# Creatine

> Creatine is a nitrogenous organic acid synthesised in the body from glycine, arginine and methionine, and obtained from meat and fish. As phosphocreatine it is the cell's fastest energy buffer: it…

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Last updated: 2026-10-20
Publisher: Library of Ashurbanipal (Van Kush Family Research Institute), https://wiki.soapbox.community

**Creatine** is a nitrogenous organic acid synthesised in the body from glycine, arginine and methionine, and obtained from meat and fish. As **phosphocreatine** it is the cell's fastest energy buffer: it regenerates ATP from ADP over the first seconds of high-intensity effort, before glycolysis has spun up.

It is, by a wide margin, **the best-evidenced supplement in common use** — a rare case where the sports-nutrition consensus and the clinical literature agree.

## Forms

Creatine is sold in many chemical forms which **differ in solubility and marketing more than in demonstrated benefit**:

- **Monohydrate** — the form used in essentially all the research. Cheapest, and the correct default.
- **HCl**, **ethyl ester**, **buffered (Kre-Alkalyn)**, **nitrate**, **magnesium chelate** — better solubility claims, no superiority demonstrated on outcomes. Ethyl ester performs **worse** in the comparisons that exist.

**Creapure** is a manufacturing purity designation, not a different molecule.

## Loading, or not

Two approaches reach the same muscle saturation:

- **Loading** — ~20 g/day split into four doses for 5–7 days, then 3–5 g/day. Saturates in about a week.
- **No loading** — 3–5 g/day from the start. Saturates in about four weeks.

The endpoint is identical. Loading exists to get there faster and is the phase where GI upset is reported.

## Beyond muscle

The neurological literature is the more interesting half and is less well known:

- **Cognition** — effects appear largest in people whose creatine status is lowest: vegetarians, the sleep-deprived, and under acute stress. In well-fed omnivores at rest the effect is small or absent.
- **Depression** — adjunctive creatine has positive trials, particularly in women.
- Studied in Parkinson's, Huntington's and traumatic brain injury, with mostly disappointing results in the large trials.
- **Creatine transporter deficiency** is a genuine inborn error of metabolism in which supplementation is treatment.

## Cautions

- **Kidneys.** Creatine raises serum **creatinine** — a laboratory marker of kidney function — without impairing the kidney. This causes real and repeated confusion in clinic. Tell whoever orders the test. In healthy people creatine has not been shown to harm renal function; in existing renal disease it should be discussed rather than assumed safe.
- **Water retention** — intracellular, a few pounds, expected and not fat.
- **GI upset** at loading doses or with poorly dissolved powder; splitting the dose fixes it.
- **Non-responders** exist — people whose muscle creatine is already near saturation from diet gain nothing.

See also: The Amplification Framework · Stack Substances · Vitamin K2