Creatine, blood sugar and diabetes: what the evidence shows
What it found
Creatine may help blood sugar control, especially when combined with exercise, but the authors say the evidence is still speculative and based on small, short studies.
What they found
Studies in people
Creatine alone in people
In healthy people, creatine alone had mixed effects on blood sugar and glycogen. One small study in type 2 diabetes patients found creatine was as effective as metformin at lowering blood sugar, but other studies found no change in insulin sensitivity.
Creatine plus exercise in people
A small trial in type 2 diabetes patients found that creatine with exercise training reduced glycated hemoglobin and blood sugar after a meal. But a later trial in older adults found no improvement in insulin resistance.
Muscle glucose transport
Creatine plus exercise increased a key protein that moves glucose into muscle cells in some human studies. This may help explain the blood sugar improvements seen when the two are combined.
Animal and lab studies
Blood sugar in animals
In some animal models, creatine improved blood sugar and insulin sensitivity, but in others it made hyperglycemia worse. The authors say these conflicting results are hard to interpret because responses vary by species and model.
Studies in people and animals
Insulin secretion in lab tests
In lab tests, creatine stimulated insulin secretion from isolated rat pancreas, mouse islets and insulinoma cells. But human studies in healthy and type 2 diabetes adults did not show increased insulin secretion.
What the authors conclude
“Although preliminary findings from small-scale trials involving patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus are promising, the efficacy of creatine for improving glycemic control is yet to be confirmed.”
Also in their conclusions
- They say creatine supplementation has the potential to promote changes in glucose metabolism that may favor a healthier metabolic profile, especially when exercise training is provided along with it.
- They state that evidence supporting the role of creatine on glucose metabolism remains speculative and that further large, longer-term, controlled trials are necessary to draw firm conclusions on the efficacy and safety of creatine as an anti-diabetic intervention.
- They advise that new investigations are needed to unravel the mechanisms by which creatine, with or without training, could regulate glucose control.
How it was done
The authors wanted to explore whether creatine supplementation could help manage blood sugar and be a potential anti-diabetic intervention, given the growing burden of type 2 diabetes and preliminary evidence from animal and human studies.
They reviewed existing studies on creatine supplementation and glucose metabolism, including animal experiments and human trials, some with exercise training, in healthy people, insulin-resistant people and those with type 2 diabetes.
What it can’t tell you
- Most of the human trials were small and short, so they cannot show whether creatine works over the long term or in different groups of people with diabetes.
- The animal results cannot be directly applied to people because creatine responses vary greatly between species and experimental models.
- The review cannot confirm whether creatine is safe or effective as a diabetes treatment because the evidence is still preliminary.
Who paid
- Conflicts
- BG has received research grants, creatine donation for scientific studies, travel support for participation in scientific conferences and honorarium for speaking at lectures from AlzChem (a company which manufactures creatine). Additionally, he serves as a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for Alzchem. The others have no conflict of interests.
- Authors work at
- University of Sao Paulo, Brazil
The paper
- Title
- Potential of Creatine in Glucose Management and Diabetes
- Type
- ReviewThe authors read earlier studies and describe what they found. It isn’t a new study.
- Evidence
- Studies in people · animals · lab
- Summarised from
- Full text
- Licence
- CC BY. Words in quotation marks are the authors’; the rest is our summary.
- Cite
- Solis MY, Artioli GG, Gualano B (2021). Potential of Creatine in Glucose Management and Diabetes. Nutrients. doi:10.3390/nu13020570Free full textPubMed 33572228DOI
Summary written 29 Sep 2026. Check it against the paper before it changes what you eat. How we summarise papers · Report an error