Safety of creatine supplementation: analysis of the prevalence of reported side effects in clinical trials and adverse event reports.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Individual studies have indicated that creatine supplementation is generally well tolerated and not associated with clinically significant side effects. Nevertheless, anecdotal reports about side effects persist primarily from popular and social media and on the Internet.

Methods

This study evaluated side effects reported from 685 human clinical trials on creatine supplementation, worldwide adverse event report (AER) databases, and performed a social media sentiment analysis. The presence of side effects (No, Yes) in studies was evaluated using chi-squared analysis. The frequency of side effects among study participants was evaluated using a multivariate analysis of variance.

Results

A total of 13,452 participants in 652 studies ingested placebos (PLA), whi

SUBMITTER: Kreider RB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11983583 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature