Rhonda Patrick· PhD
Creatine is not just a muscle-building supplement—some evidence suggests it also has benefits for cardiovascular health.
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The evidence is convergent. Multiple independent sources reach the same conclusion, the underlying mechanism is well-characterized, and even the field's most cautious voices treat it as worth doing.
Creatine is not just a muscle-building supplement—some evidence suggests it also has benefits for cardiovascular health.
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I've been recommending this to patients for 6 months now. The big shift is patients actually do it because the explanation is concrete.
Same in nutrition counseling. The before/after framing helps.
Tracking with a CGM on top of this for 3 months. Variability dropped quickly and stayed dropped.
Worth noting the 0.71 SMD in the Kreider meta is in trained athletes. Effect in untrained adults runs closer to 0.3 — still meaningful, but the panel should reflect that gradient.
Good catch. Could the brief surface the training-status interaction inline?
Another study found that supplementing with 20 grams of creatine daily for just 7 days improved artery stiffness—a risk factor for cardiovascular disease—in older adults.
Collectively, these results indicate that creatine could meaningfully improve cardiovascular health markers with a short-term, high dose and with a longer-term, standard dosing regimen.
Mike Orby just put out a study and Eric rosson just recently in older adults uh and that makes sense because you look at a population that might get some benefits and they show some very small favorable effects from creatine supplementation uh either a week long or for up to four weeks I believe it was a loading phase and then down to about five grams a day
5 g of creatine monohydrate daily improves muscle strength and lean mass in healthy adults at standard training loads.
Creatine improves cognitive performance, especially under sleep deprivation and high cognitive load.
Creatine improves cardiovascular health markers and reduces all-cause mortality risk.
Creatine supports bone-mineral density in post-menopausal women when paired with resistance training.
Women need higher creatine doses (8–10 g/day) than men to reach the same intramuscular saturation.