Should you take creatine?

https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2025/07/11/should-you-take-creatine

by Anon84 • 11 months ago

40 65 11 months ago

economist.com

doppelgunner• 11 months ago

Yes, if you are healthy and active, creatine is safe and proven to be effective.

ant_li0n• 11 months ago

it wrecks my guts. so, no.

mhb4• 11 months ago

How much did you try taking?

drdirk• 11 months ago

When I first took creatine from an Amazon dealer I had gut problems. I later bought a "micronized" creatine (similar to https://bulevip.com/es/3418-optimum-nutrition-creatina-powde...) and did not experience any gut problems. Taking the same product now for 3 years. Inbetween I used some other variant from time to time and have the theory that some vendors sell a not clean product that interferes with your gut.

byproxy5• 11 months ago

It does that to me, on occasion. It's usually due to taking too high a dose at once and/or taking it in combination with caffeine. Now, it's not a guarantee that those conditions mean I'll get some gastrointestinal discomfort, but they certainly increase the likelihood.

andsoitis• 11 months ago

And if you're older, creatine supplementation along with regular resistance training and well-balance diet may offset muscle mass loss that happens as we age (age-related sarcopenia).

There are also cognitive benefits:

- memory enhancement

- processing speed and attention

The brain is extremely energy demanding and creatine:

- increases cellular energy reserves (ATP)

- improves neurotransmitter function (e.g. increasing synthesis of neurotransmitters like acetylcholine)

- reduces oxidative stress damage to brain cells

- enhances synaptic efficiency and plasticity crucial for learning

francisofascii• 11 months ago

There is some disagreement how effective it is among the running community, because creatine tends to add a few pounds of water weight.

astura2• 11 months ago

https://archive.is/xC9wy

PcChip2• 11 months ago

It gave me crazy nightmares

I_am_tiberius• 11 months ago

Sure it wasn't Magnesium?

PcChip2• 11 months ago

100% positive

mhb4• 11 months ago

What happens when a Pro Climber takes Creatine for the First Time?

https://youtu.be/0VMQk8Box-U?si=0mD26i5P8xVVsE6x

ren_engineer• 11 months ago

bodybuilders once again 10-20 years ahead of mainstream science

dmos62• 11 months ago

Once again?

exe34• 11 months ago

that's not a bad idea - if you want to trial a potentially dangerous substance on people, put out some rumours that it will help you lose weight, gain muscles, makes your pp longer, etc, and there will never be a shortage of young men willing to give it a go.

ten years later, you have your study.

mikert893• 11 months ago

I'm a strong believer in the "no free lunch principle"

Through a lifetime of experiences with different substances, the body always adjusts to whatever you're taking. Taking a stimulant? the brain will down regulate dopamine receptors. Putting lotion on your face? The skin will produce less oils.

There is always a downside

Rather than excess in one area, we should strive for perfect balance.

byproxy5• 11 months ago

Eating food? You'll eventually die.

karel-3d• 11 months ago

I don't know, that's a strange concept; what about cleaning your teeth? Should I stop using fluoride toothpaste to strengthen my teeth naturally?

edit: on a second thought... it IS making the frogs gay... so.. maybe

snapplebobapple4• 11 months ago

Get the sensodyne with novamin, it works drastically better than fluoride alone

yapyap• 11 months ago

Putting lotion on your face? The skin will produce less oils

dont you want the skin to produce less oils? so you dont get such an oily nose and such for example

jappgar• 11 months ago

Dry cracked skin is a lot worse for your health. The body is producing oils for a reason

herval• 11 months ago

Drinking water? The body will get more and more thirsty!

Taking vitamin supplements because the modern diet doesn’t provide all the nutrients your body needs? The body will start demanding more vitamins!!

mikert893• 11 months ago

clearly you dont have the critical thinking skills to understand my post

audunw• 11 months ago

Is eating plenty of carbs to have good performance during exercise a “free lunch”? It’s more like it’s just optimising what you eat to give the body what it needs during exercise, no?

Creatine is pretty much in that category. It’s just a natural source of energy, essentially. You get it in some food as well. And you don’t get much benefits unless you’re doing strength exercise.

