SARMs

S4

Sold on a vision effect I could not trace to a primary source

7 sections

Top of article
What it actually is
What it is supposed to do
What people take it for
The dose question
How to check you have the right molecule
What people get wrong
What is known about harm

What circulates: I found no dosing figure I could trace to a source
What was studied: Nothing in a person
How they compare: Nothing to compare against: no human dose has ever been published
As a medicine: Never an approved medicine

What it actually is

S4, also called andarine and GTx-007, is a non-steroidal compound acting on the androgen receptor. A 2024 review reports its preclinical development was suspended before it reached phase 1, so there is no human trial record. It is on this shelf mainly because of a claim about eyesight that I could not trace to a primary source.

What it is supposed to do

It acts selectively on the androgen receptor. The visual disturbance the compound is known for is usually explained by an effect on the retina, and I could not find the primary report behind that explanation.

What people take it for

Muscle gain and fat loss. Nothing was ever trialled in a person.

The dose question

What circulates: I found no dosing figure I could trace to a source
What was studied: Nothing in a person; A 2024 review reports its preclinical work was suspended before phase 1

Nothing to compare against

There is nothing to compare against. The claim that defines this compound in the market, that it disturbs vision, is one I could not trace to a primary report. Three searches returned nothing, and the single published human case pairing andarine with a visual symptom is a man taking three compounds who arrived with blurred vision, a blood glucose of 558 and an HbA1c of 13.9 percent, whose eye examination excluded retinopathy. That is newly diagnosed diabetes rather than an andarine effect. A blindness report does sit in an adverse event database, filed under the generic keyword rather than under andarine.

Reported because it is what people use. Nothing here recommends any amount.

How long it lasts

I could not find one in a person.

Route studied

Nothing in a person. Preclinical work only, suspended before phase 1 according to a 2024 review.

Route used

By mouth. I found no dosing figure I could trace to a source.

How to check you have the right molecule

Andarine, S4 and GTx-007 are one compound. It was one of the three compounds most often detected in the 2016 product analysis, so the name also matters as something that turns up in bottles labelled as other things.

Walked through on two real certificates in how to read a certificate of analysis.

What people get wrong

The vision claim is the most repeated thing about any compound on this shelf and I could not find its primary source. The single published human case pairing andarine with a visual symptom is a man taking three compounds who arrived with blurred vision, a blood glucose of 558 and an HbA1c of 13.9 percent, and whose eye examination excluded retinopathy. That reads as newly diagnosed diabetes. A blindness report does sit in an adverse event database, filed under the generic keyword for the class rather than under andarine, in a table showing only ten of the fifteen reports that keyword returned.

What is known about harm

The searches behind the class page found no case report naming andarine on its own, only ones where two or three compounds were taken at once. The structural argument that exists in the literature is a suspicion about chemistry rather than a finding in a person: the molecule carries an aromatic nitro group, described as a toxicophore.

Others in SARMs

The full entry

Everything on this page is a summary. Read the full entry on S4 for the citations, the studies, and the reasoning behind every figure above.

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