Give the benefits of Creatine supplementation, should almost everyone use it?

You are taking creatine, right? 💊

At this point, I think the better question may actually be:

Why are you not taking creatine?

A brand new book, Handbook of Creatine and Creatinine In Vivo Kinetics by Mehdi Boroujerdi, Pharm.D., Ph.D., provides an excellent consolidation of what we currently know about the benefits of creatine supplementation, including the certainties, the probables and remaining unknowns.

And in clinical practice?

Most clients eventually ask me the same thing:

“Should I be taking creatine?”

For healthy adults, we very often arrive at:

Yes.

🏋️ Benefits of Creatine Supplementation

The evidence base for creatine is now enormous.

And some of the benefits are highly consistent.

📈 Increased Strength, Power & Training Capacity

This is the clearest and strongest evidence.

Creatine supplementation increases phosphocreatine stores within muscle, helping regenerate ATP, your rapid energy system for explosive exercise.

In practical terms?

That may mean:

• 1 or 2 extra reps

• Slightly higher training intensity

• Better sprint performance

• Greater power output

• Improved recovery between efforts

  
  

And over time?

Those small improvements compound into greater adaptation.

This is one of the reasons creatine is so consistently associated with improved strength and muscle development.

🧠 Potential Brain & Cognitive Benefits

This is where things get particularly interesting.

Emerging evidence suggests creatine may support:

• Memory

• Processing speed

• Mood

• Cognitive resilience under stress or sleep deprivation

The brain is energetically demanding.

And creatine appears to influence brain energy metabolism as well as muscle energy metabolism.

🩺 Possible Therapeutic Roles

There is also growing interest in creatine within areas including:

• Parkinson’s disease

• Depression

• Menopause related muscle and bone loss

• Age related sarcopenia

The evidence here is still evolving.

But it is increasingly difficult to think of creatine as “just a gym supplement.”

✅ Strong Safety Profile

For healthy individuals, appropriately sourced and sensibly dosed creatine has one of the strongest safety profiles in the supplement world.

That matters.

Because many supplements simply do not have this level of evidence behind them.

❌ When Creatine May Not Be Appropriate

There are situations where creatine may not be suitable.

Specific Medical Conditions

Certain medical conditions can make creatine inappropriate, including:

• Chronic kidney disease (CKD)

• Bipolar disorder

• Other specialist clinical situations

This is why personalisation matters.

⚖️ Weight Gain Aversion

Creatine commonly increases body weight slightly through increased muscle water content and phosphocreatine storage.

For some people, this is undesirable.

I see this more commonly in women, or within sports where power-to-weight ratio matters.

🏃 Sports Where Extra Weight Can Be Unhelpful

For activities such as:

• Climbing

• Marathon running

• Ultra-endurance events

…the extra weight may outweigh the performance benefits.

🛋️ Non-Leveraging

If someone is not engaging in exercise that develops or maintains strength, power, or muscle mass, the benefits become more speculative rather than highly predictable.

💊 Supplement Aversion

Some people simply do not enjoy taking supplements.

And that is completely reasonable.

Not everyone finds the benefits compelling enough to justify adding another daily habit.

💡 Bottom Line

Despite first discovering creatine around 30 years ago in my late teens……I still love discussing it with clients.

Because the conversation keeps evolving!

What started as a performance supplement is increasingly becoming part of broader conversations around:

• Healthy ageing

• Muscle preservation

• Cognitive performance

• Brain health

• Longevity

And honestly?

For many healthy adults who exercise regularly, creatine probably offers more upside than downside.

Do you take creatine?

And if not, why not?

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My clients enjoy clear, specific, actionable guidance on how to use diet, supplementation, lifestyle and functional testing to reach their personal health goals and resolve their health issues.

Why not book a free health kickstart call to find out how we would enable better health for you? 📲