Creatine has more than 500 peer-refereed publications behind it, by Antonio and colleagues’ 2021 count, and its effect is consistent and modest. Lanhers and colleagues pooled 60 trials and measured a global lower-limb strength effect size of 0.235; a 2025 meta-analysis of 69 trials found clear effects on the squat and bench press and no significant effect on handgrip or leg press. Both come from creatine taken alongside training.
The table is built to be checked: every row carries its design, population, dose, what it measured, the size of what it found, and the limit or funding line that belongs beside it.
What does the research say about creatine?
That creatine taken with resistance training produces small, repeatable improvements in short, high-intensity efforts, with pooled effect sizes between about 0.2 and 0.5. The International Society of Sports Nutrition’s 2017 position stand concludes that up to 30 g a day for up to five years is safe and well tolerated in healthy people. On EFSA’s 2011 opinion, the EU authorises a claim on performance in repeated short bursts of high-intensity exercise at 3 g a day. EFSA turned down a cognition claim in 2024.
| Source | Design | Population and n | Dose and duration | What was measured | Finding, with its size | Limit or funding |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kreider et al., ISSN position stand, 2017 | Expert position stand | Trials in athletes, older adults and patient groups | About 0.3 g/kg a day (5 g four times daily) for 5–7 days, or 3 g a day for 28 days; 3–5 g a day to maintain | Muscle creatine, high-intensity performance, training adaptations, safety | Up to 30 g a day for up to five years: safe and well tolerated in healthy people | A society’s position, not a pooled estimate; the society takes sponsorship from creatine companies (2021 disclosure in its journal) |
| Lanhers et al., Sports Medicine, 2015 | Systematic review and meta-analyses of randomised trials | 60 trials; 646 on creatine, 651 on placebo; ages 16–72; 223 women | Varied loading, total doses and durations | Lower-limb strength in efforts lasting under 3 minutes | Global lower-limb effect size 0.235; squat 0.336; leg press 0.297; jump tests 0.307 at the end of supplementation and 0.455 on change from baseline | A quarter of the trials were funded by creatine manufacturers; reporting quality scored 22–65% |
| Kazeminasab et al., Nutrients, 2025 | Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised trials | 69 trials, 1,937 adults | Creatine with resistance training against placebo; doses and durations varied | Bench or chest press, squat, leg press, handgrip, vertical jump, sprint power | Bench press +1.43 kg, squat +5.64 kg, vertical jump +1.48 cm, peak sprint power +47.81 W; handgrip and leg press not significant | The effect sat in younger adults and men; the older-adult and female subgroups did not reach significance |
| Devries and Phillips, Med Sci Sports Exerc, 2014 | Meta-analysis of randomised, placebo-controlled trials | 357 older adults, mean age about 64 | Creatine with resistance training for more than 6 weeks (mean 12.6) | One-repetition maximums, torque, a chair-stand test | Larger increases in chest press (P = 0.004), leg press (P = 0.02) and 30-second chair stands (P = 0.03); no difference in leg extension, biceps curl or isometric and isokinetic torque | A small number of studies, which the authors flag; training was always present |
| Chilibeck et al., Open Access J Sports Med, 2017 | Meta-analysis of randomised trials | 22 trials, 721 adults, mean ages 57–70 | Creatine with resistance training 2–3 days a week for 7–52 weeks | Upper- and lower-body strength; body composition | Chest press SMD 0.35 (P = 0.0002); leg press SMD 0.24 (P = 0.01); lean tissue mass, its body-composition outcome, 1.37 kg above placebo | Mechanisms not extensively evaluated, the authors note; training was always present |
| Antonio et al., J Int Soc Sports Nutr, 2021 | Evidence review of 12 common questions | The literature across ages and sexes | 3–5 g a day, or 0.1 g/kg, as the recommended range | Water retention, kidney function, fat mass, loading, other forms, older adults, women | No support for kidney harm at recommended doses in healthy people, for dehydration, or for any form beating monohydrate; loading optional | Several authors sit on a creatine manufacturer’s scientific advisory board (the paper’s own disclosure) |
| EFSA nutrition panel, 2011; EU Regulation 432/2012 | Scientific opinion on a proposed claim | Adults performing high-intensity exercise | 3 g a day | Physical performance in successive bursts of short-term, high-intensity exercise | The claim was authorised in the EU in 2012 on the basis of this opinion | That wording, that dose, that population, and nothing wider |
| EFSA nutrition panel, 2024 | Scientific opinion on a proposed claim | 23 human intervention studies considered | 2.2–20 g a day; days to weeks | Cognitive function | Cause and effect not established; a working-memory effect appeared only at 20 g a day for 5–7 days, in two studies | The application came from a creatine manufacturer |
| Naeini et al., BMC Nephrology, 2025 | Systematic review and meta-analysis | 21 studies; 12 pooled for creatinine (177 on creatine, 263 controls) | Varied; follow-up from under a week to over 12 weeks | Serum creatinine; glomerular filtration rate | A modest rise in serum creatinine (significant within a week and beyond 12 weeks, not between); no significant change in filtration rate | Twelve small studies pooled; creatinine is creatine’s own breakdown product |
An effect size, or SMD, is a difference measured in standard deviations, and 0.2 is conventionally small; the kilogram figures in the 2025 row are pooled weighted mean differences. Every strength row pairs creatine with a training programme, which is the condition the findings describe.
