Creatine: Dose, Benefits & Safety | Dr. Rhonda Patrick & Dr. Andrew Huberman

I want to ask you about creatine.

>> Yeah.

>> I'm 50. I started taking weight training

and running when I was like 16 maybe.

Yeah. And I started taking creatine cuz

back then I was skinny. I wanted to put

on muscle. I think creatine was sort of

first discussed or released back then

when I was maybe 18 or something like

that. Something like that. 18 19. Um so

I've been taking a long long time.

>> Yeah.

>> 5 to 10 grams. But the original

protocol, which nobody does anymore, but

I confess I still do it because I enjoy

it, was to take five grams three to five

times per day. There was this loading

phase and you would mix it with a little

bit of grape juice cuz the idea was you

were supposed to spike your insulin and

then you get more into the muscles and

then you had a maintenance dose which

was five grams per day. Um, and the idea

back then was that you need to do a wash

out every 20 weeks or so where you just

stop taking it, you urinate out a bunch

of water, and then you re reload. And I

confess, I've continued to do this minus

the grape juice, but occasionally I'll

do the grape juice thing. I don't think

there's any real merit to the loading

phase, maintenance phase idea. But back

then and still now, I feel like creatine

has made me feel great, um, stronger.

Um, I did I wasn't aware of the

cognitive benefits. They weren't being

studied back then.

>> They weren't being studied back then.

But what are your thoughts on why

creatine suddenly has become this like

banner supplements? It's like supplement

of the year. We should start a

supplement of the year thing, right? For

a while, I think vitamin D and melatonin

came first.

>> Um, and we'll have to figure out what

years those were. Then, uh, I feel like

creatine got supplement of the year for

2026 is unless something else comes

along. So creatine supplement of the

year 2026 even though it's been around

for a long long time. What do you think

happened?

>> Well, so first I want to talk about your

loading phase and I like that was really

for the studies that were being done,

right? Because if you're taking five

grams a day of creatine, it takes about

three to four weeks for your for your

muscle creatine stores to become

saturated and researchers aren't going

to do a study where they wait that long.

So the loading phase really was just

>> So that's what inspired it.

>> Yeah. It was it's in this isolated

bubble of in the experimental protocol,

but like in the real world, you have

three weeks or if you're like an athlete

and you hadn't, you know, taken the

creatine, you don't have your creatine

stores up and you have to quickly

rapidly

>> Got it. I was just amazed at how quickly

it worked. I I I might be a

hyperresponder, but I legitimately put

on I realized some of it was water or

most of it was water, but somewhere

between probably 4 and 8 lbs of of water

in the muscle mass. I don't want to call

it lean mass because it's, you know,

it's water in the muscle. Um, but I I

just was I was like, "Oh my goodness,

this is crazy, you know, and um and then

people thought maybe it was a steroid,

it's not a steroid, maybe it's bad for

your kidneys." Turns out it's safe for

your kidneys and most everyone um pretty

remarkable molecule.

>> Yeah. I mean, obviously creatine is

stored as creatine phosphate in our in

our cells. We make to some degree

between 1 to three grams of creatine a

day. Our liver, our brain also makes it.

It's used to make energy and so your

muscles, if you're working out, you're

really consuming a lot of energy, right?

It's very energetically demanding. So

having the creatine stores higher in

your muscle is beneficial because one,

you're going to be able to increase your

training volume, right? So it's not like

creatine is anabolic in the sense that

protein or amino acids are, right? It's

not like directly affecting muscle

protein synthesis. It's just helping you

train more, getting more reps in, you

know, whatever it is, training, your

training volume's going up. And because

your training volume's going up, then

you're obviously putting more stress on

your muscles, which is going to lead to

increased muscle protein synthesis. And,

you know, obviously there's water

probably as well. That said, you know,

you asked me, you know, what happened.

So, I got interested in creatine back in

20 when I started basically weight

training and obviously I'd heard about

it forever. never took it. And um as I

started to get into resistance training,

I was like, I better start taking this.

This is I'm like in this in this world

now and started doing some research on

taking it. So I was taking the five

grams a day because that's really what

most of the studies show creatine

monohydrate. That's the most

wellressearched form of creatine. And I

was taking five grams a day

>> because I was interested in improving my

my training volume and and getting the

the benefits of it, right? Um, and then

I had Darren Cando on the podcast. Uh,

that was in 2024 I think it was. And,

um, once I had started getting into the

creatine research, I the brain stuff

started has been coming out over the

past, you know, few years

>> and that's for me become very

interesting. I remember the first time I

heard about it years ago, it was like,

oh, it's it's helping improve cognitive

function in older older, you know,

people. Yeah, the phosphor creatine

system seems to be somewhat um biased

towards fourbrain structures. You know,

I mean obviously it's in lots of brain

areas, but that there might be a heavier

reliance on it for

>> brain areas that are associated with

strategic planning and you know, working

memory and Yeah, if you if you were to

sort of just map the the the sort of

density of usage of the phosphocreatine

system, you'd you'd see a frontal bias

for sure.

>> Okay.

>> Yeah. Um well anyways that's kind of

where my interest in in you know kind of

diving deeper. Anything that's helping

the brain is interesting to me as I know

to you as well.

>> And um and so I

>> learned a lot from this podcast I did

with Darren Kando. He you know

researches creatine and collaborates

with a lot of different researchers that

are doing you know research on the brain

and muscle and you know lots the bone.

Turns out it's beneficial for the bone

as well. But the brain it's interesting.

They also make creatine in the brain,

but um it's not like so it's kind of

like the muscle, right? You're not just

going to if you take creatine, you don't

work out, you're not going to you're not

going to get any increase in lean mass,

right? It's not going to do much of

anything because you're not putting in

the work. I think the same goes with the

brain as well, where it's like

researchers started to find out that

well, you can't just take creatine and

it's going to enhance cognitive

function. It's in the background of

stressing the brain, right? you're

stressing your muscles by a workout.

Same goes for the brain. It's like in

these situations of stress, whether

that's sleep deprivation, whether it's,

you know, a traumatic brain injury. I

mean, I would argue, you know, there's a

lot of psychological stress, depression,

constantly using your brain like you and

I right now in this conversation. We're

we're learning, we're thinking. I mean,

it is stressful on the brain, right? So,

I mean, I am obviously speculating here

and taking taking and extrapolating,

right? I'm not saying that there's