Creatine for Women: Benefits Beyond Muscle Growth

You’d be hard pressed to find a supplement that has endured a more interesting odyssey than creatine. In its 200-year period, creatine went from being a completely untraceable amino acid compound to a presumed waste product, and was eventually upgraded to a “natural steroid” that sports gatekeepers were terrified of. 

The fear ultimately subsided once creatine was proven to be both completely harmless and incredibly effective, but women were aggressively steered away from creatine at almost every point along the way out of the fear that it would make them too muscular and less feminine.

Fortunately, once all of the anti-creatine propagandists were forced to concede the truth that creatine is quite possibly the greatest and safest multipurpose life improvement supplement ever developed, it became socially acceptable and advisable that women take creatine for the sake of their health.

Yet, the most compelling aspect of the conversations that women are now having about creatine isn’t about how many women are taking it to boost the size and strength of targeted muscles — although many indeed are — but how many reasons there are for women in particular to take creatine that have nothing at all to do with physical strength or athletic performance.

1. Creatine improves cognitive performance

For all of the stereotyping that was once leveled at creatine’s consumers that saw them labeled as meatheads, the ultimate irony is that creatine seems to do just as much to improve the functionality of your brain as it does your muscles, in many ways making you smarter as a result.

This happens because creatine is stored in your brain as a large repository of ATP, which is its primary energy source. Consequently, if you consistently take creatine, you can expect to process information more quickly, have better recall of memories, pay closer attention to events, and experience less mental fatigue.

While these benefits apply to creatine consumers of all ages, the brain-friendly effects of creatine have been proven to be more pronounced in women than in men. This means the mental upgrades from creatine are likely to be more evident in women than they are in men, which makes it a wise supplemental choice for students or career-oriented women who need to stay sharp and focused throughout the day.

2. Creatine has antidepressive effects

While the reservoir of stored energy that creatine supplies to your brain is measurably felt in cognitive performance, its presence is also quite evident in the area of psychological health, and specifically when it comes to depressive symptoms. 

As it turns out, one of the key ingredients to depressive thought is a low level of energy in the areas of your brain’s frontal lobe that regulate mood. By supplying consistent energy to these regions, it is possible for creatine to mitigate against some forms of depressive thought, and therefore improve your overall mood.

Once again, these antidepressive effects were found to have stronger effects in women within the 20-39-year-old age range who were not on antidepressants than in men in general, and in women in other age groups. Moreover, studies have also shown that creatine can boost the mood-improving effects of SSRIs, making it a practical supplement to take for psychological health on its own, or alongside medications that are intended to alleviate depression.

3. Reproductive health and success

The fact that a unique feature of women is their ability to carry babies from conception to birth makes the topic of creatine’s role in reproductive health uniquely interesting to women. This applies to both the health of the mother throughout pregnancy — including the months preceding conception — and also to the fetus growing inside of her.

In observational studies, higher creatine intake was associated with reduced odds of contending with issues like irregular periods and pelvic infections, or unfortunate interventions like hysterectomies. Creatine has also been linked to the improvement of egg health and quality prior to pregnancy. 

During pregnancy, creatine has thus far shown evidence that it can reduce oxidative stress on the placenta and uterus, and also potentially helps maintain the health of the fetus under conditions like fetal growth restriction and preeclampsia. 

Most of the positive testing of creatine’s effects on infants’ health has involved animals. However, in observational studies, creatine seemed to improve healthy infant growth and head circumference prior to birth; in animal studies, maternal creatine consumption improved fetal brain development and overall infant survival rates post-pregnancy.

4. Menopausal and Post-menopausal health

The difficulties of menopause are often presented without isolating the individual challenges that women are often faced with as they navigate their passage into older adulthood. As such, menopause is often depicted as a thoroughly daunting problem without being divided into the specific areas where support can be offered to make the process more tolerable for women.

When these specific areas of need are plainly stated, it becomes evident that creatine has the potential to offer assistance in most of the areas that women routinely face the greatest discomfort. Specifically, women universally suffer from sarcopenia and bone loss during menopause, which strips their bodies of much of their structural support. 

Simultaneous to this, the loss of estrogen and hormonal imbalances may cause mood shifts and cognitive impairment in ways that often lead to unintended social consequences. 

As a multipurpose solution to the problem, creatine can enhance physical performance during exercise in ways that can help women retain much of the muscle and bone marrow that might otherwise be lost, while simultaneously helping with hormonal regulation and preserving mental clarity.

The ultimate aid to a woman’s health

In light of the benefits listed above, it should come as no surprise that regular creatine supplementation is now being recommended for many women across the entirety of their lifespans. So if you happen to overhear more women than ever talking about creatine these days, there’s a good chance they're chatting about how creatine supplementation has unquestionably changed their lives for the better.

Summary

1. While women were encouraged to avoid creatine as recently as 20 years ago, there are now several reasons why women are strongly encouraged to take supplemental creatine.

2. Creatine provides energy to the brain in ways that have been proven to have outsized positive effects on women as measured by memory recall, attention span, and the time it takes to complete cognitive challenges.

3. Whether taken alongside SSRIs or not, creatine has shown the capacity to reduce the severity of depressive symptoms, and has its strongest effect upon women in the 20-39 age range.

4. In areas of female reproductive health, creatine has shown the potential to improve everything from egg health and quality prior to pregnancy to the ultimate survival rates of newborn infants at the time of birth.

5. At the tail end of female fertility, creatine can improve female training outcomes to help them retain muscle and bone marrow that might otherwise be lost during menopause, while aiding hormone regulation and preserving mental clarity.

6. Women are now strongly encouraged to take creatine for the wide range of benefits it can confer to them at different stages throughout their lifespan.