The most-studied supplement in existence; muscle, brain, and mood benefits.
Absurdly well-established. Cheap, safe, works for almost everyone at 3 to 5 g/day. Longevity link: preserved muscle mass is one of the strongest predictors of healthy aging.
Creatine (Creatine Monohydrate) is a foundational / muscle with evidence grade A, meaning it is well-supported by replicated human trials. We track 7 products containing Creatine. Typical doses range from 2500 to 10000 mg per serving. The top-ranked product scores 8.9 out of 10 on our composite scale (dose, evidence, price, testing, transparency). Prices range up to $129.00 per month.
| Product | Brand | Dose | Price/mo | 3rd-party tested | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Creatine Monohydrate | Thorne HealthTech | 5000 mg | $44.00 | Yes | 8.9 |
| Creatine Monohydrate Powder | DoNotAge | 10000 mg | $26.50 | Yes | 8.6 |
| AG1 Pro | AG1 (Athletic Greens) | 5000 mg | $99.00 | Yes | 7.3 |
| Daily Ultimate Essentials | IM8 | 3000 mg | $129.00 | Yes | 6.9 |
| Longevity Mix - Blood Orange | Blueprint | 2500 mg | $49.00 | Yes | 6.7 |
Scores are editorial judgments, not a scientific standard. See how we score.
A compound your body makes and stores in muscles for quick energy bursts. Also concentrated in the brain. You get some from red meat and fish; supplementing tops it up.
Thousands of trials on strength and lean mass. More recent work shows benefits for cognitive function (especially in older adults, vegetarians, and during sleep deprivation) and possibly mood.
Absurdly well-established. Cheap, safe, works for almost everyone at 3 to 5 g/day. Longevity link: preserved muscle mass is one of the strongest predictors of healthy aging.
N-methylguanidinoacetic acid. Stored as phosphocreatine, replenishes ATP in high-demand tissues.
Kreider 2017 review documented efficacy in muscle mass, strength, exercise performance, and cognitive function. Rae 2003 showed cognitive improvements with 5 g/day. No difference between monohydrate and 'fancy' forms in absorption.
~3 hours plasma; muscle stores turn over weekly.
Don't pay extra for 'HCl', 'buffered', or 'Kre-Alkalyn', monohydrate is chemically identical after absorption. Look for Creapure® certification.
When a product exceeds the UL or contains an ingredient with clinically significant interactions, a "Review advised" flag appears on its product page and links here.
The trial dose above is our editorial pick from the published human trials for this ingredient. We choose the dose that the best-available studies used on the endpoint most relevant to longevity. The range shows the lowest and highest doses tested in published trials. The landmark studies below are the papers we read to set it. You can click through and check our work.
When new trials publish, our automated sweeps flag them. If a new study materially changes the dose, we update it through editorial review and record the old dose, new dose, and the triggering study in every affected product's recommendation history. The dose is never changed automatically.
Regulatory events, evidence grade changes, and key research milestones for Creatine, most recent first. Studies link to the paper; regulatory entries name and link the responsible authority.
Consumer reports submitted to an official government adverse-event database. These reports mention this ingredient but do not prove it caused the reaction. Report volume reflects market penetration as much as inherent risk.
Retrieved from the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (CAERS) via the openFDA API. Verified 2026-08-06. Reports are voluntary consumer submissions and mandatory serious-event filings. They establish surveillance, not causality.
Verified 2026-08-06. We update this section as new peer-reviewed trials land.
Creatine's best-established effect is muscle strength and lean mass gain when combined with resistance training. In adults under 50, a 2024 meta-analysis found creatine plus resistance training increased upper-body strength by 4.43 kg and lower-body strength by 11.35 kg versus resistance training alone (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11547435/). In older adults, a 2024 update pooling multiple meta-analyses found creatine increased lean tissue mass by 1.18 kg and upper-body strength (SMD 0.24) versus strength training and placebo (https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/teb-2024-0019/html). A comprehensive 2025 safety analysis of 32 studies and 1,232 older participants found no significant difference in any evaluated side effect between creatine and placebo (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15502783.2025.2534130).
Marketers increasingly promote creatine as a cognitive enhancer and brain-health supplement, but this claim rests on statistically flawed evidence. A widely cited 2024 meta-analysis found creatine improved memory and processing speed, but a 2026 commentary identified a unit-of-analysis error: several trials counted multiple correlated cognitive subtests from the same participants as independent data points, inflating the effective sample size beyond the actual number of people studied (https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2026.1716285/full). When a related 2023 meta-analysis on memory was re-analyzed correctly, the overall memory effect was no longer significant except in older adults, and the European Food Safety Authority's 2024 opinion concluded no conclusions could be drawn from the flawed pooling. Creatine's effect on overall cognitive function and executive function also failed to reach significance in the original meta-analysis itself (SMD 0.34, p=0.22, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11275561/).