There may be some benefits for the brain as well, especially in older individuals. I doubt that there’s any significant downsides in general.

gruez• 11 months ago

There is always a downside

Are you claiming that the downsides of creatine outweighs the benefits, or only that there's some non-zero amount of "downside"?

maplant3• 11 months ago

This is demonstrably false in a lot of cases. For example, if you eat excess calories your metabolism wont adjust. You’ll just get fat.

rglullis• 11 months ago

No one eats excess calories as any type of supplement or natural enhancement, so your example does not work as a counterpoint to the free lunch principle.

kelipso3• 11 months ago

No, you actually do have a lot of leeway in how much you eat, where you body stays the same weight, because the body adjusts how much energy it uses. Also "excess calories gets you fat" might be a circular argument or truism or whatever, as in excess calories is excess only because it gets you fat.

SubmarineClub• 11 months ago

And yet...

The people I know with radiant, flawless skin all use Asian-style skincare with a meticulous nightly regime of like 10 syrups, oils, and unguents.

Everyone I've ever met who says that people shouldn't use shampoo/lotion/face wash because it makes the body stop producing oils has been NOT as attractive - putting it kindly.

mikert893• 11 months ago

if they stop the skincare routine, it will take years to recover to baseline

dpkirchner• 11 months ago

I share your concern and I'd add one more:

The motivation behind wanting to be 10% stronger will (probably not) go away after starting a creatine regime. So where do you go from there? Testosterone? Steroids? I can't speak for anyone else but when I work out I am usually trying to meet or beat my last session (despite the march of death) so I think I'm at risk of going too far with supplementation.

TheDong• 11 months ago

I once had a headache and thought about taking an aspirin, but you know if I take an aspirin and feel 10% better, I'll want to feel even better so I'll then just have to take meth, there's no other possibility.

I would hope it's the knowledge of testosterone having significant side effects that would stop you from wanting to take it, not the fact that you haven't taken creatine yet.

snapplebobapple4• 11 months ago

You wait two years for the drugs that inhibit the muscle growth inhibitor hormone to get through clinical trials and then do a mounjaro plus the inhibitor inhibitor cocktail to cut fat amd grow muscle with limited work i thought everyone knew this,.....;)

anotherpaul• 11 months ago

I can recommend the science vs Podcast. They did an episode on it.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/creatine-a-hack-to-get...

As per usual: supplements are not that marvelous as the influencers say.

byproxy5• 11 months ago

I recommend this "Stronger by Science" episode on it: https://www.strongerbyscience.com/podcast-episode-117/

Retr0id3• 11 months ago

I took creatine in combination with weight training and got stronger. But I was never sure what proportion to attribute to the creatine vs the training itself. I stopped taking it for a few weeks and got ~10% weaker again. And then, after resuming creatine, I was back to where I was. From that point I was fairly convinced that yes, creatine actually does something.

I can't say I noticed any cognitive changes though.

byproxy5• 11 months ago

A 10% in strength drop after stopping creatine intake seems like quite a bit. Creatine certainly helps out in resistance training (if you're a responder), but generally by way of maaaybe being able to add another rep to a set at a given weight or maaaybe being able to add 2-3% more weight to a given set. This has cumulative effects, of course, but I wouldn't expect such a steep decline.

Unless you are a super-responder, that is!

Retr0id3• 11 months ago

I'd like to emphasise that my ~10% figure is very vibes-based and I don't have hard numbers to back it up (I don't track my progression in great detail - and even if I did, I am sample size 1). My max rep counts for bodyweight exercises definitely went down, and I reduced the weight I was lifting to hit the same rep counts as before.

astura2• 11 months ago

TFA says

One review paper from 2017 concluded that creatine can give athletes a 10-20% performance boost in brief bouts of high-intensity exercise, such as sprinting past a defender or lifting heavy weights.

austinallegro• 11 months ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44554678

olalonde• 11 months ago

I got a little worried after reading some reports on Reddit about creatine and hair loss.

eth0up2• 11 months ago

Note that in the US, there is one company that produces and sources its creatine from the US. This company is CON-CRĒT. The rest is almost exclusively sourced from and produced in China.

