Creatine for Adults: What the Research Says

What Is Creatine?

Creatine is a naturally occurring compound made by the body from amino acids. We also get small amounts from foods such as meat and seafood. Most of the creatine in your body is stored in skeletal muscle, where it helps regenerate ATP, the immediate source of energy your muscles use to produce force.

Supplementing with creatine increases those muscle stores. That can help you maintain force and repeat hard efforts during strength training and other short, intense exercise. The effect from one workout may be small. But over months and years of training, being able to repeatedly do a little more quality work can matter.

The National Institutes of Health describes creatine as one of the most thoroughly studied supplements for exercise performance and notes consistent evidence for improving strength, power, and repeated high-intensity muscular work.

NIH Office of Dietary Supplements: Creatine and Exercise Performance

Creatine Makes Strength Training More Effective

This is the strongest reason to consider taking it.

Creatine does not make you strong by itself. Strength training makes you strong. But creatine can make good strength training more productive. A 2026 systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials involving adults age 60 and older found that adding creatine to resistance training produced significantly greater improvements in muscular strength than resistance training alone.

The effect was not enormous, but it was meaningful and consistent. That is exactly where a supplement should fit: not as a replacement for training, but as something that can improve the return on good training.

2026 systematic review and meta-analysis: Creatine, Resistance Training and Strength in Older Adults

Creatine Can Help Improve Lean Muscle

The evidence for lean tissue is also strong, particularly when creatine is combined with resistance training. A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis of older adults found that creatine plus resistance training produced greater improvements in lean tissue mass and lower-body strength than resistance training alone.

An earlier meta-analysis involving 721 older adults found that people taking creatine while resistance training gained about 1.4 kilograms more lean tissue, on average, than those performing the same training with a placebo. They also made greater gains in upper- and lower-body strength.

This becomes especially relevant as we age.

Loss of muscle and strength happens gradually across adulthood. Resistance training is one of our most important tools for slowing that decline, and creatine appears to enhance some of the adaptations we are already trying to create.

2025 meta-analysis: Creatine, Resistance Training, Strength and Lean Tissue in Older Adults

Meta-analysis of 721 older adults: Creatine During Resistance Training

Creatine May Help Memory Too

This is one of the more interesting developments in creatine research.

The brain has substantial energy demands, and creatine plays a role in cellular energy availability there just as it does in muscle. A 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis found that creatine supplementation produced a significant improvement in memory. The researchers rated the certainty of evidence for memory as moderate.

The same review found improvements in some measures of attention and processing speed, although the evidence there was less certain.

So I would not call creatine a general-purpose “brain booster.” But there is now reasonably good evidence that it can improve memory.

2024 systematic review and meta-analysis: Creatine and Cognitive Function

Is Creatine Safe?

For healthy adults using normal doses, the safety record is strong.

One of the most persistent concerns involves kidney function. Creatine can cause a small increase in serum creatinine, a blood marker commonly used to estimate kidney function. Because creatinine is a breakdown product related to creatine metabolism, that increase does not necessarily mean the kidneys have been harmed.

A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis found a small increase in serum creatinine without a significant reduction in glomerular filtration rate, a more meaningful measure of kidney function.

A separate 2026 meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials reached essentially the same conclusion.

If you take creatine and have routine blood work, tell your physician so the results can be interpreted in context.

If you already have kidney disease or another significant medical condition, discuss supplementation with the clinician managing your care.

2025 systematic review and meta-analysis: Creatine and Kidney Function

2026 randomized-trial meta-analysis: Creatine and Kidney Function

What About Dehydration and Muscle Cramps?

Despite a long-standing reputation, the evidence does not show that recommended doses of creatine cause dehydration or muscle cramping. That does not mean hydration is unimportant.

Creatine changes water distribution in muscle, and anyone who exercises should still pay attention to fluid intake, especially when training hard, sweating heavily, exercising outdoors, or spending time at altitude.

So the practical advice is simple: Creatine does not appear to dehydrate you, but you should still be intentional about staying well hydrated.

Evidence review: Common Questions and Misconceptions About Creatine Supplementation

Which Kind of Creatine Should You Take?

Creatine monohydrate.

It is the form used in the overwhelming majority of research, and more expensive alternatives have not consistently been shown to work better. It is inexpensive, widely available, and well studied. In this case, the boring option is probably the best option.

How Much Should You Take?

For most adults:

• 5 grams of creatine monohydrate per day.
• You do not need to cycle it.
• You do not need to take it only on training days.
• And you do not need a loading phase.

For most adults, 5 grams of creatine monohydrate per day is a simple, well-studied dose for supporting strength training and muscle. Higher daily doses, often 10 grams or more, are being studied for potential cognitive benefits because increasing brain creatine may require more supplementation than increasing muscle creatine. At this point, however, research has not established that a higher dose produces greater cognitive benefits than 5 grams per day.

A loading protocol can increase muscle creatine stores more quickly, but simply taking 3 to 5 grams every day will get you there too.

For most people, the simplest approach is best: take a small dose every day and stop thinking about it. Timing matters far less than consistency.

Easy Ways to Take It

Creatine monohydrate is nearly tasteless and easy to work into a normal routine. Mix 5 grams into water, a protein shake, smoothie, coffee, yogurt, oatmeal, or another food or drink you already consume every day. Timing is not especially important, so the best approach is usually to attach it to an existing habit and take it consistently. Keep normal hydration habits in mind, especially when training hard or sweating heavily.

Will You Gain Weight?

Possibly.

Creatine can cause a small increase in body weight, especially when you first start taking it. Much of that early increase comes from additional water stored within muscle. That is not the same thing as gaining body fat. For someone who strength trains, a small increase in muscle water and lean tissue is not generally a negative effect.

So Who Should Consider Creatine?

For a healthy adult who strength trains regularly, creatine monohydrate is one of the few supplements that deserves serious consideration.

The strongest evidence supports:

• greater strength gains from resistance training
• improved repeated high-intensity exercise performance
• support for increasing or preserving lean tissue
• added benefit for older adults who strength train
• improvement in memory
• a strong safety record at recommended doses

A Special Note for Vegans

Creatine may be especially useful for people who follow a vegan diet because creatine is found naturally in animal foods, and vegans tend to have lower muscle creatine stores. Supplementation can raise those stores and may improve some measures of physical performance. Vitamin B12 deserves similar attention for a different reason: plant foods do not naturally provide reliable B12 unless they are fortified, so vegans need to get it from fortified foods or a supplement. (Creatine review for vegans; NIH Vitamin B12 Fact Sheet)

Creatine will not rescue a poor exercise program.

It will not replace progressive strength training, adequate protein, good sleep, or consistency. But if those fundamentals are already in place, creatine may help you get more from the work you are already doing. For adults interested in staying strong, active, and independent for as long as possible, that is a pretty good argument in its favor.

Practical Summary

If you decide to use creatine:

• choose creatine monohydrate
• take 5 grams every day
• a loading phase is optional
• stay well hydrated
• expect that scale weight may increase slightly
• tell your physician you take creatine when having kidney-related blood tests
• if you have kidney disease or another significant medical condition, discuss supplementation with your healthcare provider

And most importantly: Keep strength training.

Creatine works best as a supplement to the training that is already doing most of the heavy lifting.