Creatine Supplementation Beyond Athletics: Benefits of Different Types of Creatine for Women, Vegans, and Clinical Populations-A Narrative Review. — ME/CFS Atlas
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Creatine Supplementation Beyond Athletics: Benefits of Different Types of Creatine for Women, Vegans, and Clinical Populations-A Narrative Review.
Gutiérrez-Hellín, Jorge, Del Coso, Juan, Franco-Andrés, Arturo et al. · Nutrients · 2024 · DOI
Quick Summary
This review article examines how creatine, a natural substance that helps muscles produce energy, might help people beyond just athletes. The authors suggest creatine supplementation could reduce fatigue in women during certain phases of their menstrual cycle, help vegans and vegetarians compensate for lower creatine from their diet, and potentially support people with chronic fatigue syndrome, muscle loss, and other health conditions by improving how their cells produce energy.
Why It Matters
ME/CFS is explicitly mentioned as a clinical population that may benefit from creatine supplementation through improved energy metabolism—a core dysfunction in ME/CFS pathophysiology. This review provides a broader clinical context for investigating creatine as a potential metabolic intervention, particularly relevant since ME/CFS patients often experience severe fatigue and impaired energy production at the cellular level.
Observed Findings
Creatine monohydrate can increase intramuscular phosphocreatine stores and improve ATP resynthesis during intense muscle contractions
Women typically have lower baseline intramuscular creatine levels than men
Vegans and vegetarians have reduced creatine stores compared to omnivores due to absence of animal products
Creatine may have applications for muscle wasting conditions (sarcopenia, cachexia), neurodegenerative diseases, and recovery from traumatic brain injury
Creatine monohydrate is identified as the preferred form over other creatine variants
Inferred Conclusions
Creatine supplementation may reduce fatigue symptoms in women during specific menstrual cycle phases by addressing naturally lower baseline creatine levels
Creatine supplementation could support cognitive and physical performance in vegans and vegetarians by compensating for dietary creatine deficiency
Creatine may improve energy metabolism and exercise capacity in chronic fatigue syndrome and other clinical populations with impaired cellular energy production
Proper dosing of creatine monohydrate is essential to maximize benefits while minimizing risks from chronic high-dose ingestion
Remaining Questions
What is the clinical efficacy and optimal dosing of creatine supplementation specifically in ME/CFS patient populations?
What This Study Does Not Prove
This narrative review does not prove that creatine supplementation is effective for ME/CFS, as it does not present clinical trial data specific to ME/CFS populations or establish causation. The review synthesizes existing literature without systematic inclusion/exclusion criteria or meta-analysis, so claims about efficacy remain preliminary and require formal clinical testing. Additionally, it does not establish optimal dosing, safety profiles for ME/CFS specifically, or whether benefits observed in other fatigued populations translate to ME/CFS.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
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