Reviewed
Reviewed on 2026-09-19 against the evidence rules: every claim carries a grade, every claim and every safety flag carries a source, and every citation was re-resolved against the record it names. The read was delegated by the owner on 2026-09-18 and signed by the Lead on his behalf (D-295) — it is a delegated review, not the owner's own reading of the page. Every claim on it carries an evidence grade and a named weakest link. It is educational and is not medical advice.
Last reviewed
Two meta-analyses, one signal, and a subgroup line that decides whether the signal is about you. In the pooled trials the memory effect sits in adults aged 66 to 76 and is flat in adults aged 11 to 31.
Safety
Adverse effects
Water retention and gastrointestinal upset are the commonly reported effects, the latter mostly at high loading doses. Neither is a reason to load: the trials in the meta-analyses used ordinary daily doses.
Who should not
Anyone with kidney disease, or taking a medicine that affects the kidneys, should raise creatine with a clinician before starting. This site is written for adults.
No data in your group
The cognitive trials skew old or clinical. In the pooled analyses, the group with the least evidence of an effect is healthy adults in their twenties and thirties — the group most likely to be reading this.
What the evidence says, and how strong it is
A grade belongs to one claim, in one population, for one preparation — never to a compound, a food or a page. Open a grade to see the four links between the evidence and the thing you would actually do, and which of them is doing the least work.
Pooling eight randomised trials, memory scores rose in participants aged 66 to 76 by a standardised mean difference of 0.88 (95% confidence interval 0.22 to 1.55), with substantial variation between the trials.
Evidence grade B: May supportIn whom: Healthy older adults, 66–76
What form: Creatine monohydrate, 2.2–20 g/day, 5 days to 24 weeks
Measured as: Memory task scores
Why this grade
- Weakest link
- Study quality — design, size, blinding or replication. Eight small trials with 83 per cent heterogeneity, and the 66-to-76 band was found inside the analysis rather than planned before it.
- What was actually studied
- Healthy individuals, 11–76, across 8 pooled randomised trials; Adults 20.8–76.4, healthy and with specific diseases, across 16 randomised trials (n = 492)
- Detail worth knowing
- Overall memory SMD 0.29 (95% CI 0.04–0.53, I² = 66%). Older adults 66–76: SMD 0.88 (0.22–1.55). Younger 11–31: SMD 0.03 (−0.14 to 0.20), not significant. Dose 2.2–20 g/day, 5 days to 24 weeks.
- Memory SMD 0.31 (0.18–0.44), GRADE moderate certainty. Processing-speed time and attention time moved with low certainty. Overall cognitive function and executive function: no significant improvement.
In the same pooled dataset, participants aged 11 to 31 showed a standardised mean difference of 0.03 (95% confidence interval −0.14 to 0.20) — no detectable difference from placebo, with no variation between trials to explain it away.
Evidence grade B: May supportIn whom: Healthy people aged 11–31
What form: Creatine monohydrate, 2.2–20 g/day, 5 days to 24 weeks
Measured as: Memory task scores
Evidence does not support
Why this grade
- Weakest link
- Population — the people studied are not the people reading. The band pooled runs from 11 to 31, which puts schoolchildren and thirty-year-olds inside one estimate; the flat result is trustworthy and the group it describes is broad.
- What was actually studied
- Healthy individuals, 11–76, across 8 pooled randomised trials
- Detail worth knowing
- Overall memory SMD 0.29 (95% CI 0.04–0.53, I² = 66%). Older adults 66–76: SMD 0.88 (0.22–1.55). Younger 11–31: SMD 0.03 (−0.14 to 0.20), not significant. Dose 2.2–20 g/day, 5 days to 24 weeks.
A separate meta-analysis of 16 trials and 492 participants found memory improved by a standardised mean difference of 0.31 with moderate certainty, and found no significant improvement in overall cognitive function or in executive function.
Evidence grade C: Early research suggestsIn whom: Adults 20.8–76.4, healthy and with specific diseases
What form: Creatine monohydrate, short (under 4 weeks) and long (4 weeks and over)
Measured as: Memory, with overall cognition and executive function unchanged
Why this grade
- Weakest link
- Population — the people studied are not the people reading. The 16 trials pool healthy adults with people who have specific diseases across ages 20.8 to 76.4, so the memory effect belongs to no particular group.
- What was actually studied
- Adults 20.8–76.4, healthy and with specific diseases, across 16 randomised trials (n = 492)
- Detail worth knowing
- Memory SMD 0.31 (0.18–0.44), GRADE moderate certainty. Processing-speed time and attention time moved with low certainty. Overall cognitive function and executive function: no significant improvement.
The International Society of Sports Nutrition's position stand reviewed the safety literature and found no evidence of harm from creatine monohydrate at recommended doses in healthy people.
Evidence grade C: Early research suggestsIn whom: Healthy adults without kidney disease
What form: Creatine monohydrate at recommended doses
Measured as: Absence of demonstrated harm at recommended doses
Why this grade
- Weakest link
- Population — the people studied are not the people reading. The safety literature behind this position stand is overwhelmingly in athletes, which is not the base it is usually quoted about.
- What was actually studied
- Healthy people taking creatine monohydrate at recommended doses
Everything above, and where it comes from
- Prokopidis K, Giannos P, Triantafyllidis KK, Kechagias KS, Forbes SC, Candow DG (2023). Effects of creatine supplementation on memory in healthy individuals: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Nutrition Reviews 81(4):416–427
- Xu C, Bi S, Zhang W, Luo L (2024). The effects of creatine supplementation on cognitive function in adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Frontiers in Nutrition 11:1424972
- Kreider RB, Kalman DS, Antonio J, et al. (2017). International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: safety and efficacy of creatine supplementation in exercise, sport, and medicine. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 14:18
The one thing worth doing
Creatine is in meat and fish; if you eat neither, your baseline pool is lower and you are the group in which the trials most often find something. Notice that before you notice the supplement.
Regulatory note — this note has not yet been reviewed by a lawyer. In the United States, supplements are sold under DSHEA: a structure/function claim is not reviewed by the FDA before it appears, and the label must carry the words "This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease." In the EU and the UK, only health claims on the authorised register may be used in advertising, and a food or supplement advertisement may not say a product prevents, treats or cures a disease. Whether an evidence page that carried a purchase link would itself count as advertising under those rules is an open question that counsel, not this page, will answer; there are no purchase links here. Nothing on this page is medical advice.