Stanozolol dosage and evidence
Written by Aaron CuhaReviewed Sep 2026
The short answer
Best known from the 1988 Olympics. Its only real medical record is long-term use in a rare swelling disease, where it works in a way that has nothing to do with muscle.
Evidence grade for Stanozolol: Preliminary. The rule: studied in people, but no published study has had people take it. The sum on this page: 1 human study where nobody was given it. A grade counts how much has been done to people, not whether it works.
- People given it
- 0
- Human studies
- 0
- Found nothing
- 0
Dose
No human dose established
No published study on this page has given this compound to people and reported a result.
1 human study where nobody was given it
No first-hand reports gathered yet. That is a gap in what we have collected, not a finding that nothing has been reported.
In plain English
In plain English, from Aaron
This is how I would explain it to a friend. The evidence, with the numbers, is further down the page.
Stanozolol is an anabolic steroid, mostly taken as a pill. Its street name is Winstrol. It is famous from the 1988 Olympics. Its only medical use was a rare swelling disease, and the US dropped it. It is a controlled drug.
What people take it for
- Lean muscle without water retention.
- Looking hard and dry for a show or the beach.
- Sport performance.
What studies in people showed
The only long-term data in people is from 21 patients with a rare swelling disease, on the drug for many years. It helped them by making the liver produce a protein they lack. That has nothing to do with muscle. 10 of the 21 had side effects from it: unwanted hair growth, weight gain, period changes, acne and mood changes. A lower dose settled them. Five had low good cholesterol. No study backs its use for muscle or sport in healthy people.
What people report
Reports, not study results
The good
- We have not collected user reports on this one yet.
The bad
- In the long-term patient study, 10 of 21 had side effects, including unwanted hair growth, acne, weight gain and mood changes.
- It is a steroid pill of the type that strains the liver and pushes cholesterol the wrong way.
- It shuts down your own testosterone, like the rest of this group.
Where these come from: The side effects are from the long-term patient study and the safety notes on this page. We have not collected forum reports for this one yet.
My bottom line
Famous is not the same as proven. There is no study showing it does what people take it for, and it is hard on your liver and cholesterol. I would not put it in my body.
An opinion, not a finding. I am a coach, not a doctor.
What it has been measured to do
Nothing indexed yet
The 1 citation on this page do not report a result for any of the 36 goals indexed here. Most of what sits here is something else: a listing of a planned study, a study of how the body handles the drug, a safety report or a government record. None of those tests whether it works.
Show full evidence
What is Stanozolol?
Best known from the 1988 Olympics. Its only real medical record is long-term use in a rare swelling disease, where it works in a way that has nothing to do with muscle.
Stanozolol is the steroid most people can name and few people understand. Its medical use has nothing to do with what it is famous for.
Hereditary angioedema is a rare genetic disease that causes bouts of severe swelling. People with it are missing a protein. Steroids like this one make the liver produce more of that protein. So they have been used for decades to prevent attacks. That is a liver effect, not a muscle effect. It is also where the only long-term safety data on this drug comes from.
That data is useful. It follows 21 patients who took the drug nonstop for many years, which almost no steroid research does. 10 of the 21 had side effects from it.
Outside that disease, there is very little proof in people. And newer, targeted drugs have mostly replaced steroids for that disease.
How does Stanozolol work?
Stanozolol is a man-made steroid built from DHT, a strong form of testosterone. It has a small chemical change that lets it work as a pill, and that change is what makes it hard on the liver. It attaches to the testosterone receptor. The body cannot turn it into estrogen. In the rare swelling disease, it works a totally different way. It makes the liver produce more of the protein those patients are missing. That cuts how often attacks happen, but it does not fix the gene problem.
What have studies in people found about Stanozolol?
One real medical use with long-term safety data, in a rare disease, working in a way that has nothing to do with muscle. Almost nothing for what it is famous for.
- 21 patients with the rare swelling disease were followed on the drug for many years. 10 of them had side effects from it, including unwanted hair growth, weight gain, period changes, acne and mood changes.
- Used for decades to prevent attacks in that disease, by making the liver produce more of a missing protein.
- That works through the liver, not muscle, so the proof does not carry over to muscle claims.
- It is a steroid pill of the type that is hard on the liver and pushes cholesterol the wrong way.
- No study in people backs its use for sport or for body shape in healthy people.
- Newer, targeted drugs have mostly replaced steroids for that disease.
What this does not tell you: All the proof is in one rare disease, working in a way that has nothing to do with why people take it. The long-term safety data is from patients watched by doctors, for a medical reason. It is not about people using higher doses on their own. Its reputation for lean gains without water retention comes from user stories and theory, not from any study.
The state of the research
Stanozolol is a useful page. It shows how a drug can be famous, medically real, and unproven for the thing it is famous for, all at once.
