The UK creatine guideIndependent · Evidence-based · 2026

Creatine, explained properly.

Creatine is the most studied sports supplement in the world and one of the most misunderstood. This is the plain-English UK guide to what it does, which tub to buy, how much to take, and where the evidence stops.

Start with the short story Work out my dose
3–5 gEveryday dose
1,000+Human studies
~5pPer day
01 What creatine is

The short story, the long story, and the fine print.

Read as much or as little as you need. The short story is enough to start. The rest is here when you want it.

A The short story

Creatine helps your muscles recycle energy faster. Take three to five grams of creatine monohydrate every day and, within a few weeks, you will lift a little more, sprint a little harder and recover a little quicker. It is cheap, it is safe, and it works.

B The long story

Every hard effort your body makes runs on ATP, a molecule that releases energy when one of its phosphate groups is snapped off. Think of it as a Christmas cracker: satisfying to pull, but you only get one pull. Your muscles hold enough crackers for two or three seconds of all-out work. Phosphocreatine is the glue that sticks them back together, fast, so you can keep pulling for ten seconds or more before slower, messier fuel systems take over.

Your body makes about a gram of creatine a day and a meat-eating diet supplies roughly another gram, but muscles can hold 20–30% more than that. Supplementing fills the tank. A fuller tank means an extra rep or two at the end of a hard set, and over months those extra reps add up to measurably more strength and lean mass. The effect is about effort, not load: a 500 metre row, a rugby scramble or a hill sprint draws on the same system as a heavy squat.

Beyond muscle, creatine is being studied for the brain, for bone, for recovery from illness and injury, and for healthy ageing. Some of that research is solid, much of it is early. We keep the two apart on our benefits page and our brain guide.

C The fine print

Creatine monohydrate is the form used in almost every study. It is a white, faintly bitter powder that dissolves best in warm liquid. In the UK it is regulated as a food supplement, and the authorised health claim states that a daily intake of 3 g of creatine increases physical performance in successive bursts of short-term, high-intensity exercise. That is one of a handful of performance claims permitted on any supplement label, which tells you how solid the evidence behind it is.

02 Forms of creatine

Six forms on the shelf. One worth buying.

The industry produces a new "advanced" creatine every few years. None has beaten the original in a head-to-head trial, and several cost three times as much per gram delivered.

FormEvidenceTypical UK price / kgNotesVerdict
MonohydrateMicronised or standard£15–30The reference form. Absorbed almost completely.Buy this
HydrochlorideCreatine HCl£50–90More soluble. No performance advantage shown.Fine, dearer
BufferedpH-adjusted monohydrate£40–70Marketed as stomach-friendly. Trials show parity at best.No advantage
Ethyl ester£40–60Degrades in the gut. Raised muscle creatine less than monohydrate.Worse
Nitrate£45–80Little independent data.Unproven
Gummies, liquids, blends£60–150 eq.Creatine degrades in water and under heat. Independent testing has found many gummies badly under-dosed.Caution

Prices are typical UK retail ranges in 2026 and vary by brand and pack size. Evidence bars reflect the volume and quality of published human trials.

Read the monohydrate guide
03 What the research says

Benefits that are proven, probable, and still being tested.

We grade every claim. "Proven" means multiple controlled trials and pooled analyses agree. "Probable" means the studies point one way but are small. "Promising" means early data worth watching, not yet worth relying on.

01

Strength and power

Pooled trials show creatine plus training adds roughly 5–15% to strength and repeated high-intensity output versus training alone.

Proven 02

Lean mass

Around 1–2 kg more lean tissue over 8–12 weeks of training, in men and women of all ages, with a small reduction in fat mass in some analyses.

Proven 03

Vegetarians and vegans

Lower starting stores mean a bigger response, in muscle and in cognition. Supplemental creatine is synthetic and vegan.

