Is Testosterone legal in the United Kingdom?

The best-evidenced hormone on this site. A 5,246-man randomised trial settled the cardiovascular question, and 36 randomised trials in 8,480 women cover the half of the population nobody talks about.

Testosterone has better human evidence than almost anything else documented here, and it is also the compound most surrounded by noise, so this page leads with what the large randomised trials actually found. On safety in men, the question is answered.

Mechanism: A 19-carbon steroid synthesised from cholesterol, mainly in the Leydig cells of the testis under luteinising hormone control, and in smaller amounts by the ovary and adrenal in women. It acts directly on the androgen receptor, a nuclear receptor that binds DNA and alters transcription.

Regulatory history: FDA-approved for male hypogonadism in multiple formulations. Schedule III controlled substance in the United States. No testosterone product is approved for women in the United States, which is a documented gap rather than a judgement on the evidence.

Licenses medicines for the UK market. A compound without a marketing authorisation is an unlicensed medicine, which can only lawfully be supplied for human use through a prescriber under the specials scheme, not sold as a research product.

The classification above is the The Longevity Archive reading of Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency listings for Testosterone at the reviewed date, not a legal opinion. Rules change, and importing, prescribing and possessing a compound can each be treated differently. Check the regulator directly before acting on anything here.