Tier 1 — highest

Creatine supplementation for treating symptoms of depression: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Igor Eckert, Júlia Lima, Andressa Amaral Dariva

Br J Nutr 2025 134(11):947-959

Bibliography

PubMed: PMID 41189312
DOI: 10.1017/S0007114525105588
Funding: This research received no specific grant from public, commercial or not-for-profit funding agencies; CAPES Brazil and UFRGS provided institutional access to literature and had no role in the research.
Competing interests: All authors declared no conflicts of interest related to the work.

Study snapshot

Design	Systematic review and random-effects meta-analysis
Model	Human
Sample	11 trials; 1,093 participants
Intervention	Creatine versus placebo in participants with or without depression
Duration	Varied by included trial
Endpoints	Depressive symptom scores; Remission; Treatment response

What the study showed, in plain terms

First quantitative synthesis focused on whether creatine supplementation improves depressive symptoms.

Key findings

The pooled effect suggested a small-to-moderate symptom benefit, but the average change was below a prespecified clinically important threshold, certainty was very low and bias could reduce or eliminate the apparent benefit.

What this study can and cannot tell us

Substantial heterogeneity, very-low-certainty evidence and signals of bias mean the true clinical effect may be trivial or null.

Citation network

Articles citing this research paper

1 article

Biohack Blueprint analyses that reference this study in their evidence base.

Oct 2, 2026 Creatine Brain Benefits: Memory, Cognition, Sleep Loss and What Is Still UncertainCreatine and the brain: evidence for memory, attention, processing speed, older adults and stressed states—plus why recent systematic reviews disagree.Read analysis

Editorial review

Reviewed by the Biohack Blueprint research team

Last verified 02 October 2026

Dr. Khaled Mahmoud, MBBChCritical Care Medicine, Longevity Science & Editorial Direction