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New Study Shows Creatine Intake My Lower Your Cancer Risk
Creatine is most recognized as a sports supplement. And while it helps everyone (not just athletes) build muscle mass, strength, and cognitive resilience, its benefits extend beyond physical and mental performance.
Creatine also has some anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties and even plays a role in immune regulation. Because of these effects, there’s been interest in whether the compound has a protective effect on cancer.
Researchers of a newly published study in Frontiers in Nutrition were the first to investigate the relationship between creatine, cancer, age, and cancer risk1 in the U.S. Here’s what you need to know.
About the study
The researchers had three clear goals for the study:
- Assess the prevalence of cancer in U.S. adults based on creatine intake
- Analyze links between typical daily creatine intake from food and cancer risk
- See how sex, age, and BMI may affect this association
Now, creatine intake was estimated based on the amount people consumed naturally in their diet—not from supplements. All mammals store creatine in their muscles. So when we eat meat, poultry, and seafood, we’re also ingesting some creatine.
Based on the participants' typical diet, the researchers were able to calculate the typical daily dietary intake for each participant. Participants also recorded whether they’ve ever been diagnosed with cancer or with having a cancerous tumor.
Overall, data from 25,879 participants were included in the final analysis.
What does typical dietary creatine intake look like?
After analyzing everyone's diet, researchers divided folks into four different groups with an average intake of:
- Lowest intake: 0-0.054 grams (little to no meat or fish)
- Low: 0.08 grams (equivalent to a few bites of meat per day)
- Moderate: 0.13 grams (roughly one ounce of meat or fish daily)
- Highest: 0.24 grams (About 2-3 ounces of meat or fish daily)
For reference, a science-backed dose of creatine supplements ranges from 3 to 5 grams of creatine monohydrate daily (sometimes even up to 10).
The link between age, creatine, & cancer risk
This study found a lot of unique insights, so let’s review the most important ones.
- Higher creatine intake = lower cancer risk: People who ate more dietary creatine had a 5% lower risk of cancer for every meaningful increase in intake or the nutrient—even after accounting for factors like age and health conditions.
- People aged 52 and older saw the biggest benefits: In this group, those with the highest creatine intake had a 14% lower cancer risk.
- Men seemed to benefit more than women: For every 0.09-gram increase in creatine, men had a 7% drop in cancer risk (that was just a 2.2% drop in risk when accounting for all participants.
- BMI impacted results: People with overweight saw an 8% decrease in cancer risk with more creatine, whereas underweight individuals actually seem to have a higher risk (possibly due to malnutrition or weakened immunity outweighing the potential benefits.
Overall, higher dietary creatine intake—mainly from meat—was associated with lower cancer risk—especially for older adults.
Why might creatine be protective?
Researchers speculate that creatine may be protective of cancer by lowering inflammation, supporting immune function, and interfering with cancer-friendly signaling pathways.
And it’s important to note that the benefits we listed above were specifically linked to creatine. So while eating adequate amounts of protein is beneficial for healthy aging and intake of fish also comes with healthy omega-3 fats, creatine itself could have unique effects.
What about creatine supplements?
Again, this study only accounted for creatine intake from the diet, not supplements, so we can’t make any assumptions about these powders and cancer risk.
What we do know about creatine (and we know a lot because it’s the most researched supplement) is that it’s the most effective way to saturate your body’s creatine stores—which promotes building muscle and strength in combination with strength training.
Low muscle mass is linked to an increased risk of cancer—so building lean mass and exercising2 are two other lifestyle habits that can help reduce your risk.
How to get more creatine
Getting more protein means including more seafood, meat, and poultry into your diet (these are the 10 types with the highest amount of protein).
If you follow a vegan or vegetarian diet or want the fitness and cognitive boost of creatine supplements, then opting for a high-quality creatine powder is the way to go. These are our 5 favorite brands.
The takeaway
This is one of the first large-scale studies to examine creatine intake and cancer risk. It’s a promising start and hopefully future studies will look at dietary and supplemental intake on cancer risk over time for a comprehensive analysis.
For more on how creatine helps you get your health back on track, check out this guide.
