This metamorphosis was key topic at the recent Sports & Active Nutrition Summit in San Diego, which brought together not only some of the leading researchers in the space but the man who introduced creatine to market nearly three decades ago. On the agenda: an evolution that positions creatine as a foundational nutrient across health categories and the lifespan.
Presenting on the state of the active nutrition market, Scott Dicker, senior director of market insights at research firm SPINS, said that he expects creatine sales to continue to grow if nothing gets in its way.
“The number one thing I always look at for what ingredient is going to really take off is an established ingredient that finds new demographics or new health focuses,” he explained. “Creatine, check, check, check. It’s expanded to women, it’s expanded to older generations, and they’re studying it for things like brain health, among other things.”
According to SPINS data, creatine dollar sales across U.S. conventional multi-outlet and enhanced natural channels in the performance nutrition category grew 48.9 % year on year, up from $61.6 million to $91.7 million for the 52 weeks leading up to Feb. 12.
Tip of the iceberg for creatine applications
Discussions on where the research is headed made it clear that the tried-and-true muscle benefits of creatine supplementation are “just the tip of the iceberg”, as noted by Donald Miller, PhD, of the University of Manitoba, during a panel that explored emerging benefits, dosing strategies and forms.
A non-essential nutrient, creatine is produced naturally in the body by three main amino acids—arginine, methionine and glycine. It is also found in the diet in foods such as meat, eggs and fish.
Creatine established itself as a go-to ergogenic aid in the sports nutrition space soon after Roger Harris and his colleagues published the seminal study on creatine loading in 1992. The discovery suggested the supplement could significantly increase muscle creatine content and enhance performance.
It is only within the last few years, however, that science and perhaps more so TikTok have begun to expand awareness of a growing series of benefits into the white space beyond the gym and field.
“We have done so many studies on creatine and all of a sudden, it’s booming again,” said longtime creatine researcher Ralf Jäger, managing member of industry consultancy Increnovo, during his presentation on recovery in athletes. “After 20 years, what happened? All the studies we have done since—someone finally read them? No. What happened is TikTok.”
As example, he cited messaging around creatine’s ability to boost glute size in women when combined with squats, which went viral on the platform and accelerated creatine’s reach to a whole new demographic. Abbie Smith-Ryan, PhD, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, also touched on the differential targets for creatine supplementation in women as it relates to cognition, lean body mass and the menstrual cycle during her presentation on leveraging science for female-specific formulations.
In the summit’s creatine sessions, Darren Candow, PhD, of the University of Regina, and Scott Forbes, PhD, of Brandon University, delved into the emerging and growing body of research into the effects of creatine supplementation on bone and brain function, dosing protocols and the efficacy of different types of creatine.
Papers published by their group and others within the last few years have advanced research in women, tactical athletes, older adults and even infants across health focuses spanning cognition and memory, brain injury sleep deprivation, postmenopausal bone structure and immune support.
Dr. Forbes affirmed that while creatine monohydrate is still king, alternative forms like hydrochloride are also efficacious as reported in a recently published study, and evidence for others is still emerging.
Return of the man who brought creatine to market
During a fireside chat at the summit, Steve Jennings, who uses the handle @creatineOG, revived the 30-year-old-story about how creatine came to market through his Maxim sports nutrition company. It all started with a call on March 3, 1992, when Dr. Harris and his colleague Dr. Eric Hultman recruited him to create and secure approval for a creatine product in 120 days and integrate it into Maxim’s existing involvement in the nutrition strategy of the British Olympic team.
“What Roger knew was that there was the potential—if the athletes followed the protocol and it was managed correctly—to achieve a 1% to 3% performance improvement,” Jennings said. “At the Olympic level, the improvements that you’re aiming for when it comes to marginal gains are zero ones of a percent to win gold.”
By day 47, Jennings had a product developed with a local pharmaceutical lab. While the effervescent creatine-powered, ErgoMax-branded tablets were kept under wraps during the 20-gram loading period leading up to the games, creatine went public when investigative reporter Doug Gillon published his article in The Herald Scotland on July 27, 1992. Jennings calls this the plot twist that changed everything.
“In secret trials over the past few months, the product has been code-named C-150,” Gillon wrote. “Scientific papers, the culmination of research which began 20 years ago, will be published within weeks and, if the claims advanced are true, then sport may never be the same again.”
In that same article, Dr. Harris previewed other papers in the pipeline showing the potential of creatine for improving the quality of life of older adults.
“We did not start out seeking to help sportsmen and women,” he told Gillon. “There are dramatic implications for improving the quality of life of a 70- or 80-year-old—although I am not saying it will turn them into 100-meter sprinters.‘’
After the British team went on to win five gold medals, creatine sales exploded for Maxim and led Jennings to a successful exit in September 1999. Now, at age 64 after ventures in health tech and the internet, he is back to unlock Creatine 2.0. His new nutrition company Yeu is on the verge of launching a “daily cellular energy formula that supports lifelong vitality from the inside out.”
“The main focus of our current work is finalizing the stabilization of creatine monohydrate in various liquid solutions and foods that contain moisture,” he told NutraIngredients. “Over the past 30 years, this has proven to be an almost impossible technical challenge to overcome. Together with our partners, we are well on our way to solving this problem and are aiming to make an announcement about this in September or October of this year.”
The creatine 2.0 ‘moonshot’ mission, he said, is to update the creatine infrastructure and ecosystem through a collaborative industry initiative to grow the number of creatine consumers from an estimated 35 million today to 1 billion by 2035.
