“Creatine builds muscle even without training” — over the past month this line has done the rounds of English-language media and Russian biohacking Telegram channels. The source is a randomised trial from Richard Kreider's lab at Texas A&M University (Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, August 2026). Let's see what it actually contains.

What the researchers did

73 sedentary healthy adults aged 45–65; 64 made it to the end of the 12 weeks (40 women, 24 men). Average age 54.5 years, BMI around 30, body fat 36.8%.
Participants chose for themselves whether to join a training-and-diet programme or carry on living as before.
Within each group they were then randomly assigned, double-blind, to creatine monohydrate 2 × 5 g a day or a placebo (maltodextrin).
The programme for the exercisers: strength and aerobic training 3 times a week, walking 10,000 steps 4 days a week and a deficit of 300–500 kcal a day.
Body composition was measured by DXA at weeks 0, 6 and 12, plus strength tests, blood work and cognitive tests.

Final groups: no training — 13 on creatine and 13 on placebo; with training — 20 and 18.

What they found

Lean mass:

no training, creatine: +0.99 kg by week 6 and +1.1 kg by week 12;
no training, placebo: −0.09 and −0.16 kg;
training + creatine: +1.69 and +1.27 kg;
training + placebo: −0.11 and +0.14 kg.

Fat. Body fat percentage fell the most in the “training + creatine” group: −3.24 percentage points by week 12 versus −1.87 in the exercisers on placebo, and the difference was significant. The authors call this the first study in which creatine enhanced fat loss on a diet.

Strength. Creatine without training increased the one-rep max in the leg press and the bench press; versus placebo, only the bench press reached significance. With training, creatine produced significantly bigger gains in the leg press and bench press than placebo, and time to exhaustion in the exercise test increased more. Creatine did not change aerobic measures (peak oxygen uptake) in any group.

Brain and blood tests. The improvements in individual memory tests, HbA1c and lipids are labelled exploratory by the authors themselves: many outcomes were tested without correcting for multiple comparisons.

Why you shouldn't take the headline literally

“Lean mass” on DXA isn't just muscle. The scanner can't tell protein from water. Creatine draws water into muscle cells, and a gain of about a kilogram in the first weeks is a classic. Look at the time course: almost the entire gain without training happened by week 6 (+0.99), and after that just +0.11 kg. That is how water behaves, not protein building. In those training on creatine the picture is similar: +1.69 kg by week 6 and +1.27 kg by week 12. How much of it is “real” muscle is impossible to say without MRI or a biopsy.
13 people each. The most quoted finding rests on two small groups.
Participants decided for themselves whether to train. Only the supplement was randomised, so you can't compare exercisers with non-exercisers — only creatine versus placebo within each group.
A learning effect in strength tests. Untrained people who do a max test three times improve simply from getting familiar with the exercise. The placebo group did the tests too, so what matters is the difference between groups — and that was significant only for the bench press.
A higher-than-usual dose. 10 g a day is 2–3 times the standard 3–5 g.
Conflict of interest. Kreider chairs the scientific advisory board of AlzChem, a company that makes creatine and supplied the product for the study. The work was funded by a private foundation; according to the authors, the sponsors had no role in the analysis.

An unexpected detail: the kidney test

In the exercising group on creatine, blood creatinine rose by 16–18%, and the glomerular filtration rate calculated from it “fell” by 14–20%, while staying within the normal range. This is a known artefact: creatinine is a breakdown product of creatine, and the formula mistakes its rise for a decline in kidney function. Cystatin C, which doesn't depend on creatine, was not measured in the study.

How to apply this

For a runner aged 45+, creatine is a sensible insurance policy for your muscles, especially if you do little strength work. But the weightiest effect in this study was creatine on top of strength training, not creatine on its own.
The standard dose is 3–5 g a day without a loading phase; the 10 g used in the study is not a required threshold.
Be ready for weight gain. In the study, at 10 g a day lean mass rose by almost a kilogram by week 6; at 3–5 g without loading the gain is usually smaller and slower. Extra weight doesn't help a runner on climbs, so it's better not to start two weeks before your key race. What creatine does specifically for endurance athletes is covered in our article on creatine for runners and triathletes, and on worries about hair — here.
Tell your doctor before blood tests. Raised creatinine while taking creatine is expected; if you need an honest assessment of your kidneys, ask for cystatin C. If you have kidney disease, take creatine only after consulting a doctor.
Track body composition over time, not from a single measurement. You can estimate your body fat percentage with the body fat calculator, but remember: water from creatine will land in the “lean” mass there too.

The bottom line

10 g of creatine a day for 12 weeks without training gave people aged 45–65 +1.1 kg of lean mass versus −0.16 kg on placebo.
Almost the entire gain came in the first 6 weeks — which looks like water in the muscles, not just new protein.
The “without training” conclusions rest on 13 + 13 people; the strength effect versus placebo is significant only for the bench press.
On top of strength training and diet, creatine versus placebo gave −3.2 percentage points of body fat instead of −1.9 and a bigger strength gain.
Creatine raises blood creatinine — most likely an artefact rather than kidney damage, but test results need to be interpreted with that in mind.

Source: Chun J., Liu Y., Kibler G.L., Lee H., Babakhani K., Rhoades N., Bivins I., Ko J., Dickerson B., Gonzalez D.E., Sowinski R.J., Rasmussen C.J., Kreider R.B. “Effects of creatine supplementation with and without exercise and diet intervention on body composition, cognitive function, and markers of health in middle-aged and older adults”. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 2026;23(sup1):2716273. DOI: 10.1080/15502783.2026.2716273