u/cureussoul

I'm not a researcher and the last time I formally studied biology was in high school.

What I am is someone who started taking creatine at the gym, noticed something felt genuinely different, and then found myself completely unable to let go of the question of why.

The gym stuff was obvious and expected. But the thing that actually stopped me in my tracks was when I was going through one of those stretches that I think a lot of people here will recognise immediately — the kind where you wake up already tired and spend the day in a low-grade state of overwhelm.

So, I started taking creatine on those mornings because I'd stumbled across something suggesting it might help under stress. Not sure how credible it was at that time, but at that point, I was taking anything that offered even a theoretical shot at getting through the day in one piece.

Then I noticed something. I was still stressed, still exhausted but I was functioning in a way I hadn't been managing before, like I could hold on just a little longer before the wall showed up.

Then one morning, after maybe four hours of sleep, I took creatine before going to work because I was already stressed and surprisingly, I got through at least until after lunch before I crashed.

That was it. That was the moment I genuinely needed to understand what was happening inside my own body.

So I went looking, and honestly what I found kind of reframed everything I thought I knew about this supplement.

Creatine was never just a gym supplement, and the research on what it actually does to your brain — cognition, mood, how your nervous system handles stress and sleep deprivation — is surprisingly substantial and rigorous, and yet somehow almost completely invisible to most people. I had been taking it for months without knowing any of this, and that genuinely bothered me.

It also left me with a problem I suspect a lot of people on this sub have run into: actually trying to learn about something properly means opening twenty tabs, wading through studies that seem to contradict each other, and eventually abandoning some paper halfway through because you hit a wall of terminology you don't have the background to decode.

There was no single resource I could point someone to and say "read this, it covers everything you need" and I kept waiting around for someone smarter and more qualified than me to write it. They didn't (or I couldn't find)

So I did it myself, and what you're about to read is the result of what I'd conservatively estimate is somewhere north of 2,000 hours (around three months) reading studies, chasing down the sources those studies cited, and doing my best to translate research that was never intended for a general audience. My goal was simple: so that yours takes about three hours instead.

Everything in the guide is grounded in peer-reviewed research. I’m not a scientist, but I read the studies, and I’ve referenced them throughout — summarised in the appendix if you want to go deeper.

When the evidence is strong, I say so. When it’s still developing — the research on creatine and pregnancy, for example, or the exact dose needed for meaningful brain benefits — I say that too. I’d rather tell you where the gaps are than paper over them with confidence I don’t have.

Here is what the guide covers:

Chapter 1 — What creatine actually is, how your body makes and uses it, and why most people aren’t getting enough of it
Chapter 2 — The muscle and strength research: what the numbers from real trials actually show
Chapter 3 — Creatine and healthy aging: why this matters more after 50 than at any other point in life
Chapter 4 — Brain energy: how creatine fuels the most energy-hungry organ in your body
Chapter 5 — Cognitive performance: memory, focus, processing speed, and what happens to your brain under sleep deprivation and stress
Chapter 6 — Mental health: the emerging psychiatric research on creatine and depression
Chapter 7 — Alzheimer’s disease: what the early evidence shows about creatine and the aging brain
Chapter 8 — Cancer and immunity: the unexpected connection between creatine and your immune system’s ability to fight tumours
Chapter 9 — Safety: the most comprehensive analysis ever conducted on a dietary supplement, and what it actually found

Beyond the chapters themselves:

Each chapter ends with a summary of key takeaways so the most important points are always within reach
A glossary defines technical terms for those who want to understand the biology without a science background
A quick-reference dosing table in the appendix lets you find your recommended starting point — by goal, by age, by situation — without re-reading entire chapters
A full research appendix lists the primary papers cited throughout, organised by topic, for anyone who wants to go deeper

Click here to read the guide

Here are some statistics I found that got me contemplating my life

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the average American holds 12.4 different jobs between the ages of 18 and 54. That’s not 12 jobs by choice. Many of those transitions involve layoffs, company closures, and industry shifts entirely outside the worker’s control.
During the COVID-19 pandemic alone, 22 million Americans lost their jobs in a matter of weeks. Because a single external event — one we had absolutely no influence over — wiped out income overnight.
In 2023, the tech industry alone saw over 240,000 layoffs according to Layoffs.fyi, hitting workers at companies once considered among the most stable employers on earth — Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta.

Feels like starting my own thing would be a more stable thing to do than slaving in a job. If my income depends entirely on decisions made by other people, in boardrooms I'll never enter, about market conditions I can’t control, I don't think my job is secure or stable

I saw my parents' savings got wiped out during the covid after years of hard work. Also saw people I know lost their jobs because of technological advancement. Only God knows what will happen next. What feels stable is now getting more and more unstable.

No such thing as a stable job now

Looking for affiliates to help promote my ebook guide about creatine. I'll give you 25% for each purchase

Creatine kept my brain alive through the worst stretch of my work life. I had to understand why. So I spent ~2000 hours reading the research. Here's what I found.