Exercise scientist Dr. Mike Israetel is taking a closer look at one of the world’s most popular supplements. In a YouTube video shared on July 1, 2025, he unpacked the brain health benefits of creatine, revealing how it impacts memory, attention time, and processing speed.
Creatine is the most widely studied supplement on the market. The body naturally produces it from amino acids, helping supply energy to cells. It plays a key role in enhancing workout performance, supporting recovery, and has also been hailed for its cognitive benefits.
Other top names in fitness have discussed its utility, like podcast host Joe Rogan and former six-time Mr. Olympia Dorian Yates, both of whom use the product to improve their quality of life. Now, Dr. Israetel, a leading physiologist in sports science, is breaking down how it can help the brain.
Exercise Scientist Unpacks the Brain Health Benefits of Creatine
In the YouTube video, the first study Dr. Israetel looked at showed that creatine supplementation improved short-term memory and reasoning compared to placebo groups.
“They took between 5-20 grams of creatine per day, and the trials were conducted between one week, to figure out acute effects, and six weeks, to figure out more long-term, medium-term effects.
Short-term memory and reasoning had improved in creatine versus placebo in four out of the six trials, which gives us an overall pooled effect size rated as small to moderate. So something is almost certainly happening, it’s not a huge deal for short-term memory and reasoning, but it is a deal.”
In a different study, it was discovered that adults over the age of 65 enjoyed double the benefits of creatine supplementation.
“The pooled overall memory effect for creatine supplementation was in the low-to-moderate effect score category,” he shared.
“It’s definitely a thing that seems to work in these trials. It’s not crazy revolutionary, but it’s a bit of a big deal. The sub-analysis here is really interesting: adults over the age of 65 got double the benefits.”
While he admits the benefits weren’t as prevalent for younger populations, it still had a significant impact on those of older age.
“However good you are at about 64 years old, this would rewind you back to age 60 levels of cognitive ability. All things being equal, that’s a big deal. For younger folks, that’s going to be one extra item on a digit-span score, which means you’re a bit better in memory but nothing crazy.”
In a more comprehensive analysis, scientists examined 492 people aged 20-76 who used creatine. They found that women and anyone between the ages of 18-60 were the biggest responders.
“492 total people were analyzed, which is really good — ages 20–76, all with creatine monohydrate, the most effective and vetted form of creatine. Improvements were seen in memory, attention time (how long they could focus on a task before wavering), and processing speed also improved.”
“Biggest responders being females and folks that were 18-60 years old,” he adds.
In the last study Dr. Israetel looked at, scientists found that creatine had a measurable difference on working memory.
“This was just them being tested to see if creatine enhanced their cognition. They were giving them five grams of creatine a day, a good, robust dose, and the thing ran for six weeks. It was a double-blind crossover trial, so six weeks of creatine or placebo, they didn’t know, they took six weeks off completely of any placebo or creatine, then they did six weeks of the opposite.”
“Working memory, as measured by the backward digit-span, which is a really annoying test to take showed that there was a borderline small effect on working memory,” he shared.
In the past, Dr. Israetel assessed whether creatine supplementation caused undesirable side effects like bloating or weight gain. Similar to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s findings, Dr. Israetel found no meaningful scientific data that suggests it can cause such issues.
Bottom line: Dr. Israetel says using creatine offers cognitive benefits. However, the upside seems to dramatically increase for those of older age.
RELATED: Jeff Cavaliere Outlines How to Use Creatine, Explores Benefits and Potential Side Effects
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