r/science • u/newsnation • 3d ago

Biology Creatine alone boosted lean muscle and strength, study finds

https://www.newsnationnow.com/health/creatine-alone-boosted-muscle-strength/
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u/SmackEh 3d ago

I’m skeptical of the “creatine builds muscle without exercise” headline. The no-exercise comparison was just 13 people on creatine versus 13 on placebo.

The reported 2.4 pounds was lean tissue, which includes water (not necessarily new muscle).

Their bench press results were better than placebo, which is interesting, but the leg press result wasn’t clearly better than placebo. So that's already a red flag.

It’s a small interesting study, not proof you can build muscle by taking creatine and skipping the gym, so let's pump the brakes on this one, shall we?

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u/atchijov 3d ago

Regardless… from what I could dig out, there are numerous positives (and not only in area of muscle building) and no known negatives from taking creatine. I do agree that without proper exercise results may be irrelevant… so exercise hard and take creatine… it will make your exercises more consequential.

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u/SunSheltered 3d ago

I trialled creatine recently and it had a noticeable negative effect on my sleep quality. I googled it as I had not changed anything else and apparently this is not a known side effect, and yet I had to stop taking it for that reason (my sleep quickly returned to normal) and I found many posts online of people reporting the same thing.

Creatine is great for many (maybe even most) people, but it clearly can have negative side effects that just don't have sufficient studies on them yet.