🔬 WHAT THEY DID
Study design: Narrative review, meaning the authors read and summarized many earlier animal and human studies about creatine in females.
Who was studied: Information came from studies on girls and women of different ages, including young adult women, female athletes, and post-menopausal women; some animal and lab studies were also included.
How long: The review included short studies that lasted a few days and long studies that lasted up to about 2 years, depending on the original research.
What they measured: The studies they reviewed looked at strength, sports performance, muscle and bone health, daily function (like getting out of a chair), mood and depression, thinking and memory, and body composition (muscle and fat).
Funding: No research funding was reported. The article publishing fee was covered by Alzchem, a commercial creatine manufacturer (which could arguably introduce a potential conflict of interest or perceived bias).
📊 WHAT THEY FOUND
Women usually eat less creatine than men and have lower total creatine stores in the body, which may mean they can benefit from taking creatine.
Hormone changes across life (like the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, and menopause) can change how the body makes and uses creatine, so creatine might matter more at certain times in a woman’s life.
Main finding 1: Younger women
In many studies, women who took creatine and did resistance training got stronger than women who trained without creatine; for example, some gained about 20-25% more strength in leg exercises over about 10 weeks.
These women often gained more lean muscle (for example, about 2.6 kg vs 1.6 kg in one study) without large changes in total body weight or body fat compared with the placebo group.
Female athletes in some sports studies improved in things like one-rep max lifts and short, hard efforts (like sprints) when using creatine, although not every single study showed a clear extra benefit.
Main finding 2: Post-menopausal women
In post-menopausal women, short-term high doses of creatine (about 0.3 g per kg per day for a week) helped increase lean mass a little and improved strength and simple function tests like standing up from a chair or walking.
When older women took small daily doses of creatine without exercise for many months, results were mixed and often did not show big changes in muscle, bone, or function compared with placebo.
But when creatine was combined with regular resistance training at higher daily doses (around 5 g per day or based on body weight) over several months, women often gained more strength, more muscle, and sometimes showed less bone loss in the hip more than women who trained without creatine.
Main finding 3: Mood and brain
People who eat less creatine seem more likely to have depression, and women also tend to have lower brain creatine levels in some areas important for mood.
In girls and women with major depression who were already taking antidepressants, adding 4-5 g per day of creatine for 8 weeks led to much lower depression scores, and some felt better as early as 2 weeks.
Creatine has been shown to help thinking and reduce mental tiredness in adults under stress or poor energy conditions, and it may be especially useful when the brain needs extra energy, although female-specific data are still limited.
Main finding 4: Pregnancy
Animal studies suggest creatine in pregnancy might help protect the baby’s brain during low-oxygen events, and low creatine levels in humans are linked with worse pregnancy outcomes, but there are no strong human trials of creatine supplements in pregnant women yet.
Main finding 5: Safety
Across many studies, creatine taken in normal sports doses was generally safe for women, with no consistent serious problems seen in kidney, liver, heart, or digestion tests.
⚠️ LIMITATIONS
This paper is a narrative review, so the authors chose which studies to include and did not use strict methods like a systematic review or meta-analysis; this can affect how strong the overall conclusions are.
Many of the individual studies had small numbers of women, short study times, or very specific groups like college athletes, which makes it hard to know how well the results apply to all women.
Evidence for special times like pregnancy, perimenopause, or specific phases of the menstrual cycle mostly comes from animal or lab work, so we cannot make firm real-world advice for those situations yet.
Results are not the same in every area: some studies show no benefit for things like bone density or endurance, so creatine is not a “magic” supplement that helps every outcome.
💡 BOTTOM LINE
This review suggests that creatine is a generally safe supplement that can help many women get stronger, perform better in high-intensity exercise, and improve physical function, especially when combined with resistance training.
It also points to possible benefits for mood and brain function, but more high-quality studies in women, especially during pregnancy and around menopause, are needed before making clear medical recommendations.
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