Its real medical record is in a rare swelling disease, working through the liver, not muscle. That is not a small detail. It means the long-term safety data, the most valuable part of this drug's research, comes from patients being treated for something else entirely.
The honest summary: this is a steroid pill that can strain the liver and push cholesterol the wrong way. It has a real use in a rare disease that medicine has mostly moved past. And there is no study showing it helps sport or body shape in healthy people.
The harms of this group of drugs are well known and not unusual. They shut down the body's own testosterone. That lowers sperm count, which usually comes back after stopping, but not always. They push cholesterol the wrong way, usually lowering HDL, the good kind, and raising LDL, the bad kind. That is worse with the steroid pills that have a small chemical change to survive the liver. Those same pills strain the liver, which is why they are their own risk group. They thicken the blood. In women, they cause male traits like a deeper voice and more body hair, and some of that does not go away. That is why dosing in women is a different problem, not a smaller version of the same one. Heart effects at doses above the body's normal range are on record. That is a separate question from normal replacement doses of testosterone, which have their own large safety study.
The evidence, in charts
Fig. 1a · how many people
1study in people cited, but none says how many people took part
number of people not stated
We do not draw a total, because none of the studies in people on this page gives one. Read the sources below for what each study measured.
We read the number of people from the source lines on this page. Where a line gives no number, we count nothing for it. We do not guess.
Fig. 1b · evidence mix
All 1 source here is a study in people.
- Study in people · done in people1100%
Counted from the list of sources on this page. It counts only what we cite, so there may be more studies out there. A review counts once, however many studies it sums up.
Fig. 2 · evidence over time
Every source here was published in 2007.
Too few different years on this page to draw a timeline. The newest source on file is from 2007, more than five years ago. Research on it may have gone quiet.
Fig. 3 · legal status at a glance
US
Not approved
UK
Approved
AU
Approved
CA
Approved
Approved in 3 of 4, by prescription in 0, not approved in 1. This is what the law says, not a verdict on the science. See Legal status below for the full text and any notes.
Fig. 4 · how much does what
Nobody has tested different amounts in people
This chart would show how the effect changes as the amount goes up. For this compound, nobody has measured that in people. So we leave it empty. We will not borrow an animal chart and pretend it works the same in people.
Fig. 5 · what the molecule is
- Kind of compound
- Hormone
- Molecule weight
- 328.5 Da. A steroid, not a peptide.
- Half-life
- About 9 hoursMedium, 6 to 24 hours
- Chain length
- None on file
Half-life as stated on file: Roughly 9 hours for the oral form, so it is dosed daily. An injectable aqueous suspension also exists with different kinetics.
No amino acid sequence is on file for Stanozolol, which is expected: a hormone is not built from amino acids.
The studies we cite
- Study in people2007Hereditary angioedema: safety of long-term stanozolol therapy
Long-term stanozolol was judged safe here, but side effects were still common. 21 patients with the rare swelling disease who had been on the drug since 1987 were surveyed, examined and scanned, covering 20 to 40 years of treatment. 10 of the 21 had side effects from it: unwanted hair growth, weight gain, period changes, acne and mood changes. Nobody had to stop, because a lower dose settled the problems. Liver tests showed no lasting damage. Five had low good cholesterol and two had high blood fats.
The long-term human safety dataset for this drug, following patients on continuous androgen therapy for hereditary angioedema over years. Valuable because almost no anabolic steroid has long-term monitored human follow-up, and it documents the cost of that exposure rather than only the benefit.
Common questions
Has Stanozolol been tested in people?
Not in a completed trial cited here. 1 human study where nobody was given it. Best known from the 1988 Olympics. Its only real medical record is long-term use in a rare swelling disease, where it works in a way that has nothing to do with muscle.
What is the Stanozolol dosage?
No human dose established. No published study on this page has given this compound to people and reported a result. 1 human study where nobody was given it
Is Stanozolol FDA-approved?
Was FDA-approved to prevent attacks of hereditary angioedema, an inherited condition that causes sudden swelling. Discontinued in the United States. A Schedule III controlled substance.
What is stanozolol actually approved for?
It was approved to prevent attacks in hereditary angioedema, a rare genetic disease. In that disease, steroids make the liver produce more of the protein patients are missing. That is a liver effect with nothing to do with muscle. It has since been dropped in the United States, as targeted drugs replaced steroids for that disease.
Is there evidence it builds lean muscle without water retention?
No study backs it. That reputation comes from user stories, and from the fact that the body cannot turn it into estrogen, so it causes less water retention than testosterone. But no estrogen also means losing estrogen's help with bone, mood and sex drive. That rarely gets mentioned.
Why is the liver risk emphasised for this one?
Because of a small chemical change that lets a steroid survive the liver and work as a pill. That same change causes the strain on the liver and the sharp bad shifts in cholesterol seen across this group. That is why steroid pills are treated as their own risk group, not just an easier way to take a steroid.