Wondering about creatine?

[rémiaou]

Hey!

I wanted to have your opinions about creatine? Especially about hairloss, do you believe it? Any scientific sources about this?

[JTeller]

Idk about baldness but personally I found creatine to be a huge scam. You do get a bit stronger but you retain a lot of water and look like shit

[kaksoiste222]

Hey!

I wanted to have your opinions about creatine? Especially about hairloss, do you believe it? Any scientific sources about this?

The hair loss concern comes from a single study done on rugby players in South Africa back in 2009. The researchers found that creatine supplementation increased DHT levels by about 40% after a loading phase, and DHT remained elevated by about 25% during the maintenance phase. Since DHT is the hormone primarily responsible for male pattern baldness, this raised concerns about creatine potentially accelerating hair loss in people who are genetically predisposed to it.

But this is literally the only study that has found this effect and multiple attempts to replicate these results have failed to show the same DHT increases. A larger study in 2021 with better controls found no significant change in DHT levels with creatine supplementation. The original South African study also had some methodological issues and a relatively small sample size, from memory.

Also, even if creatine does increase DHT in some people, it doesn't automatically mean hair loss will occur. You need to have the genetic predisposition for DHT sensitivity for it to matter. If you're not genetically prone to male pattern baldness, higher DHT levels won't cause hair loss. If you are genetically prone, you're probably going to lose your hair eventually anyway, and creatine might just accelerate the timeline rather than cause something that wouldn't have happened otherwise.

My take is that if you're already showing signs of male pattern baldness or have a strong family history of it, you might want to be cautious or just not use it at all (I know I wouldn't risk it lol.). If you have no genetic predisposition to hair loss, it's probably not something to worry about. If you're really concerned, you could always try it for a few months and see if you notice any changes. Hair loss from DHT typically takes months to become noticeable, so you'd have time to stop if you saw early signs. But honestly, for most people, the hair loss thing is probably overblown based on the current evidence