{"id":861172,"date":"2026-08-19T19:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T19:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/861172\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T19:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T19:50:11","slug":"does-creatine-cause-hair-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/861172\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Creatine Cause Hair Loss?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you spend any amount of time in a gym, you\u2019ve likely heard about creatine<\/a>. I\u2019d even bet good money that you\u2019re already taking it<\/a>. Alongside protein powder<\/a>, it\u2019s become the fitness buff\u2019s favorite supplement. And for good reason<\/a>: it can help you build muscle, get stronger<\/a>, and squeeze more out of your workouts. Recent research has looked at its potential beyond the gym, too, like counteracting stress and a poor night\u2019s sleep<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a nutshell, taking creatine could leave you with more muscle, more strength, and maybe even a sharper brain. It sounds like a W across the board\u2014until you hear the rumor about your hair.<\/p>\n

According to Reddit<\/a> and locker-room lore, creatine could elevate levels of a hormone implicated in androgenetic alopecia (aka pattern baldness<\/a>). But where\u2019d this rumor come from, is there any merit to it, and does creatine actually cause hair loss? Here\u2019s what to know before you kiss that white powder (and its promising gains) goodbye.<\/p>\n

Where the rumor started<\/p>\n

The idea that creatine could trigger hair loss found its footing with a 2009 study<\/a> of 20 rugby players in South Africa. Participants who did a weeklong loading phase of 25 grams of creatine per day saw their dihydrotestosterone (DHT) levels rise 56 percent. After two more weeks of five-gram daily dosing, they were still 40 percent above baseline.<\/p>\n

Unfamiliar with DHT? It\u2019s a hormone made from testosterone. According to James Kilgour, MD, a board-certified dermatologist and the founder and CEO of KilgourMD<\/a>, DHT can bind to receptors in certain hair follicles and gradually shrink them, producing finer, shorter hairs over time\u2014namely in people genetically susceptible to male-pattern hair loss.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat the study really said was, \u2018We saw DHT go up.\u2019 What people heard was, \u2018Creatine makes your hair fall out,\u2019\u201d says Ken Anderson, MD<\/a>, a triple board-certified hair restoration surgeon and adjunct clinical professor of dermatology at Emory University School of Medicine. Yet the research has a few important nuances that warrant a closer look.<\/p>\n

Yes, DHT went up\u2014but it remained within the normal range in every participant. And more DHT doesn\u2019t automatically mean you\u2019re bound to go bald. \u201cDHT is a normal hormone that is present in all men, and simply having a high level of it does not mean someone will lose their hair,\u201d says Dr. Anderson. \u201cThe key is whether your hair follicles are genetically sensitive to it.\u201d Plus, while DHT is an important piece of the puzzle for pattern hair loss<\/a>, it\u2019s far from the only contributing factor.<\/p>\n

Most important is the fact that this study didn\u2019t even look at hair. Like, not at all\u2014which is kind of crazy considering the fear that stemmed from it. In plain English, the study that launched thousands of \u201cDoes creatine make you bald?\u201d searches looked at hormones but not shedding, density, thickness, or any other physical marker of hair health.<\/p>\n

Okay, so what about the hair?<\/p>\n

Fast forward 16 years, and researchers finally asked the question the original study never did: Does creatine actually affect hair?<\/p>\n

In a randomized controlled trial<\/a> published in 2025, researchers recruited 45 resistance-trained men ages 18 to 40; 38 completed the study. Participants took either five grams of creatine a day or five grams of a placebo. After 12 weeks, the researchers found no significant differences in DHT levels or parameters of hair health\u2014including hair density, follicular unit count, or hair thickness\u2014between the two groups.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe study doesn\u2019t prove that creatine could never affect hair in any person over many years,\u201d says Dr. Anderson, \u201cbut it is much more directly relevant to the question than the 2009 rugby study because it actually measured hair. So based on the evidence we have today, I don\u2019t think there\u2019s good clinical evidence that creatine causes or accelerates hair loss.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you spend any amount of time in a gym, you\u2019ve likely heard about creatine. I\u2019d even bet…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":861173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[64,63,538,14965,137,64099,532],"class_list":["post-861172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nutrition","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fitness","tag-haircare","tag-health","tag-life-advice","tag-nutrition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=861172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/861173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=861172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=861172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=861172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}