The Truth About Taking Creatine Over 40

How Creatine Helps As You Get Older

As you age, muscle is the key to your health and function. You'll lose 0.8 to 1% of your muscle mass per year, starting around 40 if you're not doing anything about it. That's where creatine comes in.

You're probably most familiar with creatine's muscle building effects. Creatine has been shown to increase lean muscle mass in hundreds of studies. A lot of people still associate it with bodybuilders and elite athletes, but it's not a steroid.

Creatine is a natural compound made from three amino acids, arginine, glycine, and methionine, that's stored mainly in your muscles.

It's the most researched and reliably effective supplement in sport and exercise science. One study in men aged 50 to 71 showed that creatine plus resistance training was more effective than resistance training alone.

Unlike steroids, creatine won't help you build muscle on its own. Weight training is the most important stimulus for muscle growth and creatine can help to make it more effective.

Creatine, Muscle, and Metabolism

Can creatine help your metabolism as you age?

While most people think that their metabolism slows down after 40, research shows that the metabolism itself is fairly stable until we get to our 60s. Then it's only a slow decline. Having more muscle means your metabolism will be as high as possible for your body size.

That's part of how creatine can help with fat loss. Since creatine supports muscle building, it also helps you very indirectly lose fat. Muscle is a more metabolically active tissue, meaning that it needs more calories to sustain itself than fat. More muscle equals more calories burned, and although it's not a huge amount, it adds up over time.

How Much Extra Muscle Can You Expect?

It's hard to know exactly how much additional muscle you'll add compared to training alone because it depends on your body size and genetics.

Your personal response to creatine matters as well. On average, you might gain about two to four pounds of additional muscle mass compared to what you would build without creatine. About 20 to 30% of people will be non-responders to the muscle building effects.

Diet, Genetics, and Creatine Response

Creatine is naturally found in small amounts in red meat and fish. If someone's eating a lot of red meat, they may already have slightly higher stores. That's why women who don't eat much meat, or vegetarians, can actually respond better to creatine. Some people are just lucky enough to have genetically higher creatine stores in their muscles.

They may still get the other benefits of creatine supplementation that I'm going to show you later.

But beware, creatine pulls water into your muscle cells, called intracellular water. That's actually a good thing because your muscles are more hydrated, have more fullness, and more strength. It can cause a temporary increase in your weight, maybe 1 to 2 pounds.

Don't panic if you see a change in the scale. It usually resolves itself in a week or so. Intercellular water, which sits between your cells or under your skin, is the kind that makes you look bloated or puffy. That's more likely to be caused by excess sodium, salt, or inflammation, not creatine.

Creatine Builds Strength and Reduces Fatigue

Along with muscle, we tend to gradually lose our strength as we age. That might start with not lifting as much weight at the gym, but it could end with sarcopenia, the loss of muscle strength and function. This usually starts to show up in our 60s, but it could be on its way in your 40s if you're not active. Creatine increases your strength and reduces fatigue.

You may be able to do a few more reps or an extra set here and there. More effort means more total work done, and that equals more muscle. The better you progress with your training, the more strength and muscle you build. In the Candow et al. trial, men ages 50 to 71 increased their lean mass and also improved their strength in the leg press and chest press.

Recovery and Muscle Damage

One of the things you might have noticed as you've gotten older is that your recovery isn't as good as it used to be. Whether it's recovery from a weight training workout or a long game of tennis with a friend, it doesn't feel the same. Creatine improves recovery and reduces muscle breakdown. It helps reduce markers of muscle damage after intense workouts.

That means faster recovery, less soreness, and more consistent progress in the gym.

Since it's so helpful for improving training, my client Greg asked me if he should still take creatine on rest days. That's a good question. Creatine does help with energy production and it can reduce fatigue, so it still makes sense to take it daily.

How Much Creatine and How To Take It

When I first took creatine as a teen athlete in karate, we always used a loading phase of 20 grams per day for five days. Then we went to a maintenance dose of five grams daily after that. Some creatine packaging still recommends that loading period. You can do that if you're in a hurry, but it's not necessary.

If you just start with 5 grams per day, your muscles will be fully saturated in about 2 weeks. The result is the same; it just takes a bit longer.

Higher doses of creatine can cause gastrointestinal issues for some people. If that happens, you can split a 5 g dose into two smaller doses each day.

Creatine and Brain Health

Peak performance after 40 is both physical and mental. Creatine can support both. Studies suggest it can improve mental fatigue and working memory, which often decline with age. It may even play a role in brain energy metabolism.

In a small pilot study released this year, they looked at the use of creatine in Alzheimer's patients aged 60 to 90. Just 20 patients, 20 grams of creatine per day for 8 weeks. Creatine was associated with increased brain total creatine and improvements in cognition. It's promising, but the data isn't strong enough yet to recommend creatine only for this purpose.

Risks and Safety

Creatine has been researched in humans since 1992, so over 30 years.

It's the most researched supplement with a strong safety record. It's even been tested in children with medical conditions, traumatic brain injury, and adolescent athletes with no adverse effects. The idea that creatine is bad for kidneys came mainly from rodent studies and patients with kidney disease.

A meta-analysis looked at the safety reports from 685 human trials. They concluded that claims creatine increases the risk of side effects are unfounded. Studies on healthy populations and clinical populations with disease haven't shown negative effects on kidney function.

That said, always check with your doctor if you have any medical conditions or are on medication.

Which Type of Creatine?

Only choose creatine monohydrate.

That's the one that's been studied the most. Don't believe the hype about other forms like creatine hydrochloride, creatine ethyl ester, or buffered creatine. None of them have been shown to be better than creatine monohydrate.

Bottom Line

 So, yes, creatine can help you build muscle and strength, stay sharp, and recover better in your 40s and beyond without bloating, baldness, or kidney issues. But it isn't a shortcut to muscle building or fat loss. It just supplements the work that you're doing.

To maximize your metabolism and burn more fat, you'll need the steps in THIS VIDEO.

Ivana Chapman