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Randomized trial · measured other health measures

Trial in 29 adults awake 21 hours: one creatine dose eased decline in tests

Gordji-Nejad and colleagues · Nutrients · 2026

Original title: Single-Dose Creatine Reduces Sleep Deprivation-Induced Deterioration in Cognitive Performance.

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

Creatine lessened the decline in logic, number and language-speed tasks and a vigilance test during sleep loss, by up to 12%.

The study at a glance

Type of study
Randomized trial
Who or what was studied
29 people · healthy adults kept awake for 21 hours
What was tested
One dose of creatine (0.2 g per kg body weight) vs placebo
What it measured
Other health or performance measures
Who has a stake
No stake declared
One author reports ties to imaging and drug firms; none make creatine supplements.
Journal
Nutrients, 2026
Source
PubMed record 42075005. 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.
  • –Small: 29 people. Small trials can miss real effects or find chance ones.
  • •Measured other health measures, not memory, thinking and brain health itself.
  • ✓No competing interests declared.
  • •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: 4 benefit, 1 mixed. This one found benefit. It agrees with 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 reviewer corrected 2 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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