One of the most researched supplements in sports nutrition is getting a lot more interesting to people who couldn’t care less about sports nutrition.
Creatine has a branding problem.
For decades it’s lived in the same mental aisle as giant tubs of protein powder, sleeveless shirts and people who say “macros” at dinner parties. So if you’re a 52-year-old woman wondering about muscle after menopause, or a 61-year-old man who’d simply like to stay strong, creatine probably isn’t the first thing you’d reach for. It’s the Brussels sprouts of supplements: a bad reputation it mostly earned from its fan club.
Researchers have been politely suggesting we reconsider.
Creatine isn’t a steroid. It isn’t a hormone. And its actual job has almost nothing to do with looking muscular. Creatine is part of your body’s energy system.
Your body makes it. You also get some from food, especially meat and fish. Most of it lives in your skeletal muscle, where creatine and phosphocreatine help rapidly regenerate ATP, the molecule your cells spend as instant energy.
Think of ATP as cash. Your cells don’t carry a fortune in their pockets, because they’re not built that way, so when demand spikes they need a fast refill. Phosphocreatine is basically the ATM in the lobby of the muscle cell.
Lifting something heavy is the obvious withdrawal. But muscle isn’t the only big spender. Your brain burns through ATP like it’s got a coupon. That’s where the story gets more interesting than shaker bottles.
THE NUMBER TO REMEMBER: 7.5 KG
A 2026 meta-analysis pooled seven randomized trials with 608 postmenopausal women (average age about 62). In the three trials that measured leg-press strength, women taking creatine gained about 7.5 kilograms (roughly 16.5 pounds) more than comparison groups.
Lean mass moved a more modest 0.37 kilograms, which is less than a pound. The authors’ takeaway: small but meaningful gains in lean mass and strength, particularly at 5 grams a day or more alongside resistance training, with no evidence of harm.
Notice the pattern. Creatine didn’t replace the workout. It helped the workout do more, like the coworker who makes the team look good without taking over the meeting.
What creatine does—and why it gets more interesting after 40
Your body can make creatine from amino acids, largely using the liver and kidneys, and diet tops off the supply. Once creatine gets into muscle, some of it becomes phosphocreatine. When demand jumps, phosphocreatine donates a phosphate group that helps turn ADP back into ATP.
You don’t need to memorize that. You need exactly one sentence: creatine helps cells recycle energy fast.
That’s why it took off in sports. If a muscle can squeeze out a little more work each session, another rep here, slightly better performance there, it adds up. Tiny deposits compound, and so do tiny withdrawals.
As we covered in our strength-training article, preserving muscle isn’t about holding on to the body you had at 25. Muscle is physical reserve: carrying groceries, getting up off the floor, climbing stairs, catching yourself when you trip, staying independent later.
Creatine doesn’t do any of that on its own. Resistance training is still the signal, protein is still the building material, and creatine may support the energy machinery that lets muscle answer the call. It’s less a “muscle-building powder” than one member of a well-run team.
Researchers are studying that team in older adults. A 2026 meta-analysis of adults 60 and older found that adding creatine to resistance training improved strength compared with resistance training alone. The effect size was small and the certainty of the evidence moderate, so no fireworks, but it’s a real signal.
None of this means everyone over 40 needs creatine. It means its bodybuilding-only reputation is badly out of date.
Women were the plot twist nobody wrote into the script
For something studied for decades, creatine research had a familiar problem: a lot of the early work was done on men. One review on creatine across women’s life stages pointed out physiological differences between women and men and named menopause as a stage overdue for more attention.
Now there’s more direct evidence. The 2026 postmenopausal meta-analysis didn’t extrapolate from 24-year-old athletes. It studied postmenopausal women, in trials lasting from 12 weeks to two years.
Now for the fine print, because we like you. The lean mass result came from five trials and 338 women. The 7.5 kg leg-press result came from just three trials and 111 women, and the confidence range around it was wide, roughly 2 to 13 kilograms. The reviewers rated most of the studies as having “some concerns” about bias. Adverse events were mild and similar to placebo. So this is a promising signal, not a guarantee.
And one thing creatine did not do: bone density didn’t change overall. Creatine sometimes gets tossed into broad “healthy aging” claims that sprint ahead of the evidence. Muscle and strength? Interesting. Bone? Not established by these data, and we’re not going to pretend otherwise.
THE SEPTEMBER TAKE
Creatine gets more interesting when you stop asking “what does this supplement do?” and start asking “what does it help my body do?”
It isn’t a substitute for strength training, protein, or actually using your muscles. The evidence looks best when it’s added to things already known to work. That’s less magical than supplement marketing, and a lot more believable.
Then somebody noticed the brain
This is the part of the creatine conversation that’s going viral, which is exactly why we need to keep our shoes on the ground.
The brain uses enormous amounts of energy, and it has its own creatine-phosphocreatine system. So a fair question follows: if creatine helps muscle handle sudden energy demands, could it help the brain too?
Researchers are asking. A 2024 meta-analysis pooled 16 randomized trials with 492 adults (ages roughly 21 to 76). It found a significant improvement in memory, but no significant improvement in overall cognitive function or executive function, and the certainty of evidence was low for most outcomes. The authors asked for bigger trials.
Then there’s a review of adults 55 and older. It found only six eligible studies with 1,542 participants, and five of them reported a positive link between creatine and cognition. Impressive, until you look under the hood. Only two were double-blind supplementation trials. The other four estimated creatine intake from diet recall. The quality ratings were one “good,” two “fair” and three “poor,” a report card you’d keep off the fridge. The authors concluded, appropriately, that the evidence is limited, possibly favorable for healthy older adults, and in need of high-quality trials.
