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nonameiguess 3 days ago

The conclusions aren't any different (it's one of the few thing that helps strength, poses no danger to your hair, and almost certainly does nothing for cognition), but the articles at https://www.strongerbyscience.com/?s=creatine are far more comprehensive, including the famous extremely long podcast episodes they used to do.

The one thing this misses is many supplements are tainted, which skews the popular perception of both upsides and risks. This was especially true in the US prior to 2005 or so when prohormones were still legal over the counter. Anything branded that wasn't just pure creatine was extremely likely to actually be a low-dose oral steroid, which really can make you lose hair and will increase strength quite a bit more than any dietary supplement.

This also misses caffeine as the other a-tier supplement that consistently shows strength increases in RCTs, though of course, caffeine is more frought than creatine because you build tolerance and it can disturb sleep.

switchbak 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

"poses no danger to your hair" I keep hearing folks say this, and even in this thread there's someone who's experienced that and had it stop when they eliminated creatine. I too have experienced exactly that with exactly the stopping of issues once I stopped taking creatine.

Perhaps you can say "danger to your hair is rare", but there's very clearly (to me at least) an effect there, and the way it gets hand-waved away is strange to me.

grvdrm 3 days ago | parent [-]

Do you do anything else for hair? Like Minoxidil, Finasteride, or other serums/etc.

Just curious for other folks experiences as they are on or off creatine in parallel with other hair interventions.

switchbak 2 days ago | parent [-]

I have normal hair, and probably less hair loss than is average for someone my age. I don't use products on it. Aside from this issue, it's been clear sailing the whole time.

matwood 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> This also misses caffeine as the other a-tier supplement

In college Ripped Fuel wasn't banned yet. We would take two, go to the gym for 2 hours, shower, then go out until the sun came up the next day. It's no surprise it was eventually banned. I think some people ended up dying by taking too many.

volkl48 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> poses no danger to your hair,

Last I checked, the only study actually focusing on this is n=38, out of Iran, and has heavy conflict of interest issues (funded by the supplement industry).

That's not remotely sufficient to consider this a settled fact.

BizarroLand 3 days ago | parent [-]

I feel like you would need to find some correlation between dosing creatine and increased DHT production to find a link between the two.

Creatine is not an anabolic steroid and does not increase testosterone levels, according to Harvard Health, so while there was 1 suspicious study that claimed that creatine increased DHT, that study has afterwards not been able to be replicated, and since creatine does not manipulate hormones but rather energy instead, it seems to as closes a possible to being a settled fact sans the final nail in the coffin.