SubEx

Myth check

The creatine hair-loss worry came from a hormone, not from hair

The worry rests on an older study that loaded 25g a day for a week and measured a hormone. The one trial that looked at hair itself, 12 weeks at 5g, found no difference from placebo.

Creatine

Creatine's most repeated warning is that it raises DHT and thins hair. The evidence for it was a hormone: an older study loaded 25g a day for a week and measured DHT. The trial that finally looked at hair ran 12 weeks at 5g and left resistance-trained men no different from placebo in density, follicle count, thickness or DHT. Twelve weeks is short against a process that takes years, and the 38 men who finished were 18 to 40. The mechanism was real; nobody had checked the scalp.

The findings behind this

1–
Sexual & reproductiveCreatine did not thin the hair of men who took it for 12 weeks

Over 12 weeks, 5g of creatine a day left resistance-trained men no different from placebo in hair density, follicle count, thickness or DHT.

★☆☆Contested — the evidence disagrees with itself, or the finding carries a caution. A caution or conflict always shows one star, however strong the sources are.Conflicting evidenceTwelve weeks is short against a process that takes years, so a slow thinning could begin after the trial ended. The 38 men who finished were all resistance-trained and aged 18 to 40, which leaves everyone else untested. And this was maintenance dosing at 5g a day; the older study that started the worry ran a 25g loading week first.Click to keep this openBalance hormonesCreatine

More on this

All stories →