Creatine: Dose, Benefits & Safety | Dr. Rhonda Patrick & Dr. Andrew Huberman

I want to ask you about creatine.

>> Yeah.

>> I'm 50. I started taking weight training and running when I was like 16 maybe.

Yeah. And I started taking creatine cuz back then I was skinny. I wanted to put on muscle. I think creatine was sort of

on muscle. I think creatine was sort of first discussed or released back then when I was maybe 18 or something like that. Something like that. 18 19. Um so

that. Something like that. 18 19. Um so

I've been taking a long long time.

>> Yeah.

>> 5 to 10 grams. But the original protocol, which nobody does anymore, but I confess I still do it because I enjoy it, was to take five grams three to five

times per day. There was this loading phase and you would mix it with a little bit of grape juice cuz the idea was you were supposed to spike your insulin and then you get more into the muscles and then you had a maintenance dose which

was five grams per day. Um, and the idea back then was that you need to do a wash out every 20 weeks or so where you just stop taking it, you urinate out a bunch of water, and then you re reload. And I

confess, I've continued to do this minus the grape juice, but occasionally I'll do the grape juice thing. I don't think there's any real merit to the loading phase, maintenance phase idea. But back

then and still now, I feel like creatine has made me feel great, um, stronger.

Um, I did I wasn't aware of the cognitive benefits. They weren't being

cognitive benefits. They weren't being studied back then.

>> They weren't being studied back then.

But what are your thoughts on why creatine suddenly has become this like banner supplements? It's like supplement

banner supplements? It's like supplement of the year. We should start a supplement of the year thing, right? For

a while, I think vitamin D and melatonin came first.

>> Um, and we'll have to figure out what years those were. Then, uh, I feel like creatine got supplement of the year for 2026 is unless something else comes along. So creatine supplement of the

along. So creatine supplement of the year 2026 even though it's been around for a long long time. What do you think happened?

>> Well, so first I want to talk about your loading phase and I like that was really for the studies that were being done, right? Because if you're taking five

right? Because if you're taking five grams a day of creatine, it takes about three to four weeks for your for your muscle creatine stores to become saturated and researchers aren't going

to do a study where they wait that long.

So the loading phase really was just >> So that's what inspired it.

>> Yeah. It was it's in this isolated bubble of in the experimental protocol, but like in the real world, you have three weeks or if you're like an athlete and you hadn't, you know, taken the creatine, you don't have your creatine stores up and you have to quickly

rapidly >> Got it. I was just amazed at how quickly it worked. I I I might be a

it worked. I I I might be a hyperresponder, but I legitimately put on I realized some of it was water or most of it was water, but somewhere

between probably 4 and 8 lbs of of water in the muscle mass. I don't want to call it lean mass because it's, you know, it's water in the muscle. Um, but I I

just was I was like, "Oh my goodness, this is crazy, you know, and um and then people thought maybe it was a steroid, it's not a steroid, maybe it's bad for your kidneys." Turns out it's safe for

your kidneys." Turns out it's safe for your kidneys and most everyone um pretty remarkable molecule.

>> Yeah. I mean, obviously creatine is stored as creatine phosphate in our in our cells. We make to some degree

our cells. We make to some degree between 1 to three grams of creatine a day. Our liver, our brain also makes it.

day. Our liver, our brain also makes it.

It's used to make energy and so your muscles, if you're working out, you're really consuming a lot of energy, right?

It's very energetically demanding. So

having the creatine stores higher in your muscle is beneficial because one, you're going to be able to increase your training volume, right? So it's not like creatine is anabolic in the sense that protein or amino acids are, right? It's

not like directly affecting muscle protein synthesis. It's just helping you

protein synthesis. It's just helping you train more, getting more reps in, you know, whatever it is, training, your training volume's going up. And because

your training volume's going up, then you're obviously putting more stress on your muscles, which is going to lead to increased muscle protein synthesis. And,

you know, obviously there's water probably as well. That said, you know, you asked me, you know, what happened.

So, I got interested in creatine back in 20 when I started basically weight training and obviously I'd heard about it forever. never took it. And um as I

it forever. never took it. And um as I started to get into resistance training, I was like, I better start taking this.