What is established
Three things, each resting on more than one line of evidence.
- Creatine with training beats training alone on short, hard efforts. The pooled effects are small — 0.235 for the global lower-limb outcome across Lanhers and colleagues’ 60 trials, SMDs of 0.24 to 0.35 across Chilibeck and colleagues’ 22 — and they are consistent: in the 2015 analysis the squat and leg-press estimates showed no heterogeneity at all, an I-squared of 0%.
- The dose is settled. The ISSN position stand gives two routes to full muscle stores: about 0.3 g/kg a day, as 5 g four times daily, for 5–7 days and then 3–5 g a day; or 3 g a day for 28 days, which raises stores more gradually. Antonio and colleagues found loading optional. The full map is on how much creatine per day.
- Monohydrate is the reference form. The position stand calls it the most commonly studied form, and Antonio and colleagues concluded that other forms are not superior to it, so the doses and effect sizes here belong to monohydrate and do not automatically transfer. The form-by-form case is in micronized vs monohydrate and creatine HCl vs monohydrate.
How big is creatine’s effect on strength?
Small and consistent. Lanhers and colleagues’ 2015 meta-analysis of 60 trials measured a global lower-limb strength effect size of 0.235 at the end of supplementation, conventionally a small effect. Kazeminasab and colleagues’ 2025 meta-analysis of 69 trials put the difference at 5.64 kg on the squat and 1.43 kg on the bench press, with no significant difference on handgrip or leg press. Both figures come from creatine taken with resistance training, not instead of it.
The spread between tests is information, not noise: Lanhers and colleagues found larger effects in laboratory measurements than in field tasks such as jumping, and in 2025 the bench press and squat moved while handgrip and leg press did not reach significance. A small average across very different tests is not a promise about any single lift.
Where the evidence is mixed
Older trainees. Two meta-analyses of older adults found larger strength increases with creatine plus training than with training alone: Devries and Phillips (357 adults, mean age about 64) on the chest press, leg press and a chair-stand test; Chilibeck and colleagues (22 trials, mean ages 57–70) on the chest press and leg press. Devries and Phillips found no difference on the leg extension, biceps curl or torque, and the 2025 analysis of 69 trials found its clearest effects in younger adults, with its older-adult subgroup not reaching significance. None of that supports a claim about age in either direction, and this page makes none.
Women. Women were a small minority in Lanhers and colleagues’ 60 trials — 223 of about 1,300 participants, by the paper’s own counts — and the 2025 analysis found no significant effect in its female subgroup. Antonio and colleagues read the wider literature as supporting benefits for women; the pooled strength data behind that are thinner than for men.
The same lift, different answers. The leg press did not reach significance in the 2025 pooling, yet it did in the 2015 analysis (0.297) and in both older-adult analyses. That is the ordinary state of a literature built from many small studies.
Does creatine improve memory or brain function?
Not on evidence a regulator would accept. In 2024 EFSA’s nutrition panel considered 23 human intervention studies and concluded that “a cause-and-effect relationship has not been established” between creatine and improved cognitive function. A working-memory effect appeared in two studies at 20 g a day for 5–7 days, four times a usual 5 g daily dose, and not at 2.2–14 g a day or at 5 g a day for six weeks after loading. The application came from a creatine manufacturer.
How strong is the safety evidence on creatine?
