarine in chemistry, evidence base and regulatory position, without ranking them.

What is RAD-140?

RAD-140 is the laboratory code for a small synthetic molecule that binds the androgen receptor. It is also known as testolone, and the UK anti-doping body lists it under the name vosilasarm alongside EP0062 and Radarine (UKAD, about SARMs).

The androgen receptor is the protein inside cells that responds to testosterone and related hormones. A selective androgen receptor modulator is a compound designed to activate that receptor in some tissues more than in others. The idea behind the class is to separate wanted tissue effects from unwanted ones, for example effects on the prostate (Jayaraman et al., 2014). For a wider introduction to the class, see the Free Muscle guide to what SARMs are and how they are classified.

The discovery paper describes RAD-140 as a potent, orally bioavailable, non-steroidal SARM, and says it was characterised in several preclinical models of anabolic androgen action. "Orally bioavailable" means the compound can be absorbed when swallowed. The abstract gives no numbers, so the full paper is the place to look for them (Miller et al., 2011).

The only RAD-140 study listed on ClinicalTrials.gov enrolled postmenopausal women with breast cancer (NCT03088527), and two of the preclinical papers cited here used breast cancer models. Other preclinical papers examined neurons and muscle. That context matters when reading the literature: the human evidence comes from a specific patient group.

How researchers think it works

RAD-140 is described as an agonist of the androgen receptor, meaning it switches the receptor on. In breast cancer cell work it bound the receptor with high affinity and specificity, and it activated the receptor in breast cancer cells but not in prostate cancer cells (Yu et al., 2017). That kind of tissue difference is what the word "selective" refers to: Jayaraman and colleagues describe SARMs as compounds designed to lack significant androgen action in the prostate while acting as agonists in selected tissues (Jayaraman et al., 2014).

In the same patient-derived xenograft work (human tumour tissue grown in host animals), activation of the androgen receptor was accompanied by suppression of oestrogen receptor pathway activity, including the ESR1 gene. A later study in androgen receptor and oestrogen receptor positive breast cancer models reported that the response to androgen-targeted drugs depended on the ratio of the two receptors. In tumours with a high ratio, RAD-140 activated androgen signalling and suppressed growth by deregulating the oestrogen receptor alpha (Wei et al., 2023).

In neurons, a different pathway was reported. RAD-140 protection of cultured rat hippocampal neurons depended on MAPK signalling, as described in the abstract, shown by increased ERK phosphorylation and by loss of protection when a MAPK inhibitor was added (Jayaraman et al., 2014).

These are mechanistic findings from cell and animal systems. They explain why researchers study the compound, but they do not establish what an oral capsule would do in a healthy person.

Key studies at a glance

The evidence, study by study

In the sources reviewed, there is one published human trial of RAD-140 that measured safety and efficacy, and it was in cancer patients. No efficacy or safety trial of RAD-140 in healthy people was found in the sources reviewed for this article; the only other human interventional studies found in the sources reviewed were micro-dose urine excretion studies in adult male volunteers, run for doping control (Wagener et al., 2022). Everything else in this section comes from cell work, animal work, case reports or analytical chemistry. Each result is reported for the population named, and none of it describes what would happen in a reader.

The phase 1 oncology study (LoRusso et al., 2022)

This was a first-in-human, dose-escalation study using a 3 + 3 design with a pharmacokinetic expansion cohort. It enrolled postmenopausal women with ER+/HER2- metastatic breast cancer, 22 in total and 21 of them with androgen-receptor-positive tumours, all heavily pretreated. Participants were spread across three dose levels, with 6, 13 and 3 women respectively. The paper states the doses; they are given in the paper and are not reproduced here, because they apply to a cancer population and not to any other setting. The registry entry for the study is NCT03088527 (LoRusso et al., 2022).

The authors measured safety, tolerability, maximum tolerated dose, pharmacokinetics and anti-tumour activity. Two serum markers, sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) and prostate-specific antigen (PSA), were used as surrogate signs that the drug engaged the androgen receptor. Paired tumour biopsies were also reported to show receptor engagement.