This is I'm like in this in this world now and started doing some research on taking it. So I was taking the five

taking it. So I was taking the five grams a day because that's really what most of the studies show creatine monohydrate. That's the most

monohydrate. That's the most wellressearched form of creatine. And I

was taking five grams a day >> because I was interested in improving my my training volume and and getting the the benefits of it, right? Um, and then

I had Darren Cando on the podcast. Uh,

that was in 2024 I think it was. And,

um, once I had started getting into the creatine research, I the brain stuff started has been coming out over the past, you know, few years >> and that's for me become very interesting. I remember the first time I

interesting. I remember the first time I heard about it years ago, it was like, oh, it's it's helping improve cognitive function in older older, you know, people. Yeah, the phosphor creatine

people. Yeah, the phosphor creatine system seems to be somewhat um biased towards fourbrain structures. You know,

I mean obviously it's in lots of brain areas, but that there might be a heavier reliance on it for >> brain areas that are associated with strategic planning and you know, working memory and Yeah, if you if you were to

sort of just map the the the sort of density of usage of the phosphocreatine system, you'd you'd see a frontal bias for sure.

>> Okay.

>> Yeah. Um well anyways that's kind of where my interest in in you know kind of diving deeper. Anything that's helping

diving deeper. Anything that's helping the brain is interesting to me as I know to you as well.

>> And um and so I >> learned a lot from this podcast I did with Darren Kando. He you know researches creatine and collaborates with a lot of different researchers that are doing you know research on the brain

and muscle and you know lots the bone.

Turns out it's beneficial for the bone as well. But the brain it's interesting.

as well. But the brain it's interesting.

They also make creatine in the brain, but um it's not like so it's kind of like the muscle, right? You're not just going to if you take creatine, you don't work out, you're not going to you're not going to get any increase in lean mass,

right? It's not going to do much of

right? It's not going to do much of anything because you're not putting in the work. I think the same goes with the

the work. I think the same goes with the brain as well, where it's like researchers started to find out that well, you can't just take creatine and it's going to enhance cognitive function. It's in the background of

function. It's in the background of stressing the brain, right? you're

stressing your muscles by a workout.

Same goes for the brain. It's like in these situations of stress, whether that's sleep deprivation, whether it's, you know, a traumatic brain injury. I

mean, I would argue, you know, there's a lot of psychological stress, depression, constantly using your brain like you and I right now in this conversation. We're

we're learning, we're thinking. I mean,

it is stressful on the brain, right? So,

I mean, I am obviously speculating here and taking taking and extrapolating, right? I'm not saying that there's

right? I'm not saying that there's studies showing that, but it does seem as though that that's when creatine seems to shine in the brain. And you

might go, well, your brain makes it, and it's true. Your brain does make, you

it's true. Your brain does make, you know, again, it's I think between 1 to three grams or something. I'm not

exactly sure how much, but it makes its own creatine. And it's kind of resistant

own creatine. And it's kind of resistant to taking up the creatine that you're supplementing with. um particularly

supplementing with. um particularly because for one the muscle is very greedy. So when you're getting to that 5

greedy. So when you're getting to that 5 g range, muscles are really consuming.

If you're working out in in particular, right, your muscles are kind of consuming that because that's they're very greedy for it, right? Uh and and there have now been, I think, a handful of studies showing that when you start to get above that, there was a study out

of Germany showing this and it's a small study. This needs to be replicated like

study. This needs to be replicated like this is all new, you know, emerging data. But that study showed that once

data. But that study showed that once you start to get to, you know, 10 grams, then if you look by MRI, you can start to see that creatine levels are increasing in certain brain regions and

perhaps in the brain regions that you were talking about. And they're going higher than than what you would get from just your brain normally making its own creatine. So the 10 grams of creatine a

creatine. So the 10 grams of creatine a day, which is now what my baseline is, is based off of that. But there's

studies now showing that um if you are in this sort of stressed state, your brain is stressed like for sleep sleep deprivation for example, you're sleepd deprived for 21 hours and your brain's

not working very good after not sleeping for 21 hours, right? I mean that's obviously when I have a when I travel internationally, I'd never really sleep good on a an international flight. And

so I'm like not if you were to come find me after that flight, I'd be like not working very good. Right.

>> Cognitive.