3-5 g/day maintenance dose (creatine monohydrate), often preceded by a 20 g/day loading phase for 5-7 days
Creatine monohydrate is among the most studied supplements and has a strong safety record across decades of trials, including in older adults and clinical populations. It causes a small, likely benign rise in serum creatinine that reflects increased creatine turnover rather than kidney damage; multiple systematic reviews confirm no significant change in glomerular filtration rate or other kidney function markers (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12590749/). A 2023 narrative review concluded cumulative RCT evidence does not support kidney harm in healthy people, though it recommends people with pre-existing kidney disease avoid creatine and that those with reduced kidney function be monitored (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10054094/). Common minor side effects include water retention and mild GI discomfort during loading.
The definitive sports-nutrition consensus: creatine monohydrate loading raises muscle creatine/PCr 20-40% and high-intensity performance 10-20%. Safe to 30 g/day for up to 5 years with no liver or kidney harm in healthy people.
Read study →Across 35 RCTs, creatine added 0.68 kg lean body mass overall and 1.10 kg when combined with resistance training. Without exercise the gain was 0.03 kg (null). Males gained 1.46 kg, females 0.29 kg (not significant).
Read study →Across 16 RCTs (492 participants), creatine improved memory (SMD 0.31) and attention, but overall cognitive function and executive function were null. Effects were larger in adults over 60 and with doses above 0.4 g/kg/day for 4+ weeks.
Read study →Across 8 RCTs (225 participants), creatine produced a small but significant improvement in memory (SMD 0.29). The effect was large in adults 66-76 (SMD 0.88) but null in ages 11-31. A published letter alleges double-counting inflated some results.
Read study →N=123 crossover, 5 g/day for 6 weeks: backward digit span only borderline (p=0.064); Raven's matrices and 8 exploratory tests null. Side effects more frequent on creatine (RR 4.25). Vegetarians did not benefit more.
Read study →EFSA Panel rejected the health claim that creatine improves cognitive function: human evidence insufficient to establish cause and effect.
Read study →Across 22 RCTs (721 older adults), creatine plus resistance training added 1.37 kg lean tissue mass and improved chest press and leg press strength versus training alone.
Read study →Review concludes creatine monohydrate, combined with resistance training, benefits aging muscle and bone. No kidney or liver harm reported in older adults.
Read study →In 45 vegetarians, 5 g/day for 6 weeks improved backward digit span and Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices (p<0.0001), indicating creatine supports tasks with high phosphocreatine demand.
Read study →Across 12 studies (440 participants), creatine raised serum creatinine by 0.07 mg/dL (transient) but glomerular filtration rate (GFR) was unchanged. No evidence of kidney harm in healthy users.
Read study →All products in our catalog that contain Creatine, ranked by our overall score. Ranking is editorial, never paid.
Thorne HealthTechStatus as recorded in the catalog from brand materials; not independently verified by NO1GEVITY.
Editorial score, not proof that this product works. Research-dose calculations are not dosing advice.
DoNotAgeStatus as recorded in the catalog from brand materials; not independently verified by NO1GEVITY.
Editorial score, not proof that this product works. Research-dose calculations are not dosing advice.
AG1 (Athletic Greens)Multi-ingredient bundle
Status as recorded in the catalog from brand materials; not independently verified by NO1GEVITY.
Editorial score, not proof that this product works. Research-dose calculations are not dosing advice.
Multi-ingredient bundle
Status as recorded in the catalog from brand materials; not independently verified by NO1GEVITY.
Editorial score, not proof that this product works. Research-dose calculations are not dosing advice.
BlueprintMulti-ingredient bundle
Status as recorded in the catalog from brand materials; not independently verified by NO1GEVITY.
Editorial score, not proof that this product works. Research-dose calculations are not dosing advice.
Elysium HealthMulti-ingredient bundle
Status as recorded in the catalog from brand materials; not independently verified by NO1GEVITY.
Editorial score, not proof that this product works. Research-dose calculations are not dosing advice.
ID FormulasEPA/DHA split not stored
Status as recorded in the catalog from brand materials; not independently verified by NO1GEVITY.
Editorial score, not proof that this product works. Research-dose calculations are not dosing advice.
Molecules in the same class, plus the actives most often formulated alongside Creatine in our catalogue.
See Creatine in context: the mechanism it acts through, the biomarker it moves, the products that dose it, and the trials that tested it.
View Creatine on the Longevity Map →A compound your body makes and stores in muscles for quick energy bursts. Also concentrated in the brain. You get some from red meat and fish; supplementing tops it up.
The trial dose in published human studies is 5000 mg per day, with a range of 3000 to 10000 mg per day. Always consult a qualified clinician before starting any supplement.
No formal UL. FDA-recognized as GRAS (2020); long-term use up to 20-30 g/day has been studied without evidence of kidney damage in healthy individuals, though caution is advised for those with pre-existing kidney disease.
We track 7 products containing Creatine. The top-ranked product scores 8.9 out of 10 on our composite scale, which evaluates dose, evidence, price, third-party testing, and transparency. See the comparison table above. Scores are editorial judgments, not a scientific standard.
Creatine has evidence grade A, meaning it is well-supported by replicated human trials. Grade A means replicated human RCTs with hard endpoints. Grade B means human RCTs with biomarker outcomes. Grade C means mixed or small human trials. See our evidence grading methodology.
Evidence grades are reviewed when new human RCTs are published. Product counts update automatically as new products are added. Dose ranges reflect published trial data, not brand recommendations. Read how we verify.
IM8