Creatine — The Energy Supplement You May Not Have Considered?

Written By Jan Caton

One of the things that has been on my "to-do" list for quite a while is creatine.

There has been a lot of discussion about creatine recently, both on social media and within practitioner circles, so I thought it was time I actually took a closer look at what the research is telling us.

When most of us hear the word creatine, we probably think about the gym, bodybuilding and building muscle.

And that was my initial thought too.

Why would a peri- or post-menopausal woman need creatine if she isn't trying to build big muscles?

But when I started looking into the physiology of creatine, I realised that this is actually a much more interesting story.

Creatine is about energy

Creatine is involved in one of the body's important energy systems.

Our cells use ATP as their immediate energy currency. The problem is that we have a relatively small amount of readily available ATP, so it needs to be continually regenerated.

This is where creatine comes in.

Creatine is stored in the body as phosphocreatine, which acts as a rapidly available reservoir that helps regenerate ATP when energy demand increases.

And this isn't happening only in our muscles.

The creatine-phosphocreatine system is involved in cellular energy metabolism throughout the body, including tissues with high energy demands such as the brain and skeletal muscle.

This is one of the reasons creatine has become so interesting in women's health.

Research suggests that hormonal changes across the female lifespan, including menopause, may affect aspects of creatine metabolism and the creatine energy system.

So could creatine help with energy and fatigue?

This is the part that really caught my attention.

Fatigue is incredibly common around perimenopause and menopause.

And while we often think about fatigue in terms of sleep, stress, hormones, iron or thyroid function, another question is:

How well are our cells actually producing and managing energy?

Creatine doesn't provide energy in the same way that caffeine does, and I wouldn't describe it as a stimulant.

Instead, it helps support the body's ATP-phosphocreatine energy system.

There is emerging evidence that creatine may have benefits beyond exercise performance, including potential effects on cognitive function, brain energy, mood and fatigue. However, this is still an emerging area of research, and we don't yet have enough evidence to say that creatine will definitely improve fatigue in every peri- or post-menopausal woman.

But I find the potential really interesting.

And then there is muscle...

Of course, we can't completely ignore muscle.

As we age, maintaining muscle mass and strength becomes increasingly important, and creatine has some very good evidence behind it in this area.

But I don't think we need to think about creatine as something that is just for building muscle.

It may be more useful to think about it as supporting one of the body's fundamental energy systems — with potential benefits for muscle, brain and overall physical function.

And for women in midlife and beyond, that makes it particularly interesting.

How much do you actually need?

This is where I found quite a bit of confusion online.

The research generally uses either a loading protocol or a lower daily dose.

A loading protocol is usually around 20 g per day, divided into smaller doses, for 5–7 days, followed by a maintenance dose of around 3–5 g per day.

But you don't actually need to do a loading phase.

Taking around 3–5 g of creatine monohydrate every day will gradually increase creatine stores in the body, although it takes several weeks rather than several days.

For what I'm interested in — supporting cellular energy and potentially the broader effects of creatine during and after menopause — I'm more interested in a consistent daily dose rather than taking a large loading dose.

The research into women also suggests that creatine metabolism may change across the female lifespan, including around menopause, which is one of the reasons this nutrient has become increasingly interesting from a women's health perspective.

What about digestive upset?

Some people do experience bloating, nausea or gastrointestinal discomfort when taking creatine, particularly with larger doses.

This is one reason I like the idea of starting conservatively rather than jumping straight into a loading protocol.

There is also discussion around the purity and manufacturing process of creatine products. Most recommendations and research is for creatine monohydrate

Creatine and exercise — you still need to use the energy

There is another important piece of the puzzle here: creatine isn't a replacement for exercise.

If we are interested in creatine for healthy ageing, I think it makes much more sense to consider it alongside resistance training, rather than as a supplement that works independently of what we do physically.

Resistance training provides the stimulus for our muscles to adapt. Creatine can then help support the energy demands of that training by increasing the availability of phosphocreatine for rapid ATP regeneration.

And the research in postmenopausal women supports this combination.

A 2026 systematic review and meta-analysis of seven randomised controlled trials involving 608 postmenopausal women found that creatine supplementation was associated with small increases in lean mass and improvements in leg-press strength. Importantly, the benefits were most evident when creatine was combined with resistance training, whereas creatine without a training stimulus did not produce the same measurable effects.

This is why I don't see creatine as a "take this and you'll build muscle" supplement.

And this matters particularly during and after menopause.

Declining oestrogen is associated with changes in body composition, including an increased tendency towards loss of muscle mass and strength. Resistance training is one of the most important tools we have for counteracting this.

So if you're considering creatine, I would also ask:

Are you giving your muscles a reason to use it?

That doesn't necessarily mean going to the gym and lifting enormous weights.

Resistance training can include weights, machines, resistance bands, bodyweight exercises or other forms of progressive resistance. The important thing is that the muscles are being challenged and progressively loaded over time.

We're looking at ways to support cellular energy, exercise capacity, muscle strength and physical resilience as we age.

So I'm going to try it...

This is why I decided to experiment with creatine myself.

I've ordered some clinical-grade creatine monohydrate, and I'm going to take it consistently and see what happens.

I'm particularly interested in whether I notice any changes in energy, fatigue, exercise capacity, recovery or mental clarity.

Of course, my experience will only ever be an experiment of one — it isn't scientific evidence.

But I think this is a really interesting area of women's health research, and I'll report back and let you know what I notice.

Because perhaps creatine isn't just a gym supplement after all.

Perhaps it is a cellular energy supplement that happens to have some very useful effects on muscle as well.

References

Jan Caton
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