>> You and everybody else, >> right? Yeah. Well, some people can sleep

>> right? Yeah. Well, some people can sleep great on the plane, but I'm not one of those people. So, um, there have now

those people. So, um, there have now been at least one study showing that if you give someone, it's like something like 35 grams per kilogram body weight

of creatine, which comes out to a lot. I

mean, it's like 20 25. It depends on your body weight, right? Like 20 25 grams, perhaps even more. I mean,

>> I mean, I'm 100 kilograms. That's a lot.

>> So, you would be a lot. So, for me, it's more like 20 25 grams, right? But if you give individuals that high dose in that you know sleep-d deprived state that

they're cognitively not only performing normal but they're performing better than their baseline and that of course generated a lot of interest. There have

been studies coming out since then showing that okay if you give older adults with mild cognitive impairment perhaps mild you know early stage Alzheimer's disease again 20 grams you're giving them in the 20 gram range

of creatine it's improving their cognitive function why is that well creatine is important to make energy and when your brain cells are stressed out

right I mean like energy energetic demand goes up and if you have more creatine it's going to make things easier there's also some inflammation that's being generated in that stress state and it seems as though creatine is

also having both an indirect and direct effect on inflammatory processes as well.

>> This is all early early data like like more needs to be done but I think there's enough safety data out there now where it's like well it's really not harmful to take 10 grams a day. I take

10 grams a day every day.

>> You spread it out.

>> I do it in two doses. I mean some people are very sensitive to a 10 gram dose where they might like get a GI irritation effect. It can give some

irritation effect. It can give some people um diarrhea.

>> Diarrhea. Exactly. Yeah. So, the very scientific way of putting it, but I mean that. So, I I do spread it out and I

that. So, I I do spread it out and I take it I don't take it at night. I like

to take mine in the morning and I don't know, Andrew, this might be a placebo. I

feel like I'm constantly in a stressed I'm constantly in a my brain is under a lot of stress, so I'm constantly learning. I'm reading papers. And like I

learning. I'm reading papers. And like I said, I'm I'm extrapolating here. This

isn't sleep deprivation. That's

obviously a much more extreme type of stress, but I have noticed that taking my 10 grams, going from 5 to 10 really does seem to affect my brain functioning

like later in the day where I seem to keep >> keep going better where I I'm not getting as tired.

>> And it could be placebo, which is fine.

Like I said, I am fine with placebo effects as long as what I'm ingesting is not actually bad for you. Placebo is

fine with me.

>> Um, but it is working for me when I travel.

I do when I'm going to the east coast. I

mean, I'm on the West Coast, so when I go anywhere and I have to give a talk early in the morning and I never sleep good in a hotel, I I'm always sleepd deprived. I mean, I I don't know that a

deprived. I mean, I I don't know that a time that I haven't been traveling and I'm going to start traveling with my pillow like you do cuz that's brilliant because that's like one of my that's one of my problems, but there's many problems in hotel rooms that lead to me

not sleeping as good, right? So I take 20 sometimes 25 grams of creatine in those situations and there of it's like you know it's not all the time

>> but it seems to help me again and like I said I'm okay with placebo which is fine but we do have some evidence that it might and I think this is kind of where people are already interested in creatine and so when you start to go

well maybe it's going to be beneficial for the brain if it's going to improve cognitive function that's really something that people are interested in now again I don't know that it's like if you're just some young healthy person that gets all their you're getting

you're sleeping well, you're exercising, everything's great, you know, and I'm mostly sleep well and exercise great.

I'm extrapolating here, but like you know Alzheimer's disease on the extreme end, TBI also on the extreme end. That's

real-time aging, right? And there's some evidence it may be helpful for that as well. There's been some studies with

well. There's been some studies with children looking at creatine supplementation after um a TBI and it seems to help with their their recovery.

