Creatine monohydrate

Dietary supplement

What it is

Creatine is a compound your body makes and stores in muscle, where it holds phosphate groups for rapid ATP regeneration during short, hard efforts. Supplementing 3–5 g of the monohydrate form daily raises those phosphocreatine stores, which is the whole mechanism: more high-energy phosphate on hand when a set, sprint, or jump demands it.

It is the most-studied sports supplement on the market, with several hundred human trials behind the strength pairing in the table below. The honest boundaries: gains are measured in extra reps and kilograms of lean mass over weeks of training, not transformation, and the cognitive signal is narrower — clearest under sleep loss and in people who eat little meat.

Evidence by goal

Strength & muscle

Pooled trials show greater upper- and lower-limb strength versus placebo, and older adults doing resistance training added roughly 1.4 kg more lean tissue than training alone.

Lanhers C, 2017 · Lanhers C, 2015 · Kreider RB, 2017 · Chilibeck PD, 2017
Focus

A six-trial review found support for short-term memory and reasoning, clearest under metabolic stress such as sleep loss or vegetarian diets — inconsistent elsewhere.

Avgerinos KI, 2018

Forms compared

Monohydrate. The form behind nearly all of the trial evidence. Inexpensive, stable, and the default unless mixing is a problem.
Micronized monohydrate. The same compound milled finer. It mixes more easily in water; the evidence carries over because the molecule is identical.
Hydrochloride (HCl). More soluble and marketed hard, but far less studied — no shown advantage over monohydrate at matched doses, at a higher price.

Dose and timing

3–5 g once a day, any time of day, with or without food. Consistency matters more than timing: muscle stores saturate over three to four weeks of daily use and stay saturated as long as you keep taking it. A loading phase only speeds up saturation — it is not required.

Evidence-backed range: 3–5 g per day.

Cautions and interactions

Expect 1–2 kg of water weight in the first weeks. It is intracellular water, not fat, but it is real on the scale.
If your kidney function is reduced, or you take medication that affects the kidneys, talk with your clinician before starting — safety data in that setting are thin, and creatine shifts one of the blood markers used to track kidney function.
Taking a full dose at once can upset some stomachs. Splitting the dose or taking it with a meal usually settles it.

From our interaction tables

caution Reduced kidney function. Creatine safety data in healthy kidneys are reassuring, but data with reduced kidney function are thin, and creatine shifts one of the markers used to track it. Involve your clinician first.

Who should skip this

People with reduced kidney function, unless their clinician is involved in the decision.
Athletes cutting to a weight-class limit who cannot absorb 1–2 kg of water weight.
Anyone unwilling to take it daily — intermittent use never saturates muscle stores, so the evidence does not apply.

Questions we actually get

Do I need a loading phase?

No. 3–5 g daily reaches the same muscle saturation as a loading protocol; it just takes three to four weeks instead of one. Loading adds stomach upset risk and nothing else.

Does creatine cause hair loss?

The concern traces to a single small trial that measured a shift in one hormone metabolite, not hair change itself. Follow-up work has not confirmed an effect on hair. We will update this monograph if the evidence changes.

Is monohydrate really the form to buy?

Yes. It carries nearly all of the human evidence and costs the least per effective dose. Newer forms are more soluble but have not shown better outcomes at matched doses.

Will it help me think more clearly?

Sometimes. The cognitive evidence is graded C in our table: a six-trial review found support for short-term memory and reasoning, mostly under sleep loss or in people with low dietary creatine. Well-rested omnivores should expect little.

Do I need to cycle off?

No trial evidence supports cycling. Long-term daily use at 3–5 g has a reassuring safety record in healthy adults.

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Where to buy

Meridian Nutrition — monohydrate, via VitaShop $5.49 · ~$0.09/serving
Alpine Labs — micronized, via ExampleCo $11.99 · ~$0.12/serving · third-party tested

Sources

Last reviewed: pending review