Reported findings included the following:

• Elevated AST in 59.1% of participants, elevated ALT in 45.5% and elevated total bilirubin in 27.3%. These are blood tests that signal liver stress.
• Vomiting, dehydration and decreased appetite and weight, each in 27.3%.
• Grade 3 or 4 treatment-emergent adverse events in 16 participants (72.7%), including AST/ALT elevations and low phosphate, each in 22.7%.
• Treatment-related adverse events in 17 of 22 participants (77.3%); 7 (31.8%) were grade 3 and none were grade 4.
• A half-life of 44.7 hours.
• One patient with an ESR1 mutation at baseline had a partial response at the maximum tolerated dose. The clinical benefit rate at 24 weeks was 18.2% and median progression-free survival was 2.3 months.
• SHBG fell in all 18 patients measured, and PSA rose in 16 of 20.

The authors concluded that RAD-140 had an acceptable safety profile in this setting and preliminary evidence of target engagement and anti-tumour activity. The limitations are significant: a small, heavily pretreated cancer population, a single-group dose-escalation design (3 + 3 with a pharmacokinetic expansion cohort) with no comparison group described in the abstract, and a design built to find a tolerable dose rather than to prove benefit. The registry entry lists 20 participants while the paper reports 22; the difference is unexplained, and this article uses the published paper's figure.

Discovery and preclinical characterisation (Miller et al., 2011)

The discovery paper reports RAD-140 as a potent, orally bioavailable, non-steroidal SARM and describes its testing in several preclinical models of anabolic androgen action. The PubMed abstract is short and contains no numerical results, so this article does not quote any. Readers who want the data can consult the full text through the PubMed record.

Breast cancer models (Yu et al., 2017; Wei et al., 2023)

Yu and colleagues ran in vitro assays to measure the affinity of RAD-140 for four nuclear receptors and its tissue-selective activity, then tested it in patient-derived xenograft models of androgen receptor and oestrogen receptor positive breast cancer. RAD-140 bound the androgen receptor with high affinity and specificity and activated it in breast cancer cells but not prostate cancer cells. Given orally, it substantially inhibited growth of several xenograft models, alone and in combination with palbociclib, which the abstract names as the combination agent. Treatment was accompanied by suppression of the oestrogen receptor pathway including the ESR1 gene (Yu et al., 2017).

Wei and colleagues compared RAD-140 with enzalutamide, an androgen receptor blocker, in cell and animal models. The two behaved differently depending on receptor levels, and the authors concluded the androgen to oestrogen receptor ratio shaped the response to androgen-targeted drugs (Wei et al., 2023). The main limitation of both papers is that they are laboratory models of cancer; the abstracts do not report outcomes in healthy tissue.

Neuroprotection in neurons and rats (Jayaraman et al., 2014)

This study used cultured rat hippocampal neurons and adult male rats whose gonads had been removed. In culture, RAD-140 was as effective as testosterone in reducing cell death caused by apoptotic insults. In the rats, it showed androgen action in peripheral tissues that largely spared the prostate, activated androgen-responsive gene regulation in the brain, and protected hippocampal neurons from cell death caused by the systemically administered excitotoxin kainate (Jayaraman et al., 2014). The limitation is the model: gonadectomised rats have had their gonads removed, so their hormone status differs from intact animals, and the result cannot be read across to intact animals, let alone people. The abstract reports no adverse findings.

Muscle and bone in male rats (Puskas et al., 2025)

Male Sprague-Dawley rats (10 per group) were randomised to four groups: RAD-140 or vehicle, each with or without functional overload of the plantaris muscle, as described in the abstract. RAD-140 was given in drinking water. Muscle weight rose markedly in the overloaded RAD-140 group, but the rise was not statistically different from the overloaded vehicle group. In animals without overload, muscle fibre cross-sectional area was significantly larger with RAD-140 than with vehicle. After 14 days of treatment there was no effect on cortical or trabecular bone structure (Puskas et al., 2025).

