Is Myostatin legal in Australia?

Myostatin is the body's brake on muscle growth. Mice bred without it grew two to three times more muscle, which started a whole field. In monkeys, though, a different protein turns out to be the main brake.

Myostatin is made by muscle, and it tells muscle to stop growing. Remove it from a mouse and you get an animal two to three times more muscular.

How it works: Myostatin travels in the blood in a locked, inactive form. Once unlocked, it docks on a receptor on muscle cells, mainly one called ActRIIB.

Approval history: Myostatin is a protein the body makes, not a drug. Drugs that target it are investigational. Apitegromab has results from final-stage studies in spinal muscular atrophy.

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 Myostatin 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 Myostatin 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 Myostatin 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.