Issue 11: Creatine builds your brain, not just your muscles

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Welcome to Weekly.health’s eleventh issue. Every week, we explore cutting-edge research, actionable advice, and science-backed nutrition insights to help you live longer and healthier.

Our aim is to help you live another 10 healthy years and cut your risk of age-related disease.

🗒️ In This Issue:

• 📅 This Week at Weekly.health

• 🔬 Longevity Spotlight: Exercise and the MIND Diet

• 📚 Books We’re Reading Right Now

• 📈 Research Digest: What’s new in nutrition science

• 🧠 Creatine builds your brain, not just your muscles

• 🛍️ Things You Might Like

• ❤️ Support Weekly.health: Help us keep the research flowing

• 📘 Glossary of Terms: Definitions for technical terms in this issue

📅 This Week at Weekly.health

This week we’re working with our partner, Momentous, to show you why you should consider supplementing creatine - not just for your muscles, but for your brain.

We’re thrilled to have our first partnership, but we want to be absolutely clear - Weekly.health is evidence-based, and we actively turn down sponsors who we don’t trust and don’t agree with.

We’ve been approached by sponsors who wanted personal recommendations for products we haven’t used, and for which there is no evidence for their claims - we turned those down.

In this issue we’re covering some of the recent research behind creatine for general and brain health, and Momentous offer a 35% discount for our readers further down this email.

🔬 Longevity Spotlight: Exercise and the MIND Diet

Exercise keeps your cells young:
This systematic review of 16 trials on 1,908 participants found that regular aerobic exercise (more than 150 min/week for at least 16 weeks) helps maintain telomere length and boosts telomerase activity - two key markers of cellular ageing. High-intensity interval training (HIIT) may offer similar benefits, but evidence is limited. For healthier ageing at the cellular level, stick to consistent aerobic workouts and consider mixing in some strength or HIIT training. (source)

MIND Diet boosts health across 47 studies:
A major review of 47 studies (2015–2024) found sticking closely to the MIND diet—rich in veg, wholegrains, olive oil, nuts, beans, and fish—was linked to reduced risks of frailty, disability, diabetes, some cancers, glaucoma, and stronger physical function. Most benefits appeared once people stuck to at least 9 of the 15 recommended food habits regularly. To experience similar benefits, centre meals around plants and olive oil, and limit processed foods and red meat.. (source)

📚 Books We’re Reading Right Now

📈 Research Digest: What’s New in Nutrition Science

Here’s the best of recent nutrition research:

🌾 Wholegrain Rye Helps Weight Loss
In a 12-week trial (108 rye vs 99 wheat) with a 500 kcal/day deficit, swapping to high-fibre wholegrain rye (≈30 g/day fibre vs 8 g) produced bigger drops in weight, body fat, BMI and waist, plus lower CRP. Rye also boosted gut-friendly metabolites/bacteria; gallic acid-4-sulfate and phenylacetamides tracked with fat loss and lower insulin. Quick win: choose rye breads/cereals daily. (source)

🧠 Diet Inflammation Score Didn’t Predict Parkinson’s Risk
In 165,000+ UK Biobank adults, 934 (0.6%) developed Parkinson’s over a 10 year period. Adjusting for age, sex, smoking, education, diabetes, blood pressure, and genetic risk, there was no significant association between Parkinson’s and levels of dietary inflammation. Eat anti-inflammatory for general health, but don’t bank on it to lower Parkinson’s risk. (source)

🧴 Omega-3 + Multinutrients Calm Inflammation In Ageing Adults
A 12-week study in 112 older adults (~76 years) found that taking a daily combo of omega-3s (1,000 mg fish oil) plus a multinutrient (vitamin D, B12, folic acid, and more) lowered inflammation compared to a placebo. The benefits were strongest in the oldest adults and those with less healthy diets. Simple takeaway: a daily fish oil + multivitamin could help keep inflammation in check as you age. (source)

🧠 Creatine builds your brain, not just your muscles

Creatine has been used by the bodybuilding community since the 70’s, but recent research shows there are far many more benefits than just to muscle.

Recent studies have looked at its effects on cognition, finding it can provide benefits throughout our older years, but also whenever we’re fatigued or thinking intently.

Creatine naturally occurs in our muscles, brain, and various tissues, playing a key energy role in our cells. It helps to regenerate ATP - our primary source of energy - during high-demand activities.

The body makes 1-2 g of creatine daily, and we obtain another 1-2 g from diet, primarily from animal sources.