One exception, though they'll not reveal their source company, is VitaminShoppe, which has one single version sourced from US. That is Kre-Alkalyn.

NOW, LifeExtension, etc, all of them, along with the majority of their other products are sourced from China, with NOW, in my opinion, the only one conducting rigorous testing to ensure product integrity. The supplement industry in general has become a product of China.

This is up to the individual to glean meaning from, but it remains reality.

For those interested, my inquiries with Life Extension were met with flagrant hostility. Those with NOW resulted in a long, amiable conversion with someone in direct, frequent contact with research scientists. Hostility is more common than friendliness with the dozens of inquiries I've made, but mostly when pressed past the initial superficial aloofness of the template reply.

Edit: with our corporatism paradigm, product origins are increasingly difficult to determine, with many companies now excluding origins from product labels, but most using weasel words, eg "Proudly packed in the US from globally sourced ingredients", which has one meaning which has nothing to do with the US. As one of myriad examples, go into a Treacherous Joe's and try to find origins for their teas. Pay attention and you'll see this behavior is expanding into many products, and actual food products.

bschwarz• 11 months ago

For an alternative consider the German-made Creapure, on which a large chunk of creatine monohydrate research has been performed.

eth0up2• 11 months ago

I did, but found indication they were sourcing from China, which is the general rule in Germany now for most things. I haven't formally pursued it though. Regardless, it does seem of good quality.

My first choice, being in the US, is still either of the two previously mentioned. Creapure seems a good option if needed.

anenefan• 11 months ago

To myself it's darn odd to read these sort of stories ... since it was just over 30 years ago when I used it with the idea it would hopefully strengthen some of my weakened neck muscles via the serious whiplash due to a cycling accident. I only did so after reading the various studies on it and after an article in New Scientist was examining how safe and beneficial it might be to older people in nursing homes. I used a lower dose rate than body builders at the time.

The take away after taking it for a number of months - use quality creatine - unflavoured 100% or of high analysis with minor impurities. (Yes some is cheap and nasty, regardless of what the shop is charging - these days I would recommend purchasing from a pharmacy or equivalent.) Ensure the dose is completely dissolved in the water / fluid before being swallowed and not just a cordial suspension.

After a while I noted benefits apart from helping sore and tired skeletal muscles - gut seemed to work better - a much calmer state of mind / more mellow, way less chewing over whichever idiot said and did - the serious near continuous cold that had plagued me for more than a couple of years, was finally beaten, even after I stopped using it.

on_the_train2• 11 months ago

I know the science. But I know three people who take/to it. All three of them had hair trouble after. Again: I know the papers. I still won't touch it.

snapplebobapple4• 11 months ago

Hair trouble? Like they lost their hair?

on_the_train2• 11 months ago

Hair loss is widely attributed to creatine. With several studies out there saying that there's no connection.

maxglute• 11 months ago

Creatine for responders slightly improves your leverages by increasing water in muscles, which translates to a few % more weight or few more reps. Guestimate, 5% for weight, 10% for reps on higher rep sets. Which is to say it gives a little more headroom for intermediate/advanced lifters who needs to start dialing in program /volumes/recovery/diet in to progress. A few % of intensity or reps per set across training block makes all the difference. Which makes creatine pretty good no shit supplement if you taking lifting remotely seriously as a hobby when it cost $30-60 per year when bought bulk. Ultimately it's deciding if you're willing to shell out $5 a month to look a bit more swole, have slightly more headroom programming/dietting, or if programming and diet on point, lift slightly more than you otherwise would with the extra water balloon leverages. It's like the cheapest pay to win, pay for slight boost in gym ego/self esteem supplement along with a caffeine, which for many is enough.

xnx• 11 months ago

Safe cheap and effective. If you lift, you should take it. A lot of people mentally group creatine with a anabolic steroids. Not even close. Creatine effects are small, but measurable. Anabolic steroids effects are huge and impossible to miss.

Should you take creatine?

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