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Pooled review (meta-analysis)

Pooled review of 8 studies in healthy people: better memory, mainly in older adults

Prokopidis and colleagues · Nutrition reviews · 2023

Original title: Effects of creatine supplementation on memory in healthy individuals: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

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

Points to benefit

Memory scores were better with creatine (SMD = 0.29, 95%CI, 0.04-0.53). The gain was larger in older adults (66-76 years; SMD = 0.88) than in younger people (11-31 years; SMD = 0.03), who showed no clear effect.

The study at a glance

Type of study
Pooled review (meta-analysis)
Who or what was studied
8 studies · healthy people, ages 11 to 76
What was tested
Creatine compared with placebo, about 2.2 to 20 g a day for 5 days to 24 weeks
What it measured
The question itself: memory, thinking and brain health
Who has a stake
No disclosure in PubMed
No disclosure in PubMed.
Journal
Nutrition reviews, 2023
Source
PubMed record 35984306. This page is based on the abstract only.

How much this study counts

  • ✓Pools the results of 8 studies.
  • •A pooled review is only as strong as the studies it pools.
  • ✓Measured the question itself: memory, thinking and brain health.
  • •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

This paper is not on the ladder. It is a pooled review (meta-analysis), and reviews and opinion pieces discuss studies that are already counted on the steps below.

↑ 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

  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
  • Quoted in “What we found”: Another pooled review of 8 trials found memory gains in adults aged 66-76 (SMD = 0.88) but no clear effect at ages 11-31.
  • Part of the finding “Pooled reviews point to slightly better memory”.
  • Part of the finding “Reviews disagree on who gains most”.
  • Summed up in “What reviews found”: Pooled 8 trials in healthy people, out of 10 reviewed. Creatine improved memory scores (SMD = 0.29), with a larger gain in adults aged 66-76. Results varied a lot between trials.
  • Open item for a person: Pooled reviews Xu 2024 and Prokopidis 2023 may include the same trials as each other and as trials listed here; avoid counting overlap twice.

Other reviews on this question

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 reviewer corrected 5 fields after reading the abstract. 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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