Creatine has long been used by athletes and fitness fanatics looking to boost their performance. Brad Pitt’s also reportedly a proponent, crediting it for his age-defying physique, while fellow A-lister Mark Wahlberg’s a fan, too.
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It’s proven that it can increase muscle mass and help you lose weight. But an increasingly persuasive body of evidence suggests that creatine can also improve cognitive function and help you age better.
What is creatine?
Creatine’s a natural energy source found in your body that’s involved in a number of functions including muscle contraction. It’s why supplementing with creatine’s been shown to crank up strength by up to 32% over a 12-week period.
That was all the way back in 1999. More recent research showed a smaller, but still significant increase in muscle mass of 7.2% over an eight-week period. It’s also been shown to deliver a greater reduction of body-fat percentage compared to training without.
That’s of interest for Countryfile readers who are seeking more power and, let’s be honest, a more desirable aesthetic. But that’s not all as myriad studies reveal that creatine boosts your mental muscle, too.
Take a 2024 study in the journal Scientific Reports that showed creatine improves cognitive performance, like memory tasks, and processing speed. An earlier reviewof the literature found that creatine supplementation may enhance short-term memory and reasoning.
How does creatine work?
How it achieves this is down to the same mechanism behind boosting muscle strength. Creatine increases stores of phosphocreatine, which helps to make adenosine triphosphate (ATP). ATP is the energy provider, so by proving your brain with more energy reserves, it helps neurons fire more proficiently during mentally demanding tasks, especially when your mind is struggling.
“These effects appear to be stronger when the brain is stressed during period of sleep deprivation, mental fatigue or hypoxia,” says Julia Fabienne Sandkuhler, a PhD student at the University of Bonn, Germany, an expert on creatine and cognition. Early data also suggests that creatine has some ability to enhance recovery following traumatic brain injury in young adults, like concussion.”
That’s not all, says Sandkuhler. “There’s further evidence that brain creatine levels might decrease with age. There’s certainly evidence that this happens with muscle creatine levels, although it’s unclear if this is an effect of ageing or other reasons such as food choices or being less active. Similarly, brain creatine might be affected by ageing directly or mediated by reduced brain activity.”
How much creatine do you need?
So, boosting creatine levels looks likely to pay dividends for your body, mind and to age gracefully. But how much do you need? Well, while a daily creatine dose of 5g is recommended for athletic purposes, that figure rises to around 10g per day for potential cognitive benefits because of the difficulty of crossing the blood-brain barrier. You synthesise around 1 to 2g creatine in your body each day.
Creatine is found in your diet, too, especially in meat and fish, but you still only enjoy around a gramme of creatine per pound of red meat or fish, like salmon. That’s why you’d need to supplement, especially if you’re vegetarian or vegan. That means buying a tub of powder, with creatine monohydrate the most proven.Simply mix with water and doff.
Just note that creatine supplementation can lead to weight gain. That’s because creatine causes retention of water in muscles. That’s not a definite and just see it that if you retain more water, you’ll think and hike that bit better in the heat!
It's recommended to consult with a doctor or healthcare professional before taking supplements, especially anyone with existing kidney or liver issues hoping to use creatine.