Taken together, this study found a change in fibre size in one comparison and no added benefit over overload in another, with no bone change. Bone was assessed after 14 days of treatment; the study used male rats and does not report safety outcomes in the abstract.

Frailty and mortality in female mice (Brown et al., 2023)

The study followed young and adult female mice for 10 weeks. Animals received RAD-140 or a control solution, then had repeated bouts of eccentric muscle contractions, with muscle torque recorded around each bout. The authors also scored frailty and mortality risk. RAD-140 increased frailty status and mortality risk in both age groups compared with controls (p of 0.042 or less), reduced adaptive potential in young mice (p = 0.040) but not adult mice, and did not improve strength. The authors concluded RAD-140 at the dose they used may be more detrimental than beneficial for delaying sarcopenia in these animals (Brown et al., 2023). The limitations are female mice only and a single dose level, and the finding sits against more positive rat results.

Older mice of both sexes (Heinze et al., 2025)

Mice aged 23.7 to 25.5 months (21 males and 15 females) were given RAD-140 or a DMSO placebo in a six-week study. There was no frailty difference between treated and control animals. Treated males kept more lean mass (p = 0.024) and bone mineral density (p = 0.004) and had lower serum interleukin-6, a marker of inflammation (p = 0.043). These benefits were not seen in females, and in neither sex were grip strength, fat mass or muscle gene expression affected. The authors noted the male findings warrant longer treatment studies, and that RAD-140 may not be ideal for females (Heinze et al., 2025). Group sizes were small and the study was short.

Liver injury case reports

Several case reports describe liver injury in people who had used RAD-140 products. Where the sex is stated in the abstracts, the patients were men. A 24-year-old man developed a cholestatic pattern of liver injury (a pattern where bile flow is reduced), with a peak total bilirubin of 38.5 mg/dL; a biopsy showed cholestasis inside liver cells and in the bile canaliculi, and the injury resolved after he stopped (Leung et al., 2022). A 26-year-old man had nausea, vomiting, right upper abdominal pain and jaundice; after extensive tests found no other cause, his liver panel normalised by two-month follow-up (Ladna et al., 2023).

A 52-year-old man developed drug-induced liver injury after using two products, one containing RAD-140 and one containing both RAD-140 and LGD-4033. His biopsy showed centrilobular canalicular cholestasis and his liver enzymes normalised about three months after stopping (Barbara et al., 2020). A 2025 report described an atypical case of prolonged cholestasis attributed to RAD-140 that was managed with corticosteroids, noting that cholestasis can take weeks to months to settle (Niazi et al., 2025). An Australian Prescriber article also describes severe liver injury after RAD-140 use for bodybuilding, but PubMed holds no abstract for it, so no details are given here (Perananthan and George, 2024).

Each is a single-patient or small-series report. The abstracts do not report independent verification of the product's content or amount, and the 2024 review by Leciejewska and colleagues noted limited data on dosage and purity of SARM supplements (Leciejewska et al., 2024). Reports involving two products cannot assign the injury to RAD-140 alone. Case reports show that a problem was observed; they cannot show how often it occurs.

Other case reports: heart and hormones

A 16-year-old boy had myopericarditis, inflammation of the heart muscle and its lining, after taking a compound called Testolone (also written RAD-140) (Schwartzman et al., 2024). A young man had possible acute myocarditis after self-medicating with RAD-140 for bodybuilding (Padappayil et al., 2022). A report in the Polish Archives of Internal Medicine is titled as describing heart failure linked to RAD-140, but it has no PubMed abstract, so no details are given (Skorupski et al., 2024).

A 40-year-old man developed bilateral gynaecomastia and hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (low sex-hormone signalling from the pituitary) after using commercially available supplements. Analysis found RAD-140, MK-677 and cardarine, plus undisclosed hormones, and the symptoms, including the hormonal abnormality, resolved fully after he stopped the supplements (Chong et al., 2024). Because the products were mixtures, the effects cannot be assigned to RAD-140 alone.

