Q: I’ve been hearing a lot about the energy-boosting effects of creatine lately, and I’m wondering if I could benefit. Should I be taking a creatine supplement?
Creatine supplements have been getting a lot of buzz recently. They have long been popular among bodybuilders and athletes who use it as a supplement to build muscle, enhance performance and boost energy, but now new claims are emerging — and for good reason.
Creatine is touted to have a variety of cognitive health benefits, including improving memory, enhancing attention and focus and protecting against neurological diseases.
With these growing claims of enhancing muscles and the mind, no wonder creatine supplements have captured the limelight!
Here’s the scoop on what you need to know about these supplements:
[READ: The Best Supplements to Build Muscle.]
What Is Creatine?
Creatine is a compound that’s naturally made in our bodies from three amino acids: arginine, glycine and methionine.
Physiologically, creatine is involved in making energy for our muscles. After it’s been absorbed into the bloodstream, creatine is stored, primarily in the muscles.
Research has found that women have significantly lower stores of creatine in their bodies — 70% to 80% less — than men do. Perhaps this is partly why creatine supplements are being increasingly studied in women and marketed toward women. Many women are jumping on the creatine bandwagon.
Meat and seafood are good sources of dietary creatine, so if you don’t eat these foods — or if you’re vegetarian or vegan — your body may not have enough creatine naturally and may benefit from a creatine supplement.
Creatine monohydrate is the most commonly used creatine supplement, especially among athletes. These supplements come in capsule and gummy form, but the powder version is the most popular — and the one experts recommend most.
[Read: How Foods and Drinks Affect Our Mental Health]
What Are the Benefits of Taking Creatine?
People often take creatine supplements to enhance their physiques and physical performance.
Physical benefits of creatine include:
— Improving exercise performance. The benefits are especially pronounced for increases in maximal strength and maximal work output, power production, sprint performance and recovery time between bouts of intense exercise, research has found. A study in a 2022 issue of Nutrients found that creatine supplementation improved men’s average power and speed in the second half of a repeated sprint-running protocol on the treadmill.
— Boosting energy. Creatine helps your body produce more adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is the primary energy source of cells.
— Improving recovery after exercise. Research suggests that creatine supplementation may speed up muscle recovery time, partly by reducing muscle damage.
— Supporting muscle growth. A study in the Open Access Journal of Sports Medicine found that combining creatine supplementation with strength training resulted in greater increases in lean muscle mass than simply doing the resistance training.
— Combatting sarcopenia. In addition to athletes, older adults may benefit from taking creatine supplements because as we get older, the body’s ability to make creatine decreases and people naturally lose muscle mass through a syndrome called sarcopenia.
To be clear: Creatine itself doesn’t build muscle. But when the supplements are taken in conjunction with regular resistance training
, that’s when the benefits kick in.
“This is not a magic bullet,” says Joan Salge Blake, a clinical professor of nutrition at Boston University and host of the nutrition and health podcast Spot On!. “To increase muscle mass and strength, you need to do weight or resistance training along with taking creatine.”
But the roster of potential benefits beyond improving athletic performance is growing.
Benefits for cognitive function and brain health:
— Improving cognitive function. A 2024 review published in Frontiers in Nutrition found that creatine supplements had beneficial effects on cognitive function — including memory, attention time and information processing speed — in adults, ranging in age from 21 to 76.
— Providing faster recovery from brain trauma. A 2025 study showed that creatine may have the potential to hasten recovery from mild traumatic brain injury, such as concussion.
— Alleviating fatigue. Creatine may help improve symptoms of fatigue in women during their menstrual cycle and it may help with post-viral fatigue syndrome, a neurological condition characterized by chronic fatigue, cognitive difficulties and sleep issues after a viral infection, according to a 2025 study.
— Protecting against neurodegenerative diseases. Some studies, including research in a 2025 issue of the journal Nutrients, showed that creatine supplementation may provide protection against neurodegenerative diseases, like Parkinson’s and Huntington’s.
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How Should Creatine Be Taken?
The basic dosage is 3 to 5 grams per day.
With what’s called a “loading stage,” the recommendation is to take 5 grams of creatine four times per day for a total of 20 grams per day for five to seven days, says Sharon Collison, a registered dietitian and clinical instructor in the department of health behavior and nutrition sciences at the University of Delaware.
After that, you can drop down to 5 grams per day.
While you can take creatine before or after exercise, emerging evidence — including a 2021 study in Nutrients — suggests that it may be more beneficial for improving body composition (as in: adding lean muscle mass) and strength when it’s consumed after a strength-training workout.
What Are the Potential Side Effects or Risks of Creatine?
Creatine is considered safe in healthy people. The most common early side effect of creatine, especially during the loading stage, is water retention, but this is temporary.
What Should I Look for in a Creatine Supplement?
Because the Food and Drug Administration doesn’t monitor dietary supplements for safety and effectiveness before they come on the market, it’s important to look for third-party verification of the products you’re buying.
The most important third-party testing organizations to look for are certification marks from:
— U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP)
— National Sanitation Foundation (NSF)
This way, you’ll know that the product contains the ingredients and the amounts the label says it does and doesn’t contain contaminants, like heavy metals or pesticides.
In addition, you can check out ConsumerLab.com for information on price points and quality of supplements.
Bottom Line
Given that creatine is generally safe and there are studies supporting its efficacy in boosting physical and cognitive abilities, it may be worth taking.
But as with any supplement, talk to your doctor before you start taking it to make sure it’s appropriate for you.
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What Is Creatine? Should I Be Taking It? originally appeared on usnews.com