So, is creatine a brain supplement? Not yet. Is it worth watching? Absolutely. Also, the internet has already decided it’s a brain supplement, and the internet has also decided you can “hack” your sleep.
“Doesn’t it wreck your kidneys?”
Mention creatine to anyone who remembers the 1990s and someone will eventually say it.
The worry isn’t random. Creatine can raise serum creatinine, a marker commonly used to estimate kidney function. The names are annoyingly similar because the molecules are related, like two cousins who show up at every family event in matching outfits. But a higher creatinine doesn’t automatically mean kidney injury.
A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis found a small rise in serum creatinine with creatine and no significant change in GFR, the actual measure of kidney filtration. Its conclusion: the creatinine bump likely reflects creatine metabolism, not kidney damage. A 2026 meta-analysis of 26 randomized trials found the same pattern: creatine raised creatinine and made creatinine-based eGFR look lower, but when GFR was measured with a method that doesn’t rely on creatinine, the difference vanished, and markers of kidney injury didn’t show meaningful changes.
It’s the lesson from our bloodwork article, back for an encore: a lab number needs context.
That said, this isn’t a green light for everyone. If you have known kidney disease, abnormal kidney labs or other relevant conditions, research in healthy people doesn’t automatically apply to you. And anyone taking creatine should tell their clinician, so the next kidney labs get read correctly.
Creatine can also increase the water held inside muscle. That’s not body fat. Some people see a quick bump on the scale, especially with a loading phase, and plenty of people have quit creatine after a week because the number went the “wrong” way.
The scale is a liar with a limited vocabulary. It knows “up” and “down,” and it has no idea why. Muscle water isn’t a failure. It’s part of the physiology. But if the scale is your only scorecard, knowing this before you start will save you some drama.
So what does the evidence actually support?
Strip away the neon tubs, the influencer claims and the increasingly breathless longevity marketing, and creatine turns out to be gloriously boring. Boring is often good.
Creatine monohydrate is the form used in most of the research. You’ll also see creatine hydrochloride, buffered creatine, creatine nitrate and products with names that sound like someone upgraded the molecule. That doesn’t mean they can never work. It means none has anything close to the track record of plain monohydrate.
Studies commonly use about 3 to 5 grams a day, though protocols vary. A loading phase, with much more for several days, can fill muscle stores faster, but you’ll get there eventually without it.
And unlike a stimulant, creatine doesn’t need to make you feel anything to be working. No buzz, no kick, no need to time it before a workout. It’s not caffeine. It’s the quiet coworker who does the work without announcing it.
Individual factors still matter: medical history, kidney function, medications, pregnancy. Those call for individualized guidance, not an internet dosing chart.
What’s really changed is the questions. Twenty years ago it was mostly can this help athletes perform better? Now researchers are asking can it help older adults get more out of resistance training? Does it help preserve muscle and function? Does menopause change the picture? Does brain creatine matter for cognition?
We don’t have equally strong answers to all of those. But they aren’t bodybuilding questions anymore. They’re aging questions. That’s why creatine deserves a second look.
Do this week
1. Read the label. If you’re looking at a creatine product, look for creatine monohydrate. That’s the form with the deepest research history.
2. Look at the whole team. Creatine makes more sense alongside resistance training, adequate protein and consistency than as a replacement for any of them.
3. Don’t let the scale gaslight you. A little extra water inside muscle is not the same thing as gaining body fat.
4. Tell your healthcare provider. Especially before bloodwork. Creatine can affect serum creatinine, and your clinician should know you’re taking it when interpreting kidney labs.
5. Put the brain claims in the interesting column. The research is intriguing. It isn’t strong enough yet to turn creatine into a proven cognitive supplement.
Creatine may turn out to be useful in more corners of midlife than its old reputation suggested. Its image makeover is probably justified. It isn’t only for bodybuilders, and the science around it now reaches into energy, muscle, strength, function and possibly the brain.
The shaker bottle can stay in the back of the cabinet, though.
Sources & Further Reading
1. Naddafha S, Antonio J, Kreider RB, Stout JR. Creatine monohydrate for lean mass, strength, and bone density in postmenopausal women: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 2026.
Seven randomized trials involving 608 postmenopausal women, examining lean mass, leg-press strength, bone density and safety.
2. Effects of resistance training combined with creatine supplementation on muscle strength, physical function, and muscle mass in older adults: a systematic review and three-level meta-analysis.
Examines adults 60 and older and compares creatine plus resistance training with resistance training alone.
3. Smith-Ryan AE, Cabre HE, Eckerson JM, Candow DG. Creatine Supplementation in Women’s Health: A Lifespan Perspective. Nutrients, 2021.
Reviews creatine physiology and research across women’s life stages, including menopause.
4. Xu C, Bi S, Zhang W, Luo L. The effects of creatine supplementation on cognitive function in adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Frontiers in Nutrition, 2024.
Reviews 16 randomized trials involving 492 adults, including outcomes for memory, attention, processing speed and executive function.
5. Creatine and Cognition in Aging: A Systematic Review of Evidence in Older Adults. Nutrition Reviews, 2026.
Reviews six studies involving 1,542 adults age 55 and older; findings were promising but the evidence base was limited and uneven in quality.
6. Effect of creatine supplementation on kidney function: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Nephrology, 2025.
Examines changes in serum creatinine and GFR and why creatinine changes don’t necessarily indicate kidney injury.
7. Impact of creatine supplementation on kidney health: a systematic review and meta-analysis. 2026.
Reviews 26 randomized controlled trials and helps distinguish changes in creatinine-based kidney estimates from measured kidney filtration.