Creatine for treating muscle disorders
Kley RA, et al
Published in Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
Methodology
Cochrane systematic review and meta-analysis; searches of the Cochrane Neuromuscular Disease Group register, CENTRAL, MEDLINE and EMBASE to September 2012 for randomised or quasi-randomised trials of creatine versus placebo in hereditary muscle disease or idiopathic inflammatory myopathy; duplicate independent selection, quality assessment and extraction with missing data obtained from investigators.
Key Findings
This Cochrane review pooled 14 randomised trials with 364 participants using creatine for muscle disease, with low risk of bias in most studies. In muscular dystrophies, six trials with 192 participants showed a significant increase in muscle strength versus placebo (mean difference 8.47%, 95% CI 3.55 to 13.38), and four trials with 115 participants found many more people felt better on creatine (risk ratio 4.51, 95% CI 2.33 to 8.74). One trial in 37 people with idiopathic inflammatory myopathy showed improved functional performance. In metabolic myopathies, three crossover trials in 33 participants found no strength benefit, and high-dose creatine worsened activities of daily living (mean difference 0.54 on a 1-10 scale) and increased muscle pain in McArdle disease.
Conclusions
Short- and medium-term creatine increases muscle strength in muscular dystrophies and is well tolerated; no MG-specific trials were included.
Limitations
The metabolic myopathy evidence rests on only 33 participants across three crossover trials; no new studies were found at this update and several review authors had been investigators on included creatine trials.
Supplements Studied
High quality evidence from RCTs shows that short- and medium-term creatine treatment increases muscle strength in muscular dystrophies.
Related Health Concerns
Study Details
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