Supplementation has been shown to increase creatine levels in tissues by 10-40%, and as one of the most-studied dietary supplements, with over 680 human clinical trials, we’re pretty sure of the benefits by now.

Muscle strength, mass, and healthy ageing

Creatine has repeatedly been shown to amplify the benefits of resistance exercise. One meta-analysis showed that older users gain around 1.3 kg more lean mass than placebo when using it as part of a resistant exercise regimen. (source)

The same meta analysis showed improvements in functional performance and strength in those older users, which contributes to improved quality of life, increased mobility, decreased fall risk, reduced frailty, and lower overall mortality risk.

With these benefits, creatine is an excellent contributor to extending healthspan - the number of healthy, functional years of life.

That being said, the evidence for these benefits is only notable when supplementing creatine alongside exercise. There might be some short-term effects from supplementing creatine by itself, but pairing it with resistance exercise is much more reliable. (source)

Cognitive function and brain health

Beyond the gym, creatine shows very promising clinical evidence for improving brain health.

The brain uses creatine to keep a steady supply of energy, especially when under demanding conditions such as a stressful event, taking an exam, studying hard, or working on complex problems. Anything that requires you to focus and think intently and for a length of time may increase your brain’s usage of creatine.

Supplementation can increase creatine stores in the brain by 5-15%. (source)

Numerous trials in young adults, sleep-deprived adults, vegetarians, and older adults, have tested creatine to understand its effects on cognition. A recent systematic review and meta-analysis of 16 trials found that creatine significantly improved memory, intelligence, and processing speed, amongst other benefits. (source)

The results from this research showed creatine worked best when the brain was under significant cognitive stress. For instance, individuals with mild cognitive impairment, and those performing difficult metal tasks while fatigued, both experienced notable improvements from creatine supplementation.

Sleep deprivation

A small double-blind crossover study in 2024 found that when sleep deprived adults were given a dose of 0.35 g/kg (or ~25 g for 70kg) of creatine, cognition scores were significantly better than placebo. (source)

Participants in this study were awake for 21 hours and took creatine or placebo orally at roughly 8:28pm, with cognitive tests every couple of hours.

Those who took the creatine experienced;

• 16% faster logic and problem-solving

• 24% faster number crunching

• 29% faster language-based reasoning

• 10% better word recall from memory

• Significantly lower feelings of fatigue and exhaustion

Symptoms of dementia

Earlier this year an 8-week pilot study found that when Alzheimer’s patients took 20 g/day of creatine, levels in the brain rose 11%, and various markers of cognition improved. (source)

Memory, reading ability, problem solving, attention, and overall cognition all improved by modest amounts, and the results were statistically significant, suggesting that there could be meaningful benefit to supplementing such large doses for those with symptoms of Alzheimer’s.

This research gained a lot of media attention, but much larger and longer-running trials are needed to understand the true value of creatine

Creatine dosage and forms

The most common clinically-studied regimen is 3-5 grams of creatine monohydrate daily.

Some protocols suggest a loading phase of 20 g/day for up to one week, which more quickly allows the body to reach a saturation point, but the research doesn’t demand a loading phase. This appears to be of most use for a quick physical performance boost.

Daily doses of 2-3 g may be sufficient long-term for general health (source), but up to 5 g daily is used widely and is well-tolerated by most. Some smaller trials have used significantly higher doses, but more research is needed before larger doses can be recommended.

There are many forms of creatine being marketed, but creatine monohydrate is the most studied and there is limited evidence that other forms outperform it enough to warrant the cost.

However, to ensure purity and safety, much of the research on creatine uses Creapure - a 99.9% pure form of creatine monohydrate. (source)

Because of the significant evidence behind creatine monohydrate / Creapure, and by contrast the minimal evidence supporting other forms, at this time we only consider creapure to be a reliable option for creatine supplementation.

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🛍️ Things You Might Like

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🙏 Thanks for Reading!

That’s the end of this issue of Weekly.health.

This newsletter is written by a small, independent team, led by James — who’s been following nutrition science for nearly 20 years and is now working towards a formal, industry-recognised qualification.

We’re based in England, so if you’re over the pond, you might notice a few strange spellings.

Our goal is to make cutting-edge, evidence-based nutrition advice simple, useful, and genuinely applicable to everyday life.

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See you next week!

📖 Glossary of Terms in This Issue (Alphabetical Order)

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