Does creatine make you smarter?

Is creatine a weird steroid-like hormone or drug? No. Creatine is a nutrient. Most omnivores eat a gram or two per day from meat. Your body also synthesizes a gram or two per day. You need creatine to deliver energy inside of cells. It is normal and non-weird. Does creatine increase testosterone? Unlikely. This concern comes from one study in 2009 on 16 male rugby players.1 But that study is considered extremely suspect. There have been at least twelve other studies that all found no change or physiologically irrelevant changes. Beyond that, it’s implausible that creatine would increase testosterone, because we know what creatine does and it has nothing to do with hormones. Does creatine make you go bald? No. Or, rather: No study ever reported that. One study reported the opposite. There is no mechanistic reason to think that would happen. There are good mechanistic reasons to think that would not happen. These rumors all trace back to speculation built on top of that same single 2009…