Does creatine cause hair loss in women? Where the rumor came from

How a study about rugby players ended up on your feed

Of all the creatine worries, this one has the strangest origin story. In 2009, researchers gave creatine to 20 college rugby players for three weeks and measured their hormones.¹⁰ A hormone called DHT, the one linked to male baldness, went up.¹⁰

Nobody in that study looked at a single hair.

From there, the logic went: DHT causes baldness in men, creatine raised DHT, so creatine causes hair loss. Somewhere along the way “in men” fell off, and the warning landed in women’s comment sections. (A lot of things land there without their fine print.)

What that study really showed

To be fair, the number was real. During a heavy week of 25 g a day, DHT went up by 56%, and after two more weeks at 5 g a day it was still 40% higher than at the start.¹⁰

Now the rest of the story:⁹

• DHT stayed within the normal range.
• The creatine group started with 23% less DHT than the dummy-powder group, which makes a rise look bigger.
• Of 12 other studies on creatine and testosterone, 10 found no change.

A 2021 expert review put it simply: “No study has reported hair loss/baldness in humans.”⁹

The study that finally checked hair

It took sixteen years, but in 2025 someone finally checked. Forty-five men who lifted weights took 5 g of creatine or a dummy powder every day for 12 weeks, and the team measured their hormones and their hair, scalp photos included.¹¹

The result: no difference in DHT, and no difference in how much hair the men had or how thick it was.¹¹ Our favorite detail: testosterone went up in both groups, a little more on the dummy powder.¹¹

Two honest catches: it was one study, and it was in men.

Why DHT matters less for women’s hair

In women, the role of male-type hormones like DHT in hair loss still isn’t fully understood. That’s why doctors dropped the old hormone-based name and now call it female pattern hair loss.⁶

The clues add up. Most women with it don’t have high levels of these hormones. The drugs that block DHT, which work well for men, give “less consistent results” in women. And in two studies, the genes linked to male balding weren’t linked to women’s hair loss.⁶

So even if creatine nudged DHT (and the best study says it didn’t), it would be pulling a weaker lever in women.

No study shows creatine causes hair loss in women. No study has looked. Both of those sentences are true.

So why is my hair thinning?

First, the reassuring part: losing 50 to 100 hairs a day is normal.² Beyond that, the usual suspects are well known:

• Female pattern hair loss is the most common cause in women. It often starts in your 40s to 60s, is more common after menopause, and usually shows up first as a wider part or a thinner ponytail.¹ One review sees a second wave of new cases between 50 and 60,⁶ and hair growth and thickness change around menopause, mostly at the front.⁷
• Shedding after a trigger: childbirth, a high fever, surgery, a stressful stretch, losing 20 or more pounds (9 kg), or stopping the pill. It usually shows up a few months later and settles in about 6-9 months.² After childbirth, it peaks around four months and is usually back to normal by the baby’s first birthday.³
• Other causes: thyroid problems, PCOS, low iron or protein, some medicines, and, ironically, too much vitamin A or selenium from supplements.⁴

That timing matters if you started creatine recently. Shedding trails its trigger by a few months, so last week’s change is rarely the cause. The illness, crash diet or stressful month from last season often is.² In one clinic’s records of 2,851 women with shedding, nearly half (46.5%) had low iron stores.⁸

Worth doingSee a dermatologist instead of guessing. They may order blood tests for things like thyroid and iron, and treatment for female pattern hair loss works best when it starts early.¹⁵

What we don’t know yet

• Hair in women taking creatine: no study has checked it.
• DHT in women taking creatine: not measured. One small report on 15 women found no change in estrogen (estradiol).¹²
• Women already prone to hair loss, or with PCOS: not studied.
• Big doses: the DHT rise came during a 25 g a day week,¹⁰ while the hair study used 5 g a day.¹¹