Proven 04

Recovery and rehab

Lower markers of muscle damage after hard sessions, better retention of strength during lay-offs, and faster regain of training volume afterwards.

Probable 05

Healthy ageing

Preserves muscle and everyday function in older adults who train. Bone data suggests a slowing of hip density loss at higher doses, again only with training.

Probable 06

Brain and mood

Sharper memory and reasoning when sleep-deprived or stressed, and encouraging adjunct data in depression. Higher doses than muscle needs.

Promising
04 How to take it

Four steps. No mystery.

Creatine is one of the simplest supplements to use well. Get these four things right and everything else is detail.

1

Buy plain monohydrate

Unflavoured creatine monohydrate powder with nothing else in it. A 500 g or 1 kg tub is the best value. Weigh your scoop once: a heaped tablespoon can be 15 g, not 5.

2

Skip the loading phase

Three to five grams a day fills muscle stores in three to four weeks. Loading gets there in one, at the cost of more stomach upset and a sudden jump on the scales.

3

Attach it to a habit

Stir it into something you already drink daily: coffee, a shake, a squash bottle at the gym. Warm liquid dissolves it best. Time of day does not matter.

4

Every day, indefinitely

Rest days included. There is no need to cycle off. If a full dose in one go bothers your stomach, split it across the day; retention may even be slightly better.

Full dosing guide
05 The dosing question

Different tissues, different doses.

The 3–5 g figure everyone quotes is the muscle dose. Muscle takes most of a small dose for itself, so research on bone and brain has used considerably more. Here is how the literature currently lines up.

Muscle
3–5g / day

Saturates muscle stores in three to four weeks. The dose behind the authorised UK health claim.

Proven
Over 50s
5–8g / day

Some researchers suggest a little more after 50, when lower-body stores tend to be more depleted. Pair with strength work.

Probable
Bone
8–12g / day

The range used in a two-year trial that slowed hip bone loss in postmenopausal women. No effect without resistance training.

Probable
Brain
10–20g / day

Where imaging shows brain creatine actually rising. Benefits so far are clearest in stressed or sleep-deprived brains.

Promising

Nobody yet knows the single dose that covers every tissue. Doses above 5 g cost more and are more likely to upset the stomach, and anything above about 10 g a day should be split across the day. Very high doses belong to short, specific situations, not everyday use. Talk to a GP or dietitian before going beyond the muscle dose.

06 Instrument

Creatine dose calculator.

Enter your body weight, pick a goal and a protocol. You get a daily dose from the evidence-backed range, an optional loading schedule, and how long a standard 500 g tub will last.

Around 0.05 g per kilo a day for muscle. Most adults land between three and five grams, which is a level teaspoon.

Loading uses about 0.3 g per kilo a day for five to seven days. Bone research used roughly 0.14 g per kilo. Brain research has used 10–20 g a day, and single doses of 0.3–0.35 g per kilo in sleep-deprivation studies. None of these higher figures is everyday advice.

  • Level teaspoon≈ 5 g
  • Heaped teaspoon≈ 8 g
  • Heaped tablespoon≈ 15 g
  • Tub scoopVaries. Weigh it once.
Protocol
5g / day

Loading phase
Time to saturation
Weekly amount
500 g tub lasts

For healthy adults. Not a substitute for advice from a GP, pharmacist or dietitian.

07 Buying in the UK

The seven-point buyer's checklist.

Creatine is a commodity. The chemistry in a £15 tub and a £60 tub is usually identical, so pay for purity and testing, never for marketing.

