You've Been Lied To About Creatine

0:00 If I were to tell you the creatine you're taking every day isn't doing what you think it is, would you know why? Maybe you've heard that creatine can boost brain power, focus, and even memory. >> creatine >> creatine >> creatine >> creatine >> creatine could help improve depression. But I'm losing my mind. >> sleep deprived someone and give them about 25 g of creatine, it completely negates the cognitive deficits. >> Well, I've done a deep dive on the research and realized that a lot of the claims made are exaggerated and some are unsupported, and some of the dosing advice online could even cause problems for some people. And by the end of this video, you'll know exactly what creatine can and can't do for your brain, who is most likely to benefit, and whether it's worth taking at all. I'm going to be looking at three different claims being made about creatine and four groups of people who might benefit from taking it.

0:43 First of all, one you might have heard about on social media. >> And they found that creatine kept brain energy levels more stable, but you can't just do like a 5-g dose. You got to use like a 20- to 25-g dose. >> Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? Whether you're a parent of a tiny gremlin or you've had a heavy night or you work unsociable hours, there are times when a morning coffee just doesn't cut it. So, what if you get out just a couple of scoops of creatine to your coffee to negate all the negative effects of that poor sleep? Well, that's exactly what some researchers did in Germany a couple of years ago.

1:12 Participants agreed to stay awake nearly all night to ensure they would be sleep deprived. Early on in the evening, they took either a placebo or 0.35 g per kilogram of creatine. That's around 26 g for a 75-kilo person. Way higher than the 5-g per day dose that's been studied in most other studies. Then every few hours, they had MRI scans that could measure levels of creatine in their brain and also did some cognitive tests that included remembering word pairs or numbers, reaction times, or even logic puzzles. Participants who taken the creatine scored 10.3% better than the placebo participant on word memory tests and were between 16 and 29% faster on a number of different tasks compared to placebo. Pretty impressive, right? But let's take a closer look at this study.

1:52 Do you want to guess how many people took part in this study? 100, 500, maybe 1,000? Just 15 participants, all in their 20s, took part in this study. They were healthy, had to agree to stop caffeine and alcohol consumption for 48 hours, and follow strict sleep and wake times while the study was in progress. Hardly sounds like real life. And one of the researchers even admitted that doses of creatine they used in this study were so high it could cause stomach problems for some people, and shouldn't be taken by anyone with kidney problems. Don't get me wrong, I think this is a really interesting study, and I'm not saying the conclusion that creatine counteracted some of the effects of sleep deprivation is completely wrong.

2:27 However, a sample size of 15 is barely enough for a decent WhatsApp group, certainly not enough to rewire brain chemistry. We really need to see this finding replicated with a much bigger sample to be able to say that creatine helps people recover from a poor night's sleep. So, what about the claim that creatine can strengthen and boost memory? Intuitively, it makes sense. Creatine works by replenishing the cell's main source of energy, ATP. The brain uses about 20% of the total energy used by the body, despite only being 2% of the mass. So, does supplementing creatine improve memory or other aspects of brain function? Well, one meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials concluded that it does. The overall result of eight different studies was that creatine supplementation improved memory over placebo, but particularly for older adults. However, after this study was published, a group of other researchers realized something was wrong with its findings, which is why half the internet got this claim wrong. Let's imagine 100 people take part in a creatine study.

3:20 The researchers give them three different tests: word recall, number recall, and spatial recall. Creatine helps them do better on the word recall and the number recall, but has no effect on the spatial recall. A meta-analysis should treat those 100 people as one sample. But, what seems to have happened in these two studies, however, was that each memory test was treated as an independent study, so the sample appeared to be 300 people instead of 100. Now, this is not a statistics lesson, but by artificially inflating the sample size, we become less confident about the findings. Crucially, the authors of the paper agree that they had made a mistake, and when they redid the analysis, they found that creatine had no effect on memory apart from older adults. And if we look at cognition in general, the picture is mixed. A 2024 meta-analysis and systematic review found creatine supplementation does have a positive effect on attention and does improve processing speed time, but doesn't improve overall cognitive function. Although again, the statistical findings of this meta-analysis have also been called into question. So, the best we can say that creatine might benefit some aspects of cognition, but the evidence we have right now isn't particularly strong.

4:20 Now, let's take a look at four different groups of people who might benefit from creatine. First, non-meat eaters. Given creatine's found almost exclusively in animal products, vegetarians and vegans tend to have much lower amounts of it than omnivores. A study published in 2003 seemed to indicate vegetarians do benefit cognitively from creatine supplementation, but this study only looked at vegetarians. When a more recent replication of the study compared plant-based diets with meat eaters, there was no significant difference in intelligence or working memory. What about the elderly? So, it's true that muscle creatine levels tend to decline with age, but this doesn't seem to affect the brain. With some studies showing total brain creatine levels actually increase with age. Again, the results of studies comparing creatine supplementation and placebo in older adults are mixed with some studies showing an improvement in some cognitive functions and others not. Now, this next use case for creatine is the one I'm personally getting excited about. So far, we've talked about healthy people using creatine to improve themselves.

5:12 But if creatine can genuinely help people with Alzheimer's disease, this changes the conversation completely. Long before the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease become apparent in impaired energy metabolism can be measured in the brains of people at risk. At the same time, we know the system whereby creatine regenerate cellular energy sources starts to break down. >> >> So, it makes sense that supplementing creatine might be useful for treating symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, but that had never been tested in humans until 2025. That year, a study was published in which people with likely Alzheimer's disease were given 20 g of creatine per day for 8 weeks.

5:41 >> >> Participants had their cognitive abilities tested at the start and end of the study and saw impressive improvements in several different areas of cognition. However, this again was a very small sample size, n equals 20, and didn't compare the creatine group with the placebo group. This means we can't be sure the participants didn't get better from simply doing tasks more than once. Now, this study was never intended to prove that creatine can improve Alzheimer's disease symptoms, but you know, it's just simply too small scale for that. However, it is a clear signal that there's something worth investigating further here. Finally, can creatine help people who are depressed?

6:14 As an adjunct to existing treatment, creatine seems to have some interesting effects. A randomized control trial from 2012 showed that adding creatine to a standard drug treatment for depression resulted in reductions in depression scores compared to placebo. While a similar study found creatine enhanced the effect of cognitive behavioral therapy for improving depressive symptoms. However, these findings are preliminary and other studies suggest creatine has no effect on depression in certain populations like teenage girls and individuals suffering from bipolar disorder. Overall, when it comes to cognition, memory, and these other supposed effects, the science isn't quite there yet. I think some of the studies I mentioned in this video are absolutely fascinating and I'm excited to see where creatine research goes in the next few years. But for now, we're going to have to be honest and say the evidence for its benefits on cognitive improvement just is not strong enough at the minute. As leading creatine researcher Darren Candow asked in the title of a recent paper, are we putting the horse before the cart when it comes to creatine and the brain? Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-creatine in any way.

7:07 Taking 5 g of creatine every day is completely safe and likely to benefit almost everyone watching this video but providing more energy to muscles. I take it myself and it's absolutely an S-tier supplement. And if you'd like to know what other supplements I ranked as S-tier as well as the stuff that belongs in the bin, you can watch this video here to find out.