Perhaps you have a friend or relative who developed Alzheimer’s disease. If so, you already know how challenging and debilitating it can be. Alzheimer’s causes cognitive impairment as it progresses, with an irreversible decline in thinking, reasoning, communication, memory and other related skills. For patients and their loved ones, the results are heartbreaking.
There’s some hopeful news, though. Very recently, initial results of a medical pilot trial involving creatine monohydrate (CrM) produced promising results that could be a breakthrough in fighting Alzheimer’s disease.
More About Alzheimer’s
Alzheimer’s disease is a common cause of dementia, the blanket term for conditions affecting cognition and memory. It accounts for 60% to 80% of dementia cases, with its symptoms progressing as time passes.
Stage 1
The condition is difficult to identify in its early stage, taking the form of mild forgetfulness, an irritating inability to find the word you’re looking for and problems writing clearly. Mild coordination challenges cause mood swings, apathy and bouts of depression.
Stage 2
Trouble comprehending visual imagery and understanding relationships between shapes and objects regularly follows, indicating impaired judgment. From this point, you may encounter problems hiding Alzheimer’s symptoms. Remembering plans, words and names becomes taxing, and you begin to fear social and work settings. You may experience paranoia and find yourself aimlessly wandering, sometimes to the degree that you don’t know where you are.
Stage 3
In Alzheimer’s late stage, confusion, increased disorientation and delusions are commonplace. You might be unable to recollect recent events or experiences and lose familiarity with your surroundings and even loved ones. Eating, sitting and walking unassisted can become impossible, and losing control of your bowel and bladder is commonplace. Vocal communication is near-impossible, and you can’t control your frustration, resulting in violent or aggressive outbursts.
Later Alzheimer’s disease stages are often horrific for patients and those who love them, sometimes causing anxiety and depression among loved ones. Nearly 7 million Americans live with Alzheimer’s, and while certain medications and natural treatments may slow the disease’s progression, by 2050, this figure could rise to almost 13 million nationwide. There remains no cure, but if the recent creatine trial can provide an improved resource to fight Alzheimer’s, there will be many grateful affected families across the United States and beyond.
What Is Creatine?
People often call creatine an amino acid. Although this is technically incorrect, as the 20 amino acids that build proteins don’t include it, your body does make creatine from arginine, glycine and methionine — three true amino acids. You might use Pure Creatine supplements to enhance your athletic performance as a serious athlete. It helps to produce energy quickly and can improve bursts of speed and power over short periods through its relationship with the glucose-releasing glycogen stored in your muscles.
Creatine will hasten muscle recovery after rigorous exercise, and for best results, should be combined with required calories and protein supplements, like our Vanilla Grass-Fed Whey Protein.
Three to 5 grams of creatine daily is enough for active people and helps ward off the gradual natural muscle loss, called sarcopenia, that you might experience after reaching 30. While there’ve been no conclusive previous trials and studies until now, medical opinions have intimated that creatine might boost brain function and fight some neurological diseases.
The Creatine Pilot Trial
The creatine monohydrate pilot trial, investigating creatine’s feasibility and effectiveness on cognition and brain creatine in Alzheimer’s patients, was first published on May 19, 2025. The stand-alone pilot, involving only 20 participants using large 20-gram doses of CrM daily, saw blood drawn from day one to measure patients' compliance, with further samples taken at four weeks and at the trial’s eight-week conclusion.
The study recruited each trial participant through the University of Kansas Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. All the patients, aged between 60 and 90, conformed to the McKhann dementia criteria for Alzheimer’s — updated for the first time in decades in 2011. All patients had to take stable Alzheimer’s medication for at least a month before the study started and required a spouse, family member or close friend’s supportive presence throughout the trial. Of the 20 patients who used the creatine, 19 achieved the compliance target of approximately 80%.
Study compliance required a significant improvement in CrM brain concentrations and marked increases in cognitive functions, including brain fluidity, memory, reading aloud and flanker tests — assessments of whether you have a filter by your ability to suppress inappropriate responses. Due to the low number of test subjects and the pilot’s short eight-week duration, the study encouraged further trials optimizing serum creatine to assess its physiology and better identify compliance.
The effects on cognitive function among the pilot trial’s participants were encouraging, with brain creatine concentration levels increasing in 85% of the participants. The study indicates that preliminary secondary outcome results provide evidence that bioenergetic substances, specifically CrM, may benefit Alzheimer’s disease treatment. However, it recommends taking a cautious attitude toward the results.
Can Creatine Benefit Alzheimer’s Patients?
While the McKhann criterion used in the pilot trial has been the standard for Alzheimer’s diagnosis since its 2011 update, Mayo Clinic Professor of Radiology Clifford R. Jack Jr. released revised Alzheimer’s diagnosis criteria in June 2024. The trial results are cautiously promising in CrM’s favorable treatment of Alzheimer’s, but they exclude these revisions. Future CrM trials would likely consider any relevant revisions, thus providing a more accurate foundation for creatine’s potential benefit in fighting the disease.
While medical professionals seem to agree that you can improve your cognitive ability using creatine, these beliefs remained clinically unproven until recently. Based on the results of this pilot trial alone, there seems to be more clinical proof of creatine’s ability in this area, specifically regarding Alzheimer’s.
Is Creatine an Alzheimer’s Beater?
It’s too early to call creatine an Alzheimer’s beater, but the recent pilot trial remains big news. By substantially increasing the regular daily creatine dosage for Alzheimer’s patients compared to what you’d take as an active person, it seems the study has made some exciting clinical inroads into fighting the disease’s progression. Further scientific studies can now advance this initial knowledge and provide hope to Alzheimer’s patients and their loved ones down the line.
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Author Bio
Jack Shaw is the senior health and fitness writer at Modded as well as a coach and sports enthusiast. For the past 6+ years he's studied and written extensively about how people of all ages and skill levels can stay fit and maintain mental and physical health. In recent years his athletic expertise has been featured in BarBend, TrainHeroic, SimpliFaster and more.