Um, I am probably experiencing brain aging. So, I'm just kind of

aging. So, I'm just kind of >> I'm going to interrupt there. I don't

think so. I'm not trying to just be complimentary. You know, I paid close

complimentary. You know, I paid close attention to the data and it seems like in certain fields like math and physics, uh, people tend to, uh, peak with their contributions early. There's a reason

contributions early. There's a reason why the Fields Medal is only given to people, you know, like I think it's 40 or younger. My dad's a physicist, so he

or younger. My dad's a physicist, so he can, uh, check me on this one. But

biologists, at least the ones I know that took good care of themselves, they're known to make great discoveries, be cognitively sharp, intellectually strong, well into their 70s and 80s. I

mean, Torren Weasel, who co- recipe the Nobel Prize for brain plasticity and vision. He's still alive and he he was I

vision. He's still alive and he he was I think he still runs. He's in his late 90s and he paints and he's and he's sharp. So, I just I I I made it a point

sharp. So, I just I I I made it a point to only interrupt here. People can check the the data on the previous portions of the podcast, but and just say I actually think that cognitively

I'm using biologists as an example. It's

possible in aspects of life where you're where you're building a base of data to pull from, which is what biology really is.

It's just an example here, that to get cognitively stronger and stronger with age, >> right?

>> I there's a theory, but I see you as that. And I'm again, I'm not just saying

that. And I'm again, I'm not just saying it to be complimentary, although it is a compliment. I it seems like you're

compliment. I it seems like you're you're picking up steam. You're thinking

about things. You're not forgetting things from way back when. You're

building on the the concepts and knowledge from way back when. So I I find it reassuring that you um biologists in particular seem to have this, you know, up into the right trajectory for cognition.

>> It's interesting. My my late mentor um Dr. Bruce Ames was every bit of that. I

mean, you know, he passed away a little over a year ago when he's 96, but you know, some of his most he claims some of his best work was done, you know, in his late 80s, right? You know,

>> you don't see that in math or physics.

>> Yeah. So, it's interesting and and you know, I don't know exactly the difference. I mean, I don't know how

difference. I mean, I don't know how much >> learning goes into math and physic physics as you're as you're like I I I just don't know. But like with biology

and I mean we're constantly learning new things and and reading new papers and I think even just the novelty of learning new things I mean that's brain derived neurotrophic factor right like that's

>> like you're you're you're increasing synaptic connections and neuroplasticity and you're keeping your brain younger in that way too right so >> uh I I think the learning process is is super important whether it's biology or

whatever you're passionate about right like you learn new languages what like the learning process itself self is something that is so important for for brain aging as well. Um and yeah, so I I

I would agree with you that but brain aging in general, yeah, I'm obviously chronologically aging and there is some degree of aging going on in my brain, but you know, so that's that's I think where the creatine crazes come from is

the interest in and I and I've definitely played a role in some of this, you know, by >> Yeah. by, you know, talking talking

>> Yeah. by, you know, talking talking about my experience and and and being super interested in it because it's like it's felt good for me and I've noticed this experience and this is completely

anecdotated again, but in addition with the small studies and they are small and like I don't know if you've looked at them but they're they're you can >> subject numbers. Yeah, they're small and

you can poke holes in them and you would be completely, you know, okay poking holes because it's they're small, you know, sample sizes, but it is kind of a consistent trend line where we're seeing more studies come out and show the same

thing, same thing. And it's like, okay, you know, to a certain point, um, maybe there's something here. I think that more research is going to come out on it. And I feel great doing it. So, I

it. And I feel great doing it. So, I

mean, and even to the point where if I don't have my 10 grams and it's only five, like I'll notice.

>> Oh, yeah.

>> Yeah. But again, it could be that, you know, placebo noibo thing where, who knows? Who knows? But, you know, let's

knows? Who knows? But, you know, let's just say it is real. You know, for me, >> I got to have I got to have my my 10 grams of creatine for my brain. Um, you

know, who knows? I may in five years be like, I was wrong. We'll see new data come out. But I don't think so. I think

come out. But I don't think so. I think

I think we're going to have I think this is like the next a lot of people doing creatine research. It's it's the new

creatine research. It's it's the new thing. They're really because there's

thing. They're really because there's been a lot of work on exercise physiology and you know >> the safety data are there. So it's not like they have to get a lot of you know human there. The safety data is I mean

human there. The safety data is I mean it's the most wellstied you know one of the most wellstied supplements out there like you said you were taking it >> when you were 18 and it was studied back

then. Yeah. And it's just been studied

then. Yeah. And it's just been studied the, you know, for all the years that that you've been taking it. So I mean, if it was unsafe, like we really would know.