Is Glutathione legal in Australia?

The body's main antioxidant inside cells, made of three amino acids. People take it for skin, for the liver and to clean up cell damage. Studies of taking extra as a supplement give mixed results.

Glutathione is a small chain of three amino acids: glutamate, cysteine and glycine. It is the main antioxidant inside human cells.

How it works: It mops up harmful oxygen molecules, the kind that damage cells, both on its own and through an enzyme called glutathione peroxidase. It recharges other antioxidants.

Approval history: Not an approved drug; sold as a supplement (the FDA has flagged the forms given as shots)

Registers or lists medicines and health products on the ARTG, its official register. It also sorts substances into schedules in the Poisons Standard. Many peptides are Schedule 4 (prescription only). So having them without a prescription, or importing them for yourself, is restricted. That is true even when no product is registered.

The legal category above is how The Longevity Archive reads Therapeutic Goods Administration listings for Glutathione on the reviewed date. It is not a legal opinion. Rules change. Bringing a compound into the country, prescribing it and owning it can each be treated differently. Check with the agency before you act on anything here.

Check TGA directly

Whether Glutathione is banned in sport is set by the World Anti-Doping Code and by military rules, not by its legal status in Australia. Before you compete or get tested, look up Glutathione by name on the Prohibited List, or look up a named product in Global DRO. Under the World Anti-Doping Code, category S0 bans, at all times, any drug-like substance that meets two tests. No other section of the List covers it. And no government health regulator anywhere has a current approval for it as a treatment in people. Many substances that are approved somewhere are banned by name in another section. So approval does not mean a substance is allowed in sport.

• WADA Prohibited List
• Global DRO (check a named product)
• USADA (US athletes)
• Operation Supplement Safety (US service members)

The rules you compete or serve under decide this, not this page.