In this article, Dr. Williams comments suggests that creatine may help the brain get key nutrients faster.
Article Links: Creatine Could Boost Cognitive Function, Recent Study Suggests
It can be hard to think clearly after a bad night’s sleep. And, although nothing will replace a high-quality snooze, new research suggests taking a particular supplement may help you release some of that mental fog.
Creatine is usually used to boost muscle performance, but now it’s being linked with being able to think clearly after a poor night of rest. Here’s what the study found, plus what a neurologist wants you to know.
The study, which was published in the journal Scientific Reports in February 2024, had 15 healthy people in their 20s stay in a lab overnight for two nights, separated by at least five days. During those stays, they were kept awake all night. During one night, participants were given 0.35 grams of creatine per kilogram of body weight; on another night, they were given a placebo. The participants were also asked to do cognitive tasks before they took the creatine or placebo and at three other points during the night.
The researchers discovered that three hours after taking creatine, the participants had positive changes in their brain metabolism and cognitive performance on tests. (They especially did well with processing capacity and short-term memory.) This impact peaked four hours after they took the supplement, but lasted over nine hours.
The researchers concluded that taking a single, high dose of creatine can “partially reverse” some impacts of sleep deprivation.
The study didn’t look at why this happens—it simply found a link. However, there are some theories.
Creatine appears to “mitigate cognitive decline related to fatigue by supporting the brain’s energy metabolism,” explains Vernon Williams, MD, a neurologist and founding director of the Center for Sports Neurology and Pain Medicine at Cedars-Sinai Orthopaedics in Los Angeles. To put it into layman’s terms, creatine may help the brain get key nutrients faster.
This is a shift from typical creatine usage, though, notes Winter. “Many people have thought about creatine supplementation as a relatively ‘long term’ effect—like building muscle,” he says. “This study suggests that the effects of creatine could be much faster than originally thought.”
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