Safety signals and what regulators and doping laboratories say

Beyond individual case reports, several reviews and series pool the evidence on SARMs as a class. A systematic review of 33 studies (15 case reports or series and 18 clinical trials, 2,136 people in total, 1,447 of them exposed to a SARM) found 15 case reports of drug-induced liver injury and reported that raised ALT was commonly seen in the trials (mean 7.1% across trials, as the abstract puts it); its authors said recreational use should be strongly discouraged (Vignali et al., 2023). That review covers SARMs generally, not RAD-140 alone.

A second review identified 20 reports of SARM adverse events since 2020, mostly cholestatic or hepatocellular liver injury and jaundice, and noted that data on the dosages and purity of SARM supplements were limited (Leciejewska et al., 2024). A retrospective series from nine Australian hospitals between 2017 and 2023 identified 23 cases of drug-induced liver injury involving anabolic steroids, SARMs and bodybuilding supplements. 17 of 23 patients were admitted, median time to normal liver tests was 175 days, one patient had a liver transplant and there were no deaths (Nash et al., 2024). The 23 cases involved 40 drugs in total (18 anabolic-androgenic steroids, 14 SARMs and eight bodybuilding supplements), so the injuries cannot be attributed to RAD-140.

UKAD, the UK anti-doping body (which is not a medicines regulator), states that clinical trials and case reports have linked SARMs to severe adverse effects including liver injury, increased heart attack and stroke risk and thrombosis, and that long-term effects have not been adequately studied (UKAD, about SARMs).

How doping laboratories detect RAD-140

Part of the RAD-140 literature found for this article is analytical. In 2013, researchers characterised the compound by mass spectrometry, working out its fragmentation pathways and diagnostic ions to support sports drug testing (Thevis et al., 2013). A 2022 study ran six micro-dose excretion studies, each with five adult male volunteers, and described elimination profiles and detection times for six metabolites and the intact compound in urine, to help laboratories judge cases such as supplement contamination (Wagener et al., 2022). A review of SARM doping control notes that SARMs were added to the WADA Prohibited List in 2008 and that none has yet received full clinical approval (Thevis and Schanzer, 2018).

The authors of a Swedish study suggested SARM use may occur outside sport. The study of healthcare urine samples found SARMs in 20 of 542 male samples (4%) and none of 100 female samples; the three most frequent were LGD-4033, then RAD140, then ostarine, and more than half of positive samples held two or more SARMs (Bohlin et al., 2024). UKAD reports 863 adverse analytical findings for SARMs worldwide from 2011 to 2024, 473 of them between 2020 and 2024 (UKAD, about SARMs).

What the research does not tell us

The evidence on RAD-140 is thin. Case reports, animal work and cell work cannot show how a compound behaves in people in general. The human evidence on RAD-140 found in the sources reviewed is one single-group dose-escalation phase 1 trial, micro-dose excretion studies for doping control, case reports and one case series. Anecdotal accounts on forums or social media are not evidence and are not used here.

• No RAD-140 trial outside cancer patients. No efficacy or safety trial of RAD-140 outside cancer patients was found in the sources reviewed.
• No RAD-140 dose-response data in healthy people. No dose-response data for RAD-140 on efficacy or safety in healthy people were found in the sources reviewed. The phase 1 study tested set dose levels in cancer patients only, and the paper is the place to look for them.
• No long-term data. No long-term human data were found in the sources reviewed.
• Conflicting animal results. Rat studies reported muscle and neuronal effects, while mouse studies reported higher frailty and mortality risk in females, and no frailty or strength benefit in older animals (Jayaraman et al., 2014; Puskas et al., 2025; Brown et al., 2023; Heinze et al., 2025).
• Case reports cannot give incidence. The liver case-report abstracts do not report independent verification of the product's content or amount; one hormone case report did analyse the supplements and found several undeclared compounds, which is why its effects cannot be assigned to RAD-140 alone. Two relevant records have no abstract.
• Route and formulation. One rat study gave RAD-140 in drinking water, the breast cancer xenograft work reports oral administration in xenograft models, and several animal abstracts do not state the route. The cancer work also included cell culture, and the doping studies used micro-doses. None of it can be assumed to apply to an oral capsule. Nothing is known here about bioavailability of capsules versus powders.
• Pharmacokinetics are narrow. They come from the cancer trial and micro-dose urine studies only.
• Unexplained discrepancy. The registry and the paper differ on enrolment for the phase 1 study.

