The Creatine Protocol

Dossier 027 grades creatine monohydrate. This protocol is how to run it — and where the evidence stops. With resistance training, creatine adds strength and lean mass in older adults (Devries 2014; Liu 2025). For cognition in healthy adults, the EU food-safety authority found no established effect (EFSA 2024).

One compound, one daily dose. Loading is optional: 3 g a day raised muscle creatine about 20% in 28 days, the same rise 20 g a day reached in 6 (Hultman 1996).

Older adults who train: more strength and lean mass (Devries 2014; Liu 2025). Older women who train: more upper-body strength, no gain in muscle mass in the pooled trials (Santos 2021). Vegetarians start with lower muscle creatine and take up more (Burke 2003).

Cognition: in healthy adults, the EU food-safety authority found no established effect — including in the sleep-loss and older-women studies it reviewed (EFSA 2024); the largest creatine–cognition trial up to 2023 found a small, borderline effect and no extra benefit in vegetarians (Sandkühler 2023, 123 analysed). The signals are narrower — one night without sleep, with a single dose of about 0.35 g/kg, in 15 young adults (Gordji-Nejad 2024); memory in adults aged 66–76, in a re-analysis built on few small trials (Prokopidis 2023). Neither is a reason to take creatine for the brain.

Side effects: 17% on creatine vs 4% on placebo in the largest creatine–cognition trial up to 2023 — most often digestive (6% vs 2%), then weight gain (3% vs 0%); no one left the study because of a side effect (Sandkühler 2023).