A 2026 study found creatine raised lean mass and strength in adults 45–65, even without exercise. Here's what the study found and how to put it in context.
A new study from Texas A&M University found that creatine increased lean mass and strength in adults aged 45–65, even without a structured exercise program. It also looked at creatine during weight loss, and at memory and other health markers.
This article walks through what the study found and how to put it in context, then answers the questions people usually have next: how creatine works, whether your body already makes it, whether it helps during weight loss, what it does for the brain, and whether it's safe for your kidneys.
Disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice. Talk to a qualified clinician before starting a supplement, especially if you have kidney disease, take prescription medication, or are pregnant.
A team at Texas A&M's Exercise and Sport Nutrition Lab, with Jisun Chun as first author and Dr. Richard Kreider as senior author, enrolled 73 healthy, sedentary adults aged 45–65. Of those, 64 finished the 12 weeks (average age 54.5; 40 women and 24 men). The results were published in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition in August 2026.
Participants first chose whether to join an exercise and diet program. Within each choice, they were then randomly assigned, double-blind, to creatine or a placebo. That gave four groups:
| Group | Finished | Exercise and diet | Daily supplement |
|---|---|---|---|
| No exercise + placebo | 13 | None | Placebo (maltodextrin) |
| No exercise + creatine | 13 | None | 10 g creatine monohydrate |
| Exercise + placebo | 18 | Supervised resistance and aerobic training 3x/week, 10,000 steps on other days, 300–500 calorie/day deficit | Placebo (maltodextrin) |
| Exercise + creatine | 20 | Same as above | 10 g creatine monohydrate |
Body composition was measured with DXA scans, alongside strength, muscular endurance, fitness, blood markers, and a battery of cognitive tests at the start, at six weeks, and at 12 weeks.
What the researchers reported after 12 weeks:
The authors describe the context for their findings in the paper itself:
The study used 10 grams per day, taken as two 5 g doses. The researchers chose a higher dose partly because some evidence suggests more may be needed to affect the brain. That's about double the most commonly recommended maintenance dose of 3–5 grams per day, or roughly 0.1 g per kg of body weight.
Some protocols start with a "loading phase" of about 20 grams per day (5 g four times a day) for 5–7 days. Loading fills muscle creatine stores faster; 3–5 grams a day gets there over roughly 3–4 weeks. The study wasn't designed to compare doses, so it doesn't tell us whether 10 grams works better than 3–5.
Creatine increased lean mass even without exercise in this study. To understand that result, it helps to know what "lean mass" means on a DXA scan.
A DXA scan splits your body into fat, bone, and "lean tissue." Lean tissue is everything else, including muscle, organs, and water, and a DXA scan can't tell water apart from muscle protein.
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Creatine is osmotically active: as muscle takes it up, some water follows. Water retention is the most commonly reported effect of creatine, mainly in the first several days. Studies lasting several weeks are mixed on whether total body water stays higher.
So the 1.1 kg gained without exercise likely reflects some combination of water and muscle, and a DXA scan can't show the split. Future studies using other measurement methods could separate the two. Building muscle itself is most reliably driven by resistance training.
The practical point: if you start creatine, a small increase in scale weight early on is common and isn't a sign you're gaining fat. For a realistic sense of how fast muscle can actually be built, see the natural muscle gain calculator.
About 95% of the body's creatine is stored in skeletal muscle, around two-thirds of it as phosphocreatine. When muscles break down ATP for energy, phosphocreatine helps rebuild it quickly, which matters most during maximal efforts like a heavy set of squats. Supplementing raises muscle creatine and phosphocreatine stores, giving you a larger reserve for repeated high-intensity efforts.
Yes, and in a way most articles skip. Your body makes creatine mainly in the liver and kidneys, in two steps:
This is a significant metabolic job. Creatine synthesis uses around 40% of the methyl groups supplied by the body's main methyl donor, and roughly 20–30% of arginine's amidino groups (the nitrogen-containing part of arginine that becomes part of creatine).
In people who eat meat and fish, about half of the creatine the body needs each day comes from food, and the rest is made by the body. Vegetarians have to make nearly all of theirs, tend to have lower muscle creatine stores, and may see larger increases in muscle creatine from supplementing.
So if your body makes it, why supplement? A normal diet leaves muscle creatine stores roughly 60–80% full. Supplementing can raise muscle creatine and phosphocreatine by about 20–40%.
A bigger energy reserve can help you sustain high-intensity work. Over weeks, more work across your sets means a stronger signal for your body to adapt.
That's why creatine combined with resistance training has consistently been reported to increase muscle mass more than training alone, in both younger and older adults. It supports hypertrophy (muscle growth) by helping you do more of the work that causes it. The supplement makes more training possible; the training is what makes you stronger. The principles behind that are covered in Progressive Overload 101.
This is one of the study's more useful findings. The exercise-and-creatine group was eating 300–500 calories a day below maintenance, yet gained lean tissue and had a larger drop in body fat percentage than the exercise-and-placebo group. The authors say this is the first study to show that effect during an exercise and weight-loss program.
One possible explanation is training quality: hard training is harder in a calorie deficit, and creatine may help you hold onto performance. Larger trials would help confirm the result, and as above, part of the lean tissue gain may be water.
One more detail: participants averaged only about 0.94 g of protein per kg of body weight per day. The authors called that relatively low for people doing resistance training and suggested future studies test creatine alongside more protein.
The foundations of keeping muscle during a cut haven't changed:
Creatine may be a reasonable addition to those basics. It isn't a substitute for them. To see how your lean mass compares with typical ranges, try the fat-free mass index calculator.
The brain uses creatine for energy too, which is why researchers have been testing it for memory and thinking.
In this study, creatine improved some memory and reaction-time tasks but not several others, and the authors called the cognitive findings exploratory.
The broader evidence is promising but not settled:
A fair summary: creatine may help some aspects of memory, especially in older adults, but it isn't a reliable brain supplement yet. If you take it, take it for training, and treat any cognitive benefit as a possible bonus.
Most of the concern comes from a misunderstanding about creatinine.
Your body breaks down creatine into creatinine, which healthy kidneys filter out. Doctors measure creatinine in your blood to estimate how well your kidneys filter, a number called eGFR. Taking creatine can raise blood creatinine, which lowers eGFR even when the kidneys are filtering normally.
This study shows exactly that:
The study didn't measure cystatin C, a kidney marker that isn't derived from creatine, or directly measured kidney filtration. The authors caution that the eGFR drop shouldn't be read as evidence that the kidneys were filtering less.
The broader evidence points the same way:
These findings apply to healthy people and don't guarantee safety for everyone. If you have kidney disease or reduced kidney function, speak with your doctor before taking creatine. If you already take it, tell your doctor before blood work so a raised creatinine isn't misread. Your doctor can decide whether a test that doesn't depend on creatinine, such as cystatin C, makes sense.
A practical way to see whether creatine helps you is your training log. Compare reps and loads at similar effort in the weeks before and after you start. Bazu (also on Google Play) tracks your PRs (personal records) and estimated 1RM for free, and Bazu Pro adds progressive overload recommendations for your next session.
The new Texas A&M study adds useful data on creatine for adults in midlife. It found gains in lean mass and strength with and without exercise, a larger drop in body fat percentage when creatine was paired with training and a calorie deficit, and early signals for memory and some health markers. The authors present the cognitive and blood-marker findings as a starting point for further research.
The bigger picture is unchanged: creatine is a well-studied, generally safe supplement that may help you train a little harder. Getting stronger still comes from the training itself.
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