RAD-140 results: what the studies actually measured

A short answer to "what does RAD-140 do?" depends on which study population is being asked about, so this section groups the measured outcomes by population and design. Every figure is taken from a published abstract, applies only to the named study, and is placed next to the adverse findings from the same literature.

Measured in cells

In a series of in vitro assays, RAD-140 bound the androgen receptor with high affinity and specificity and switched it on in breast cancer cells while prostate cancer cells did not respond (Yu et al., 2017). In cultured rat hippocampal neurons it matched testosterone in reducing cell death caused by apoptotic insults, through a MAPK-dependent route (Jayaraman et al., 2014). These are receptor-binding and cell-survival read-outs from culture dishes, not outcomes in a whole organism.

Measured in rodents

Rodent outcomes point in different directions. In gonadectomised adult male rats, androgen-responsive gene regulation was activated in the brain and hippocampal neurons were protected against kainate, with the prostate largely spared (Jayaraman et al., 2014). In young male Sprague-Dawley rats, 10 per group, fibre cross-sectional area was significantly larger with RAD-140 than with vehicle in the non-overloaded comparison, but the rise in muscle weight with overload was not statistically different from overload alone, and tibial bone structure was unchanged after 14 days (Puskas et al., 2025). In older mice of both sexes studied for six weeks, treated males preserved lean mass (p = 0.024) and bone mineral density (p = 0.004) and had lower interleukin-6 (p = 0.043), while grip strength, fat mass and frailty did not change in either sex (Heinze et al., 2025). In young and adult female mice followed for 10 weeks, frailty status and mortality risk increased (p of 0.042 or less) and strength did not improve (Brown et al., 2023).

Measured in humans

The single efficacy-and-safety trial is the phase 1 dose-escalation study in 22 postmenopausal women with ER+/HER2- metastatic breast cancer. Its measured results were a half-life of 44.7 hours, a fall in SHBG in all 18 women in whom it was measured, a rise in PSA in 16 of 20, one partial response in a patient with an ESR1 mutation, a clinical benefit rate of 18.2% at 24 weeks and a median progression-free survival of 2.3 months (LoRusso et al., 2022). The same trial recorded raised AST in 59.1% and raised ALT in 45.5% of participants, and grade 3 or 4 adverse events in 16 of 22. Micro-dose excretion studies in adult male volunteers measured urinary metabolites and detection windows only, not any clinical effect (Wagener et al., 2022).

What the results do not include matters as much as what they do: there is no measured outcome in healthy adults, no comparison group described in the abstract of the human trial, and no result for an oral capsule outside a trial protocol. Case reports of liver, heart and hormonal harm sit alongside these results and are collected in the next section.

RAD-140 side effects reported in the research

A search for "RAD 140 side effects" deserves a full account of the adverse findings in the sources rather than a reassuring one. The table below gathers the main adverse findings in the sources used for this article, from the phase 1 trial through individual case reports to class-level reviews of SARMs. Each row names the population and design, because a finding in one patient, a finding in a trial and a finding in a pooled review carry different weight.