Strong for healthy adults at ordinary doses, with one known quirk. The ISSN’s 2017 position stand concludes that up to 30 g a day for up to five years is safe and well tolerated in healthy people. A 2025 meta-analysis pooling 12 studies found a modest rise in serum creatinine and no significant change in kidney filtration rate. Creatinine is creatine’s breakdown product, and the authors read the rise as turnover rather than impairment.
The limits travel with that. The safety literature is mostly in healthy people; anyone with a kidney condition, on prescription medicine or under 18 should ask a doctor first, and a doctor reading a creatinine figure should be told about the creatine. The ISSN takes sponsorship from creatine companies, and several authors of the 2021 review in its journal advise a creatine manufacturer; that does not make the findings wrong, but the funder belongs beside them. Water, bloating, the kidneys and the other side-effect questions are taken one at a time on creatine side effects.
Which creatine studies are the strongest?
The meta-analyses, because each pools randomised trials rather than resting on one: Lanhers and colleagues (60 trials, 2015) and Kazeminasab and colleagues (69 trials, 1,937 adults, 2025) for strength and power, and Devries and Phillips (2014) and Chilibeck and colleagues (2017) for older trainees. The ISSN’s 2017 position stand is a society’s position rather than a pooled analysis, and EFSA’s 2011 and 2024 opinions are regulatory verdicts rather than studies.
What does EFSA say about creatine?
Its opinions are narrow. On EFSA’s 2011 opinion, the European Union authorised a claim in 2012 that creatine increases physical performance in successive bursts of short-term, high-intensity exercise, conditional on 3 g a day and restricted to foods aimed at adults performing high-intensity exercise. In 2024 EFSA’s nutrition panel concluded that a cause-and-effect relationship between creatine and improved cognitive function has not been established. Every wording the EU accepts is tied to a dose and a population.
What the research does not show
- A larger effect at any age. No trial here shows creatine doing more after 45 than before it, and the largest pooling on this page found its clearest effects in younger adults. A decade printed on a label is a marketing decision, not a finding.
- An effect without training. Every strength figure on this page comes from creatine taken alongside a resistance programme, and Antonio and colleagues tie the benefit in older adults mainly to resistance training.
- A cognitive benefit at ordinary doses. EFSA’s 2024 verdict is the most formal reading available, and it found the case not made.
- A better form. No alternative form has been shown to beat monohydrate (Antonio et al., 2021).
- Every population and timescale. The longest safety data in the position stand run five years; women were 223 of Lanhers and colleagues’ roughly 1,300 pooled participants; a quarter of those trials were funded by creatine manufacturers, and their reporting quality ran from 22% to 65%.
Where Base Work sits
Base Work is creatine monohydrate, one ingredient, unflavoured, 300 g, 5 g a day, 60 servings — monohydrate because it is the form the position stand calls the most commonly studied. The raw material was measured by an independent laboratory (Ethos Analytics, for Vox Nutrition; raw-material lot CM20251225A; the powder made by Accobio USA Inc.) at 99.87% creatine monohydrate against a greater-than-99.5% specification. That certificate covers raw material, not a finished TARE tub, and what it does and does not cover is on Testing & Certification. Base Work does not ship to New York addresses.
The long-form pages: what creatine monohydrate does, creatine for men over 45, when to take creatine and how to read supplement research. The same evidence map for the other two ingredients: collagen research summary and magnesium research summary. Every form compared by weight: supplement forms compared.
Sources
- Kreider RB, Kalman DS, Antonio J, et al. J Int Soc Sports Nutr 2017;14:18. PubMed 28615996
- Lanhers C, Pereira B, Naughton G, et al. Sports Med 2015;45(9):1285-1294. PubMed 25946994
- Kazeminasab F, Kerchi AB, Sharafifard F, et al. Nutrients 2025;17(17):2748. PubMed 40944139
- Devries MC, Phillips SM. Med Sci Sports Exerc 2014;46(6):1194-1203. PubMed 24576864
- Chilibeck PD, Kaviani M, Candow DG, Zello GA. Open Access J Sports Med 2017;8:213-226. PubMed 29138605
- Antonio J, Candow DG, Forbes SC, et al. J Int Soc Sports Nutr 2021;18(1):13. PubMed 33557850
- EFSA Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies. EFSA Journal 2011;9(7):2303. doi:10.2903/j.efsa.2011.2303
- EFSA Panel on Nutrition, Novel Foods and Food Allergens. EFSA Journal 2024;22(11):e9100. PubMed 39564533
- Naeini EK, Eskandari M, Mortazavi M, et al. BMC Nephrol 2025;26(1):622. PubMed 41199218