Oranabol (oxymesterone) Is a potent synthetic derivative of the anabolic steroid 4-hydroxytestosterone.The then well-known Italian drug manufacturer Societa Farmaceutici Italia first investigated it back in the late 1950's.They filed patent for this compound around the same time, in at least three countries including the United Kingdom, the United States, and Italy. This drug saw limited clinical use as a prescription agent under the Oranabol brand name in Spain and Italy, and under the names Anamidol, Balnimax, and Theranabol in other countries including Japan, the UK, and the Netherlands. Oxymesterone has been unavailable as a prescription drug worldwide for more than three decades now, and was never released in the United States. At very best I would guess that only a small handful of U.S. athletes have been lucky enough to experiment with this obscure anabolic steroid over the years, and certainly very few in recent times.
By the 1990's, oxymesterone had already become a forgotten relic of early steroid development. If you asked around, nobody would probably have been able to remember what this drug was, let alone how well it worked with bodybuilders and athletes. In all this time there was only one isolated mention of its use in the medical literature.The drug showed up in a report released in 1993 by the department of Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology at St. Vincent's Hospital in New South Wales, concerning two young football players who died of cardiac events in 1988 and 1990. The two men, whom had unobstructed arteries and were only 18 and 24 years of age 137 died during routine training sessions. Despite never being offered for sale in Australia, and having been removed from the global market long before 1988, oxymesterone had been detected in the men during autopsy. No conclusive link between the drug and their deaths was established. There is nothing else in the medical literature to suggest that this steroid is of any particular danger, and little that we can infer from this paper except that oxymesterone was likely being used widely as a designer steroid in the Australian Football league. Although steroid abuse may have been a contributing factor in the deaths of these men, it seems illogical to conclude that Oranabol was the cause.
In regards to its structure, oxymesterone differs from 4-hydroxytestosterone only by the addition of a c-17 alpha methyl group. This essentially makes Oranabol the "Methyltest of hydroxytestosterone'.'This analogy may not be 100% fair, however. The word methyltestosterone conjures up some fairly negative impressions. It is looked upon as sort of the rotten stepchild of testosterone, with behavior that is quite offensive compared to its non-methylated parent. It is always causing trouble with water bloat, gynecomastia, and a poor overall ratio of results to side effects. For many it is nothing more than a failed attempt to make an oral testosterone. Oxymesterone, fortunately,does not share in methyltestosterone's failures. Just like its non-methylated analog hydroxytestosterone, oxymesterone remains an effective lean-tissue-building steroid with only a minimal to moderate androgenic component. It has no estrogenic or progestational activity, and no ability to cause side effects related to these female hormones. Overall, Oranabol is a "clean" drug amongst oral steroids: potent, non-aromatizable, and primarily anabolic in nature.
As mentioned already, oxymesterone does not convert to estrogen. The 4-hydroxyl group present on this steroid inhibits the process of aromatization. In fact, when applied to testosterone (as in hydroxytestosterone) a suicide aromatase inhibitor is created, capable of significantly suppressing serum estrogen levels. It is unknown if this property exists in Oranabol, as this potential aspect of its behavior has never been investigated. Its non-estrogenic and non-progestational profile would support, at the very least, this being a steroid for increasing muscle density and visibility, regardless of a related aromatase inhibiting effect. This steroid's 4-hydroxylation also prevents 5-alpha reduction, an activity that otherwise would allow this steroid to be considerably androgenic. Oxymesterone is a lot milder than its monstrosity of a chemical name (4-hydroxy-17-alpha-methyltestosterone) might at first suggest. Again, this is ultimately a cutting anabolic much more than it is a bulking androgen like testosterone, Dianabol, or Anadrol, ideal for precontest use or incorporation into lean-mass building stacks. Of course as a potentially active aromatase inhibitor, this agent may stack well with other aromatizable "bulking" steroids as well.
When it comes to other safety issues, we need to remember that oxymesterone is going to behave in many regards like a typical methylated oral anabolic steroid. It carries some risk of liver toxicity due to the c-17 alpha alkylation,and should be respected as such.Drug duration of alkylated orals is usually kept under eight weeks or so, in an effort to minimize the chance that a significant level of liver toxicity will be reached. This steroid also has the same potential to cause androgenic side effects found in all steroids, and as such is not immune from causing oily skin, acne, or aggravated hair loss (if you are genetically prone). It may be milder than many other steroids, but it is not completely benign in this regard. No agent is. As a steroid that potentially has an intrinsic aromatase-inhibiting effect, women should also take extreme caution with its use. If this trait holds true, oxymesterone might act as more than just a mild anabolic. It may indeed precipitate the uncomfortable menopausal-type side effects that can befall women when they suppress their estrogen levels.
According to the standard laboratory assays, methyl-hydroxytest is over three times more anabolic than methyltestosterone on a milligram for milligram basis.This is a considerable difference, but not quite the extreme potency we see with some of the other recent methylated steroids we've seen released like methyl-1 -testosterone, methyldienolone, and methylhydroxynandrolone. Therefore, we would see more "normal" doses used by male bodybuilders with this drug, who would typically find 10-20mg per day to provide a very measurable benefit. At this level one should be seeing formidable strength gains, increased fat loss, increased muscle definition, and an overall increase in lean tissue mass.This drug would further stack well with a variety of other steroids, especially a 400-600mg per week dose of an injectable base like testosterone or Equipoise® during bulking phases of training, or a milder anabolic like Deca-Durabolin® or Primobolan® for cutting and defining. All of these stack combinations should work extremely well, and would not add to the moderate liver toxicity already present in oxymesterone.
Despite being an effective steroid, oxymesterone has just never been a widely available one. This agent has not been available as a prescription drug in over 30 years, so there is little chance you are going to run into one of the old European products. It is possible that one of the international steroid manufacturing companies might decide to add it to their lines one day, given the recent trend of searching out novel old compounds for re-release. Personally, I think this would be very interesting to see, given how extremely rare this drug is, and how decent it looks on paper. Perhaps over the next few years we will see a number of old steroids make a comeback on the international steroid market. If so, there are not a large number of drugs that I would place in front of this one as compounds of great interest. However, short of this happening, oxymesterone will remain a drug of myth and conjecture for today's steroid user.