Two cautions apply when reading the table. First, most entries on the liver question are single-patient case reports or pooled reviews and series of SARMs, anabolic steroids and supplements as a class, in which the abstracts do not always say how much RAD-140 was involved; the one trial entry is the phase 1 study in the first row of the table. None of the liver case-report abstracts describes independent testing of what the product contained, and the Leciejewska review states that data on the dosage and purity of SARM supplements are limited (Leciejewska et al., 2024). A case report can establish that an event followed an exposure in one person, and a biopsy can describe the pattern of injury; it cannot establish a rate, a threshold or a cause, and it cannot exclude a second explanation unless the authors did so. Second, the only human trial data come from the dose-escalation phase 1 study, in which the participants were heavily pretreated women with advanced cancer, so background illness may contribute to the percentages (LoRusso et al., 2022). Rodent toxicity data are limited to the frailty and mortality signal in female mice (Brown et al., 2023); the rat abstracts do not report safety outcomes. No study of RAD-140 in the sources measured long-term effects, effects in healthy adults, or effects on the heart, or on sex-hormone levels beyond the SHBG and PSA surrogate markers, in a trial setting. Separately, the systematic review by Vignali and colleagues concluded that recreational SARM use should be strongly discouraged (Vignali et al., 2023).

RAD-140 vs YK-11 vs LGD-4033 vs ostarine: how they differ

Searches such as "RAD 140 vs LGD 4033" and "RAD 140 vs YK11" tend to expect a ranking. None is offered here, because the sources contain no head-to-head trial comparing any two of these compounds, and results from separate studies in separate populations cannot be lined up as if they came from one experiment. What can be compared is the type of molecule, the kind of evidence that exists for each, and the regulatory and anti-doping position, which is the same for all four.

The chemistry differs in one clear respect. Thevis and Schanzer group YK-11 with the steroidal SARMs and RAD-140, LGD-4033 and ostarine with the non-steroidal ones (Thevis and Schanzer, 2018). In the reporter assay run by Kanno and colleagues, YK-11 behaved as a partial agonist that accelerated nuclear translocation of the receptor and acted in a gene-selective way in MDA-MB 453 cells (Kanno et al., 2011). As far as the cited abstracts describe it, RAD-140 acted as an androgen receptor agonist in breast cancer cells (Yu et al., 2017), whereas Kanno and colleagues describe YK-11 as a partial agonist in a reporter assay. These were different assays in different systems, so the two descriptions cannot be ranked.

The evidence base differs more. RAD-140's only efficacy and safety trial was in cancer patients. In the sources used here, LGD-4033 was tested in a placebo-controlled study of 76 healthy men over 21 days, in which lean body mass increased in a dose-dependent manner while total testosterone, SHBG, HDL cholesterol and triglycerides were suppressed, returning to baseline after the compound was stopped; the authors reported no drug-related serious adverse events and no significant change in haemoglobin, PSA, AST, ALT or QT interval (Basaria et al., 2013). Ostarine was tested in a 12-week double-blind, placebo-controlled phase II trial of 120 healthy elderly men and postmenopausal women, in which one dose group showed statistically significant increases in total lean body mass and an improvement in physical function compared with placebo (P < 0.001 and P = 0.013), and the incidence of adverse events was similar between treatment groups (Dalton et al., 2011). These are abstract-level summaries of short trials in specific groups of healthy adults, they say nothing about RAD-140, and they cannot be assumed to apply to an oral capsule. For YK-11, the sources contain reporter-assay, cell and rodent work only, as summarised in our YK-11 article, linked in the table above. The protocol doses for each trial are given in the papers and are not reproduced here.

These differences describe what has been studied, not which compound produces a larger effect. A 21-day trial in healthy men, a 12-week trial in older adults, a phase 1 trial in cancer patients and a cell assay answer different questions, and as of that 2018 review, none of these SARMs had received full clinical approval (Thevis and Schanzer, 2018).

Legal and anti-doping status in brief

This is general information, not legal advice. It is limited to statements that could be verified.

