Effects of creatine supplementation with and without exercise and diet intervention on body composition, cognitive function, and markers of health in middle-aged and older adults
Study Details
This new 12-week study examined whether 10 g/day of creatine monohydrate, with or without an exercise and weight-loss intervention, affected…
🩻 body composition
💪 physical performance
🧠 cognition
🩸 health markers
…in 64 adults aged 45–65 years 🔍
Key Findings
Creatine increased lean tissue mass even without structured exercise training ⬇️
📈 The non-exercise creatine group gained ~1.1 kg of lean tissue over 12 weeks
🏋️ Creatine combined with exercise and dieting increased lean tissue by approximately 1.3 kg
(while the exercise-placebo group showed little change)
Exercise plus creatine produced the greatest reduction in body-fat % ⬇️
📉 BF% fell by ~3.2% with exercise plus creatine versus 1.9% with exercise plus placebo
⚡ Creatine improved bench-press and leg-press strength, with the greatest adaptations generally occurring when supplementation was combined with training
🏃 Exercise plus creatine also produced greater improvements in time to exhaustion during maximal exercise testing
🧠 Some cognitive outcomes improved with creatine, particularly measures related to memory and processing speed
📝 Without exercise, creatine improved delayed word recall after six weeks compared with placebo groups
🔤 Creatine groups also showed favourable findings in aspects of word recognition and episodic memory
⚡ Exercise plus creatine showed evidence of faster choice reaction times and improvements in selected memory outcomes
↔️ However, creatine did not consistently improve attention, working memory, Stroop performance or visual tracking
🩸 Creatine without exercise produced favourable changes in some lipid markers and reduced HbA1c
🛡️ Creatine was well tolerated, with no increase in reported side effects and no supplement-related withdrawals
Conclusion
These findings suggest 10 g/day creatine may help middle-aged and older adults preserve or increase lean mass and strength, including during weight loss, while potentially providing additional cognitive benefits ✅
Reference
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15502783.2026.2716273#abstract
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