Nutrition · Explainer
Creatine: The Most Boring, Best-Evidenced Supplement You Can Buy
Hundreds of human trials, five grams a day, about fifteen cents. The only real decision is not to buy the expensive version.
By Julien Malet, · Updated 2026-09-09
Creatine monohydrate has more human research behind it than almost anything else sold in a tub, and it is one of the cheapest things on the shelf. That combination is rare enough to be worth stating plainly.
What it does
Your muscles store creatine as phosphocreatine, which regenerates ATP — the molecule your cells spend for energy — during short, intense effort. More stored creatine means more capacity to sustain that effort.
The practical effect is a few extra reps at a given weight. Compounded across months of training, that produces measurably more strength and lean mass. Creatine does not build muscle; it lets you train slightly harder, and the training builds the muscle.
Diet supplies roughly 1–2 g a day from meat and fish, which leaves most people's muscle stores partially unsaturated. Supplementing fills them.
The dose
3–5 g of creatine monohydrate daily. That is the whole protocol.
Loading is optional. Twenty grams a day split into four doses for five to seven days saturates stores faster — about a week instead of three or four. It also causes more GI upset. Same endpoint either way.
Timing does not matter. Take it whenever you will remember. Consistency is the only variable.
Do not cycle it. There is no evidence supporting cycling and no receptor to desensitise.
Buy monohydrate, ignore the rest
Creatine monohydrate is the form used in nearly all the research. Every alternative is more expensive and none has been shown to be better:
- HCl — more soluble, no better outcomes
- Buffered ("Kre-Alkalyn") — tested head-to-head against monohydrate and found no advantage
- Ethyl ester — performs worse in the comparisons that exist
- Liquid creatine — degrades in solution
Creapure is a German-made monohydrate with tight purity standards. A reasonable thing to pay slightly more for; not a different molecule.
Unflavoured monohydrate powder runs roughly $15–25 for 500 g — 100 to 165 servings. Call it fifteen cents a day.
The myths
It does not damage your kidneys. Examined repeatedly in healthy people and it does not hold up. It does raise serum creatinine, a marker used to estimate kidney function — so a routine blood test can look abnormal when nothing is wrong. Tell whoever orders your bloodwork that you take creatine. If you have existing kidney disease, that is a genuine conversation with a nephrologist.
It is not a steroid. It is an amino acid derivative found in food.
It does not cause hair loss. This traces to a single small 2009 rugby-player study showing a DHT increase, never replicated, with no hair-loss outcome measured.
The water weight is intracellular. Creatine draws water into muscle cells. Expect one to two kilos in the first weeks. It is inside the muscle, not under your skin.
Two things beyond the gym
Cognition. Creatine is used by the brain as well as muscle, and there is a real if less mature literature on cognitive effects — most consistent under sleep deprivation or in vegetarians, whose baseline stores are lower.
Age. Creatine plus resistance training in older adults has reasonable evidence for lean mass and strength, which makes it one of the more sensible supplements past 40. It also does not depend on appetite, which matters during a GLP-1 course.
Who might skip it
Roughly 20–30% of people are non-responders — usually those whose stores are already near-saturated from a high-meat diet. Nothing to do about it, and at fifteen cents a day the test is cheap.
Some people get GI discomfort at 5 g. Split into two doses or take it with food.
Apply the usual label check: you want one ingredient, in grams, with no blend.