• Anti-doping. WADA's Prohibited List names SARMs under S1.2, other anabolic agents, and lists RAD140 explicitly among the examples. The class is prohibited at all times (WADA Prohibited List). UKAD states that athletes are strictly liable for anything found in their system, and that it is not a defence that a substance was missing from a product label (UKAD, prohibited list).
• Medicines status. UKAD states that no SARM has been approved by any medicines or food regulator for human use, and that sale of these products for human consumption is illegal (UKAD, about SARMs).
• Food status. According to UKAD's ingredient warning, last updated 29 April 2026, the Food Standards Agency considers SARMs unauthorised novel foods that are illegal to sell or advertise as food or within dietary supplements in the UK (UKAD ingredient warning). That is UKAD's statement of the FSA position, not an FSA page.
• Legislation. The Human Medicines Regulations 2012 define a medicinal product (regulation 2) and restrict selling an unauthorised medicinal product (regulation 46). These pages do not mention SARMs, so how they apply to any particular product is a legal question this article does not answer.

Full breakdown with sources: Is RAD-140 legal in the UK?

About the Free Muscle RAD-140 listings

Free Muscle sells research compounds and gym apparel online. The RAD-140 Testolone research compound listing is the product page for the compound discussed in this article; details are on that page. Other compounds in the same category are on the SARMs collection page.

Research compounds sold by Free Muscle are supplied for laboratory research use only and are not for human consumption. They are not authorised as medicines by the MHRA, EMA or FDA, are not food supplements, and are sold only to adults aged 18 or over. Nothing on this page is medical or dosing advice.

• Batch testing. Every batch of research compounds is assayed for identity and purity by Janoshik Analytical, an independent laboratory. The Certificate of Analysis for a batch is sent on request: email the batch number printed on the label with the product name. Details are on the lab testing page. Two background guides explain how to read a Certificate of Analysis and what Janoshik Analytical is.
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Frequently asked questions

What is RAD-140 in simple terms?

It is an experimental, non-steroidal compound that binds the androgen receptor, the protein that responds to testosterone. It belongs to the SARM class and has been studied in cells, animals and one early cancer trial (Miller et al., 2011).

Is testolone the same as RAD-140?

Yes. UKAD lists RAD-140, Testolone, Radarine and EP0062 as names covered by vosilasarm (UKAD, about SARMs).

Has RAD-140 been tested in humans?

One phase 1 study in 22 women with metastatic breast cancer has been published (LoRusso et al., 2022). The only other human interventional studies found were micro-dose excretion studies for doping control (Wagener et al., 2022). Case reports and one case series describe people who had used RAD-140 products, but they are not trials.

What adverse findings were reported in the phase 1 trial?

Raised AST (59.1%) and ALT (45.5%) were the most frequent; total bilirubin, vomiting, dehydration and decreased appetite and weight were each 27.3%. Grade 3 or 4 events occurred in 16 of 22 patients (LoRusso et al., 2022).

Why do liver case reports matter if they are only single cases?

A case report documents what was observed in a named patient. Several separate reports describe a cholestatic pattern (Leung et al., 2022; Barbara et al., 2020; Niazi et al., 2025), but they cannot show how common it is, and a 2024 review noted limited data on the dosage and purity of SARM supplements (Leciejewska et al., 2024).

How do anti-doping laboratories detect RAD-140?

They use chromatography combined with mass spectrometry to find the intact compound and its urinary metabolites (Thevis and Schanzer, 2018; Wagener et al., 2022).

Is RAD-140 banned in sport?

According to the WADA Prohibited List, SARMs are named under S1.2 (other anabolic agents), RAD140 is listed explicitly among the examples, and the class is prohibited at all times (WADA Prohibited List). UKAD states that athletes are strictly liable for anything found in their system (UKAD, prohibited list). This is general information, not legal advice.

Is testolone a SARM?

Yes. Testolone is another name for RAD-140, which Miller and colleagues describe as a non-steroidal SARM (Miller et al., 2011), and UKAD lists it among the SARMs (UKAD, about SARMs).

Is RAD-140 approved as a medicine?

