Creatine Monohydrate

Yes, in healthy adults. It has been studied in trials running as long as five years. One thing worth knowing: creatine nudges serum creatinine up slightly, a breakdown product that can make a routine kidney panel look off without anything being wrong. Tell your physician you supplement so they read the number in context. If you already have kidney disease, talk to them first.

No. Take 5 g a day and your muscle stores saturate in three to four weeks. A 20 g/day loading phase gets you there faster but lands in exactly the same place. Long term, the only variable that matters is taking it every day.

Not in the way most people mean. The early water gain is real: the ISSN's review attributes it primarily to intracellular volume, meaning water drawn into the muscle cell as your stores saturate rather than into the subcutaneous tissue that reads as puffiness. That accounts for the 1–2 kg some people see in the first couple of weeks. Over longer periods the picture is quieter, since several studies find no change in total body water relative to muscle mass, so the extra intracellular water simply tracks the muscle you're carrying. It's part of how creatine works, not a side effect.

Monohydrate. Head-to-head, HCl came out equivalent: across eight weeks of resistance training it matched monohydrate on strength, hypertrophy, and hormonal response, with no advantage over it. Ethyl ester did worse — it was less effective at raising serum and muscle creatine than monohydrate. Equivalent at best, then, and the premium forms mostly exist to justify a bigger margin. We use creatine monohydrate, the form nearly every major clinical trial has actually run on.

No. A 2025 randomized trial measured hair-follicle density and DHT across 12 weeks on creatine and found no difference from placebo. The whole worry traces to a single 2009 study of twenty rugby players that saw a temporary rise in DHT, not hair loss, and even that has never been replicated.

No. A 2025 systematic review of 21 studies, 12 of them pooled for meta-analysis, found no significant change in GFR or renal function markers from creatine supplementation. Long-term safety has been examined in controlled trials extending to five years. The original concern traces to two late-1990s case reports that have not been substantiated in subsequent prospective trials.

Serum creatinine rises 10–20% from supplementation itself, a metabolic byproduct of creatine breakdown, not a damage marker. BUN, cystatin C, and the BUN:creatinine ratio remain unchanged, distinguishing supplementation-driven elevation from renal injury. For patients where renal monitoring is clinically important, cystatin-C-based eGFR avoids the creatinine confound.

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We default to deferring: discuss with the patient's nephrologist before initiating. The literature in healthy populations doesn't extrapolate cleanly to compromised renal function, and serum creatinine elevations from supplementation can confound monitoring. For stage 1 with stable function and no other risk factors, baseline + 12-week eGFR and cystatin C are reasonable.

We source micronized creatine monohydrate at >99.9% purity by HPLC. Manufacturing-byproduct specifications include dicyandiamide ≤50 mg/kg, dihydrotriazine <3 mg/kg, and residual creatinine <100 mg/kg. Heavy metals (As, Cd, Pb, Hg) each at <0.1 mg/kg. Every incoming lot is re-verified via third-party ISO 17025 lab, with numerical results published on the lot registry.

Every order is covered by a 30-day guarantee. If you're not satisfied, return it within 30 days of delivery for a refund or replacement — for any reason. Full details are in our Refund Policy.

We ship within the United States. Orders ship from our US fulfillment center within 1 business day.

Yes — every batch is third-party tested, and you can look up the results by lot.

In an NSF- and UL-registered, SQF-certified GMP facility in the US.

We review ingredients rigorously and publish our reasoning in the Formulary — we only sell what we'd take ourselves. Of the ingredients we've reviewed, we've rejected 95%.