Women use creatine differently from men, survey reveals

By Dr. Liji Thomas, MDReviewed by Lauren HardakerSep 10 2026

A large survey of creatine users reveals striking differences in how women approach the supplement, from why they take it to what they know and where they get their information.

Study: Creatine Use Among Women Across Reported Duration-of-Use Groups: A Platform-Based Cross-Sectional Survey of Supplementation Behaviors, Motivations, Knowledge, and Experiences. Image Credit: Savvapanf Photo / Shutterstock

A recent study published in the journal Nutrients found that, within a SuppCo survey sample, women were disproportionately represented in shorter-duration creatine-use groups compared to men. Women were less likely to report athletic performance as a supplementation goal and more likely to report healthy aging as a supplementation goal. Women also had lower overall scores on a five-item creatine knowledge measure, while the gap in self-rated confidence widened at higher knowledge levels.

Background

Creatine is widely used as a dietary supplement in sports, as it increases muscle phosphocreatine stores, facilitating rapid ATP regeneration during periods of high demand. It is also being studied for potential benefits in aging, cognition, and fatigue.

Creatine may also be relevant to women’s health, since females appear to synthesize and consume less creatine than males.

In addition, hormonal fluctuation over the female life course may contribute to further variations in creatine availability and use in women. Estrogen appears to regulate creatine transport and creatine kinase, raising the possibility that creatine availability may vary across reproductive stages, including menopause, as potential effects on muscle, bone, mood, and cognition are being studied.

Previous research has provided limited and inconsistent results, often involving small samples or short follow-up. Such trials provide limited information about how women use creatine in daily life.

With this in mind, a recent cross-sectional survey explored creatine use patterns, including goals, knowledge, and confidence, among women, stratified by duration of use.

Study characteristics

The analysis drew on a large cross-sectional survey conducted via SuppCo, a supplement-tracking and consumer-education platform. The parent survey was distributed through the platform. The paper reports an approximately 2% response rate; about 3,300 users began the survey and 2,233 submitted questionnaires.

The researchers aimed to characterize creatine-use profiles among women by duration of use and compare them with those of men in the same SuppCo study.

The duration-based analysis included a sample of 2,094 current or recent creatine users, including 1,055 women and 1,039 men, with an average age of approximately 53 years.

Participants reported how long they had used creatine, their reasons for taking it, and the sources through which they first learned about creatine. They also completed a five-item knowledge assessment and rated their own confidence in their knowledge, satisfaction with creatine, and intention to continue using it.

The researchers analyzed six ordered duration categories ranging from less than one month of use to three or more years.

Women were concentrated in shorter-duration groups

Across the five categories below, women made up 50% to 64% of respondents, compared to 20% among those with 3+ years of use. They accounted for 63.9% of respondents in the 1-3 month group and 61.5% in the 3-6 month group.

After adjustment for age, the odds of a respondent identifying as a woman were between 3.9 and 7.5 times higher in each of the shorter-duration categories, relative to the 3+ years category.

The pattern remained after age adjustment and was consistent within the three age groups with adequate numbers; the 18-29 and 80+ year groups were too small for reliable comparison.

The reasons for this difference are unknown. The authors suggest that women may have only recently begun using creatine more widely, that women may be less likely to use it long-term, or that misclassification of platform participation, recruitment, selection, or duration could contribute to the pattern. The authors call for prospective studies to identify the reasons underlying the low representation of women in the 3+ year group.

Knowledge scores were higher at longer reported durations

Among women, knowledge scores about creatine were higher among those reporting longer durations of use, mainly because uncertainty was lower, while misconceptions remained fairly steady across categories. That is, women with shorter durations of use were more likely to be unsure about responses rather than holding wrong ideas about creatine.

The association between knowledge score and reported duration remained after adjustment for age, body mass index, and physical activity.

Overall, few women endorsed the measured misconceptions about creatine.

The results are consistent with the gender comparison in the current analysis, in which women were more likely than men to report not knowing what a loading phase was. Men were more likely to report having used a loading phase.

The difference in self-reported confidence increased with knowledge scores. It was not distinguishable from zero at low knowledge scores. At higher scores, confidence increased more strongly among men than women, widening the gender gap. The difference remained modest, at 0.38 points on the 1-5 scale, at the highest knowledge score, which included 67% of the sample.

The authors relate this pattern to a broader gender gap in self-assessed confidence observed at equivalent objective performance, which may be taken at face value without accounting for a tendency to understate confidence.

The authors suggest that this gap between knowledge and confidence may be relevant to how people make decisions about supplementation.

Different goals relative to men

Women and men also differed in their reasons for using creatine.

After adjustment, women were less likely than men to report athletic performance as a supplementation goal, with estimated rates of 37.5% among women and 50.2% among men. Women were more likely to report healthy aging as a reason for using creatine.

The pattern is consistent with interest in creatine extending beyond athletic performance, but the cross-sectional survey cannot establish a change over time.

Women also differed from men in six of the seven sources through which respondents first learned about creatine. Women more often reported podcasts, healthcare providers, and social media, and less often reported YouTube, research articles, and friends or family. These results describe the sources through which respondents first learned about creatine, not the quality, content, or influence of those sources.

A different creatine user profile

Overall, the study provides a picture of midlife women who use creatine and commonly report healthy aging as a goal. This differs from the mostly male participants who have historically dominated creatine research.

“This divergence between the observed pattern of use and the available evidence has potential implications for research priorities and consumer education.”

Limitations

The study has important limitations. It was a cross-sectional survey using a convenience sample of users of a supplement-focused platform. The approximately 2% response rate raises the possibility of nonresponse bias and limits the extent to which the findings can be generalized to creatine users outside supplement-focused platforms.

Self-reported duration of use, goals, knowledge, and experience may have introduced measurement error. The duration question asked about total creatine use and did not establish uninterrupted supplementation, initiation date, adherence, persistence, or retention. The use of single-point measurements precluded identifying why there were differences between groups or establishing causality.

Menstrual, pregnancy, lactation, and menopausal status were not captured, nor were detailed nutrition and training, sociodemographic and economic data, or health literacy data. Gender identity was self-reported, while sex assigned at birth was not measured. The five-item knowledge score was a brief index rather than a validated instrument, and its measurement consistency across women and men was not established. The cohort was mainly midlife and older, limiting extrapolation to younger active women.

Conclusion

Taken together, the findings of this study suggest that men and women in this sample differed in some supplementation goals, information sources, knowledge scores, and the relationship between knowledge and self-rated confidence. Among women, knowledge scores and coach-or-trainer reporting also varied by reported duration.

They also highlight a gap in creatine research. Future research should focus on identifying the goals of creatine use, the expected outcomes, information channels, and the effect of knowledge and confidence on use-related decisions. They should also seek to determine whether initiation timing, persistence, platform participation, or other factors explain the pattern of duration and why it differs by gender.

The study received no external funding, but SuppCo provided the platform and recruitment infrastructure and owns the study dataset. Two authors were SuppCo employees, and two were employed by Function Health.