Creatine is usually associated with gyms, strength training, and muscle growth. That reputation is deserved. Creatine helps cells rapidly regenerate ATP, the molecule that supplies energy for demanding work.
But muscle is not the only tissue that uses the creatine–phosphocreatine system.
The brain uses it too. Researchers are also studying creatine in older adults, during sleep deprivation, and in people who consume little dietary creatine, such as vegetarians.
That has led to a broader claim: creatine may be more than a sports supplement.
The evidence supports that idea—but not all of the stronger claims surrounding it.
Beyond Muscle: Creatine and Healthy Aging
One of the clearest examples comes from older adults.
A study pooling 22 randomized trials found that older adults who took creatine while resistance training gained about 1.37 kilograms more measured lean tissue than those who trained with a placebo. They also experienced modest additional improvements in upper- and lower-body strength.¹
This matters because maintaining muscle and strength becomes increasingly important with age.
But the finding has limits. Creatine was tested alongside resistance training, so it does not show that supplementation alone prevents age-related muscle loss. And “lean tissue” is not identical to newly built muscle: creatine increases water inside muscle cells, meaning some of the measured increase may reflect hydration.
Still, the overall conclusion is fairly strong: creatine appears to modestly enhance the adaptations older adults get from resistance training.
The Brain Uses Creatine Too
The brain is metabolically expensive. Neurons need constant energy to maintain electrical signals, release neurotransmitters, and communicate with one another.
Creatine helps buffer those energy demands by storing high-energy phosphate as phosphocreatine, which can rapidly help regenerate ATP.
That makes a cognitive benefit biologically plausible.
But plausibility is not proof.
A 2024 systematic review concluded that creatine supplementation can increase brain creatine under some conditions, but the effect is smaller and less predictable than in skeletal muscle.⁵ The brain can also produce some of its own creatine, and transport across the blood-brain barrier appears relatively restricted.
This may explain why creatine’s effects on cognition are much less consistent than its effects on muscle.
What Happens When the Brain Is Under Stress?
One particularly interesting experiment tested creatine during sleep deprivation.
In a small randomized crossover study, 15 healthy young adults stayed awake overnight and received either placebo or a very high single dose of creatine.²
Researchers measured both cognitive performance and brain-energy metabolites.
Creatine altered markers related to cerebral phosphocreatine and other high-energy phosphates while partially preserving memory and processing speed during sleep deprivation.
That is intriguing because it connects a metabolic change in the brain with cognitive performance in the same experiment.
But it should not be interpreted as evidence that creatine makes well-rested people smarter.
The study involved only 15 participants, severe sleep deprivation, and a dose much larger than a typical 3–5 gram daily supplement.
The safer conclusion is that creatine may help the brain cope with unusually high metabolic demand.
Does Creatine Improve Cognition More Generally?
The broader evidence is much less dramatic.
A 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis study examined 16 randomized trials involving 492 participants.³
Creatine did not significantly improve overall cognition or executive function.
Memory showed the clearest signal, with a small average improvement. Some measures of attention and processing speed also favored creatine, but the evidence was rated low certainty.
The review itself also contained statistical inconsistencies, including unclear accounting of the number of memory outcomes and participants. That makes its positive findings worth noticing, but not treating as definitive.
A larger 2023 randomized study adds further perspective.⁴ Participants took 5 grams of creatine per day for six weeks.
The estimated effects were small:
- working memory: Cohen’s d = 0.17
- abstract reasoning: d = 0.09
Neither primary outcome reached conventional statistical significance, and a wider battery of cognitive tests showed no convincing overall benefit.
The study did not rule out a small effect. But it strongly challenged earlier reports suggesting dramatic cognitive improvements.
Taken together, the evidence does not support creatine as a reliable general-purpose nootropic. A small memory benefit remains possible, and benefits may be easier to detect when the brain is stressed.
What About Vegetarians?
Vegetarians provide another useful test of the creatine hypothesis because most dietary creatine comes from meat and fish.
A systematic review found that vegetarians generally had lower creatine levels in blood and skeletal muscle than omnivores.⁶ They also tended to experience larger increases in muscle creatine after supplementation.
That sounds like vegetarians should benefit more.
But performance studies were inconsistent. Sometimes vegetarians improved more, sometimes both groups improved similarly, and some outcomes favored omnivores.
The brain also behaves differently from muscle. Limited imaging studies found no clear difference in brain creatine between vegetarians and omnivores.
And in the larger 2023 cognition trial, vegetarians did not experience greater cognitive benefits from creatine than omnivores.⁴
So the strongest claim is not that vegetarians “need creatine for their brains.” It is that they commonly have lower muscle creatine stores and respond strongly to supplementation at the biochemical level.
What the Evidence Really Says
Creatine clearly deserves a broader reputation than “bodybuilding supplement.”
Its benefits for strength and training adaptations are well established, including useful effects in older adults who resistance train. Its role in brain energy metabolism is also real.
But the cognitive story is still developing.
Creatine may modestly improve some aspects of memory, and its effects may become more noticeable when energy demand is unusually high, such as during sleep deprivation. What the evidence does not establish is that routine supplementation reliably improves intelligence, attention, or overall cognition in healthy, rested adults.
That leaves creatine in an interesting scientific middle ground:
more than a gym supplement, but not yet the universal brain booster it is sometimes advertised to be.
Strength of Evidence
Muscle and strength with resistance training: Moderate to strong
Brain-energy mechanism: Strong biological plausibility
Cognition under metabolic stress: Promising but preliminary
Memory improvement: Possible, moderate uncertainty
Broad cognitive enhancement: Weak
Greater cognitive benefit in vegetarians: Not established
References
- Chilibeck PD, Kaviani M, Candow DG, Zello GA. Effect of creatine supplementation during resistance training on lean tissue mass and muscular strength in older adults: a meta-analysis. Open Access J Sports Med. 2017;8:213-226. doi:10.2147/OAJSM.S123529.
- Gordji-Nejad A, Matusch A, Kleedörfer S, et al. Single dose creatine improves cognitive performance and induces changes in cerebral high energy phosphates during sleep deprivation. Sci Rep. 2024;14(1):4937. doi:10.1038/s41598-024-54249-9.
- Xu C, Bi S, Zhang W, Luo L. The effects of creatine supplementation on cognitive function in adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Front Nutr. 2024;11:1424972. doi:10.3389/fnut.2024.1424972.
- Sandkühler JF, Kersting X, Faust A, et al. The effects of creatine supplementation on cognitive performance—a randomised controlled study. BMC Med. 2023;21(1):440. doi:10.1186/s12916-023-03146-5.
- McMorris T, Hale BJ, Pine BS, Williams TB. Creatine supplementation research fails to support the theoretical basis for an effect on cognition: evidence from a systematic review. Behav Brain Res. 2024;466:114982. doi:10.1016/j.bbr.2024.114982.
- Kaviani M, Shaw K, Chilibeck PD. Benefits of creatine supplementation for vegetarians compared to omnivorous athletes: a systematic review. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020;17(9):3041. doi:10.3390/ijerph17093041.