  1. One ingredient: creatine monohydrateNo proprietary blends, no added sugar, no "matrix". Micronised is fine and mixes better.
  2. Third-party testedInformed Sport if you compete; at minimum a published certificate of analysis. Independent testing of gummies has found products with a fraction of the labelled dose.
  3. Purity of 99.9% or higherGood raw material is low in manufacturing by-products such as dicyandiamide and creatinine. The certificate should show the numbers.
  4. Compare price per 100 gExpect £1.50–£3.00 per 100 g for monohydrate in the UK. Anything much higher is paying for a brand or a format.
  5. A sensible pack sizeAt 5 g a day, 500 g lasts 100 days and 1 kg lasts 200. Dry powder keeps for years.
  6. A traceable UK or EU businessFood supplements sold in the UK must comply with UK food law. A business address on the label is the minimum.
  7. Origin matters less than testingMost of the world's creatine is made in a handful of large plants, and German-made material sells at a premium. A tested standard monohydrate performs the same.
08 Safety

What actually happens, and what doesn't.

Creatine has one reliable side effect, one avoidable one, and a long list of myths. The full picture, including who should check with a doctor first, is in the safety guide.

REAL

Water in muscle

Creatine is osmotic: water follows it into the muscle fibre. Expect under a kilogram on average, more with loading, settling within a few weeks. It is not fat and not bloating.

AVOIDABLE

Stomach upset

Almost always a big dose on an empty stomach. Keep single doses to 5 g or under, take it with food, and skip loading. Mis-measured scoops are a common cause.

MYTH

Kidneys, hair, cramps

Creatine raises a blood marker without harming kidneys, has never been linked to hair loss, and if anything protects against cramps in the heat. Tell your GP you take it before blood tests.

Read the safety guide
09 Questions

What people in the UK actually ask.

Yes. Daily creatine monohydrate at 3–5 g has been studied for over 30 years, including trials of continuous use lasting up to five years, with no evidence of harm to kidney, liver or heart function in healthy adults. A recent analysis of more than 25,000 reported cases found doses above 10 g a day taken for years to be safe. If you have existing kidney disease, speak to your GP first.

Creatine monohydrate. It is the form used in the overwhelming majority of research, it is the cheapest, and no other form has been shown to outperform it. Look for a plain, unflavoured monohydrate powder with a single ingredient on the label. Micronised monohydrate mixes more easily but is otherwise identical.

No. Loading exists largely because researchers running short trials could not wait a month for muscles to fill. A steady 3–5 g a day reaches the same saturation in three to four weeks, and it is the high loading doses that cause most of the stomach upset and sudden water gain people complain about. Load only if you have a competition within a fortnight.

Some. Pooled data put the average gain at under a kilogram over six weeks, most of it lean tissue. Rapid loading can add more, and a minority of people respond strongly. The water goes inside muscle cells rather than under the skin, so it reads as fuller muscles, not bloating, and it settles once stores are saturated.

Whenever you will remember it. Recent research on timing has all but settled the question: morning, evening or around training makes no meaningful difference, and evening doses do not disturb sleep. Attach it to something you already drink every day.

Possibly, but the evidence is early. Muscle is greedy and absorbs most of a small dose, so brain creatine only rises measurably at higher intakes, around 10 g a day in imaging studies. Benefits appear mainly when the brain is stressed, such as after poor sleep. Our brain guide sets out what the studies used.

Yes. Creatine is not banned by WADA or UK Anti-Doping. If you compete in tested sport, choose a product certified by Informed Sport, which batch-tests for banned contaminants.

The concern rests on one small 2009 study in rugby players that found a rise in DHT after a week of heavy loading. It did not measure hair, the DHT stayed within the normal range, and a later trial at 5 g a day found no thinning or follicle loss. No study has ever linked creatine to hair loss.

Yes, and they often benefit most. Dietary creatine comes almost entirely from meat and fish, so muscle stores in vegetarians and vegans start around a fifth to a third lower and rise further with supplementation. Supplemental creatine monohydrate is made synthetically and contains no animal products.

Not in any practical sense. Pure creatine monohydrate contains no calories and does not raise insulin. Many people take it with water or electrolytes first thing before eating, though a sensitive stomach may prefer it with food.

Start with the monohydrate guide.

Everything you need to pick a tub, take it properly and know what to expect in the first month.

Read the guide