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Randomized trial · measured other health measures

Creatine trial in adults awake 36 hours: one thinking task improved, others did not

McMorris and colleagues · Physiology & behavior · 2007

Original title: Creatine supplementation, sleep deprivation, cortisol, melatonin and behavior.

Under review. A person has not yet checked this summary against the paper. It is written from the PubMed abstract. Until a person checks it, search engines are asked not to list this page.

What the study found

Mixed

The creatine group did better than placebo on a complex thinking task, but only at 36 h (p < 0.05). No differences between groups on short-term memory, reaction time, balance or mood.

The study at a glance

Type of study
Randomized trial
Who or what was studied
healthy adults kept awake for 36 hours while doing light exercise
What was tested
5 g creatine four times a day for 7 days vs placebo
What it measured
Other health or performance measures
Daily amount
20 g a day
How long
1 week
Who has a stake
No disclosure in PubMed
No disclosure in PubMed.
Journal
Physiology & behavior, 2007
Source
PubMed record 17046034. This page is based on the abstract only.

How much this study counts

  • ✓Randomized: people were put into groups by chance, so the groups start out alike.
  • ✓Compared with a placebo, a dummy treatment.
  • •The abstract does not say how many people took part.
  • –Short: 1 week. Longer-term effects are unknown.
  • •Measured other health measures, not memory, thinking and brain health itself.
  • •The PubMed record has no conflict-of-interest statement.
  • •Summarized from the PubMed abstract only. The full paper may hold details the abstract leaves out.

✓ Strength– Limit• Note

These points come from fixed rules about the type of study, its size and length, what it measured, and who has a stake. Every study on Digestery gets the same rules.

Where this study sits

Each dot is one on-topic paper on this question. Steps near the top answer the question more directly.

↑ Stronger evidence

  1. Trials in people: memory and thinking

    5

    2 benefit, 1 mixed, 2 no difference

  2. Trials in people: other measures

    6

    5 benefit, 1 mixed

    ↑ This study is the ringed dot

  3. Trials in people: lab tests or safety

    0

    None among the papers we read.

  4. Population studies

    0

    None among the papers we read.

  5. Blood levels and genes

    0

    None among the papers we read.

  6. Animals

    1

    1 benefit

↓ Weaker evidence

  • Points to benefit
  • Mixed
  • No difference
  • No direction
  • Points to harm

How it fits with the other research

The short answer to “Does creatine improve memory and brain health?”

Possibly a small boost to memory.

Confidence: low. Based on 21 on-topic papers.

Read the full answer

Of the other 5 papers on the same step: 5 benefit. This one found mixed. It differs from most of them.

Other papers on the same step

See all 21 studies on this question

How this page was made

Label

First read of the abstract
Claude Sonnet
Independent second read
Claude Haiku
Differences settled
The two reads agreed on every checked field. Claude Opus 5.5.
Headline
Claude Sonnet, from the checked study record. A script checked its numbers and wording.
Numbers
Checked against the abstract by a script
“How much this study counts”
Fixed rules, the same for every study
Source check by a person
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