Can creatine help brain fog? Here's what the studies found

First, what is brain fog?

You walk into the kitchen with total confidence, then stand there holding a spoon with no idea why you came. (In fairness, the kitchen seems designed for this.)

That’s brain fog, and it isn’t a medical diagnosis. The International Menopause Society describes it as a bundle of memory and attention slips: losing words and names, losing your train of thought, getting distracted.¹ On average, women’s test scores still stay in the normal range.¹

The good news most headlines skip

A big US study tested 2,362 midlife women again and again over four years. Usually, people get a little better each time they repeat a test. Late in perimenopause, women stopped getting that boost. After menopause, it came back.²

So for most women, the fog is a phase, not a direction. And dementia in midlife is very rare: about 293 cases per 100,000 women worldwide.¹

That makes the real question smaller: can creatine make that phase easier?

Why would creatine help a brain at all?

Your brain keeps a small quick-energy reserve, made from creatine, for busy moments. So researchers wondered: if you top it up, does a brain under pressure work better?

One surprise: in a brain-scan study, women’s brain creatine shifted across the menstrual cycle, while men’s stayed flat.³ You may have read that women simply have less creatine in their brains. The scan studies don’t consistently show that.³⁴

What happens when you add up all the studies?

This is where it gets more interesting than the supplement aisle would like.

In 2018, a review of 6 studies found creatine “may” help short-term memory and reasoning. Young, healthy people showed no change.⁵

In 2023, a bigger memory review looked like a clear win, especially in adults aged 66 to 76.⁶ Then two researchers spotted a counting mistake: tests from the same people had been counted as separate results. Once the math was redone, the overall benefit was no longer a real difference. The benefit in older adults held up.⁷

A 2024 review found faster thinking in women, from just 4 studies,⁸ but with the same counting problem.⁹ A hint, not an answer.

Then Europe’s food-safety agency looked at 21 studies to decide whether creatine could be sold as good for thinking. Its 2024 answer was no. A memory effect showed up only at 20 g a day for 5 to 7 days, and a cause-and-effect link “has not been established.”¹⁰

Creatine seems to help a brain that's running low: older, short on sleep, or meat-free. A rested 40-year-old brain is a harder sell.

Where it did help: no sleep, no meat

The most famous study kept 15 young adults, 8 of them women, awake for 21 hours. Compared with a dummy powder, one big dose of creatine (about 21 g for a 60 kg, or 132 lb, person) improved their memory by about 10%, and their speed of thinking got faster too. It kicked in after about 3.5 hours and lasted up to 9 hours.¹¹

Impressive, but it was one night in a lab, at a dose nobody takes daily. (Big single doses are also where stomach trouble lives.)

Diet matters too. In 128 young women, five days of creatine improved memory in vegetarians, but not in meat-eaters.¹² In another study, 5 g a day for six weeks helped young vegetarians with memory and reasoning.¹³ And in older adults, one week of high-dose creatine improved most of the memory tasks tested.¹⁴

The long study in women that found nothing

If you read only one study here, make it this one. Fifty-six healthy older women, average age 67, took creatine or a dummy powder for 24 weeks. Some also did strength training. Creatine didn’t change a single thinking test.¹⁵

What did change? Mood got better in the women who lifted, with or without creatine.¹⁵ So the best brain news in that study came from the barbell. (Which, admittedly, is harder to sell in a gummy.)

Menopause and long COVID: small and early

Only one study has tested creatine in women around menopause. Thirty-six women took small doses (under 2 g a day) of a different form of creatine for 8 weeks. The higher dose beat the dummy powder on reaction time, and it raised creatine in the brain.¹⁶ About 9 women per group, for 8 weeks: promising, not proof.

In long COVID, where most patients are women, a 4-week study of 67 people found that 6 g a day eased fatigue, but 18 g a day didn’t. More than 4 in 10 people on the high dose felt nauseous.¹⁷ And nobody measured thinking.

So, should you try creatine for brain fog?

If your fog comes from short nights, a plant-based diet or getting older, creatine has a few promising studies on its side, mostly at higher doses than the usual 3 to 5 g. If it comes from perimenopause, nobody has properly tested it yet.

The things with better backing for menopause brain fog are less exciting: better sleep, treating hot flashes that disrupt your days (they’re linked to memory problems, even apart from sleep), and looking after your mood.¹ That’s worth a chat with your doctor before you buy anything.

What we don’t know yet

• Everyday brain fog in women 30 to 55: no study has tested creatine on it.
• The right dose: the clearest effects came from high doses for a few days, or one big dose.¹⁰¹¹ Whether 3 to 5 g a day helps the brain is unclear.
• Perimenopause: one study of 36 women, with a different form of creatine.¹⁶
• Hot flashes, sleep and mood: creatine hasn’t been tested on any of them.