According to UKAD, no SARM has been approved by any medicines or food regulator for human use (UKAD, about SARMs). The study listed on ClinicalTrials.gov is a completed phase 1 trial.

Where can I read more about the SARM class?

The Free Muscle guide to SARMs and the 2026 research landscape gives a broader overview, and the comparison of SARMs and peptides explains how the two categories differ.

What does RAD-140 do, according to the studies?

In cell assays it bound and activated the androgen receptor in breast cancer cells but not prostate cancer cells (Yu et al., 2017); in rodents it protected neurons in gonadectomised rats (Jayaraman et al., 2014), enlarged fibre cross-sectional area in young male rats (Puskas et al., 2025), preserved lean mass and bone density in older male but not female mice (Heinze et al., 2025) and increased frailty and mortality risk in female mice (Brown et al., 2023). In the one human trial, in 22 women with metastatic breast cancer, it engaged the receptor and produced one partial response, with raised liver enzymes the most frequent adverse events (LoRusso et al., 2022). No efficacy or safety study in healthy adults was found in the sources reviewed.

What RAD-140 side effects have been reported, including on the liver?

In the phase 1 trial the most frequent events were raised AST, ALT and bilirubin, vomiting, dehydration and decreased appetite and weight (LoRusso et al., 2022). Case reports describe cholestatic liver injury (Leung et al., 2022; Ladna et al., 2023; Barbara et al., 2020; Niazi et al., 2025), myopericarditis (Schwartzman et al., 2024), possible myocarditis (Padappayil et al., 2022) and gynaecomastia with hypogonadism after mixed supplements (Chong et al., 2024). The full list, with population and design for each, is in the side effects section.

How does RAD-140 differ from LGD-4033 and YK-11?

All three act on the androgen receptor, but YK-11 is steroidal and a partial agonist in a reporter assay (Kanno et al., 2011), while RAD-140 and LGD-4033 are non-steroidal (Thevis and Schanzer, 2018). LGD-4033 has a placebo-controlled trial in 76 healthy men (Basaria et al., 2013); RAD-140's only trial was in cancer patients (LoRusso et al., 2022); YK-11 has no human trial in the sources. There is no head-to-head trial, so no ranking is possible; see the comparison section.

Is RAD-140 legal in the UK?

This article cannot give a one-sentence answer. UKAD states that no SARM has been approved by any medicines or food regulator for human use and that sale for human consumption is illegal (UKAD, about SARMs), and relays the FSA position that SARMs are unauthorised novel foods (UKAD ingredient warning). Free Muscle sells the RAD-140 research compound online only for laboratory research use, to customers aged 18 or over; the UKAD, WADA and legislation references are set out in full in the companion guide, Is RAD-140 legal in the UK?. This is general information, not legal advice.

What is the half-life of RAD-140?

The only published human pharmacokinetic figure in the sources is from the phase 1 trial in 22 women with metastatic breast cancer, where the half-life was 44.7 hours (LoRusso et al., 2022). That figure comes from a cancer population at the protocol doses given in the paper, and the sources reviewed report no half-life measured in healthy adults (the micro-dose excretion studies in volunteers report urinary elimination profiles and detection times, not a half-life).

Does RAD-140 show up in anti-doping tests?

Yes. Doping-control laboratories characterised the compound by mass spectrometry in 2013 (Thevis et al., 2013), and micro-dose excretion studies in adult male volunteers described detection times for the intact compound and six urinary metabolites (Wagener et al., 2022). RAD140 was the second most frequent SARM found in Swedish healthcare urine samples (Bohlin et al., 2024), and UKAD states that athletes are strictly liable for anything found in their system (UKAD, prohibited list).

Is RAD-140 sold for human use?

No. Research compounds are sold for laboratory research use only, to customers aged 18 or over. They are not medicines or food supplements and are not for human consumption. The protocols used in the studies discussed here are set out in the linked papers and are not reproduced in this article. Nothing in this article is medical advice.

Related reading

• Short overview: RAD-140 (Testolone): what the research says and its UK status

Sources

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