Dietary Creatine and Growth in US Children and Teens
What it found
In a survey of US children and teens, those who ate more creatine from food tended to be taller and heavier.
The study cannot show that creatine causes growth.
What they found
Studies in people
Creatine intake
On average, the children and teens consumed 1.07 grams of creatine per day from food. Intakes ranged from 0 to 8.28 grams per day.
Height and weight
Those who ate the most creatine (1.5 grams or more per day) were taller and heavier than those who ate less. The differences were significant.
Tall stature
Children and teens in the third quarter of creatine intake (0.84 to 1.49 grams per day) were more likely to be tall for their age compared to other groups.
Height increase
Each extra 0.1 gram of creatine per day was linked to a height increase of 0.60 cm in a simple model, or 0.30 cm after adjusting for other factors.
BMI and stature
There was no significant difference in average creatine intake across different height-for-age or BMI-for-age categories.
What the authors conclude
“Our study demonstrated that the daily intake of creatine from a regular diet in taller children and adolescents was higher than those in shorter peers aged 2–19 years.”
Also in their conclusions
- They conclude that taking enough creatine with regular food should be considered to ensure advanced growth in U.S. children and adolescents.
- They advise that future research should monitor changes over time in growth and dietary creatine using objective biomarkers and validate these findings in intervention studies in children.
How it was done
The authors wanted to find out whether creatine eaten in the diet is linked to growth in children and teens, since this had not been studied in a large population before.
They looked at data from 4,291 US children and teens aged 2 to 19 who took part in a national health survey in 2001-2002. They estimated how much creatine each person got from meat-based foods and compared that with their height and weight.
What it can’t tell you
- This was a cross-sectional study, so it can show a link but not that creatine causes growth.
- The study relied on one-day dietary recalls, which may not reflect usual intake.
- The data are from 2001-2002 and may not apply to today's children.
Who paid
- Conflicts
- D.K. and V.S. declare no conflicts of interest. S.M.O. serves as a member of the Scientific Advisory Board on creatine in health and medicine (AlzChem LLC). S.M.O. owns patent “Sports Supplements Based on Liquid Creatine” at European Patent Office (WO2019150323 A1) and active patent application “Synergistic Creatine” at UK Intellectual Property Office (GB2012773.4). S.M.O. has served as a speaker at Abbott Nutrition, a consultant of Allied Beverages Adriatic and IMLEK, and an advisory board member for the University of Novi Sad School of Medicine and has received research funding related to creatine from the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science, and Technological Development, Provincial Secretariat for Higher Education and Scientific Research, AlzChem GmbH, KW Pfannenschmidt GmbH, and ThermoLife International LLC. S.M.O. is an employee of the University of Novi Sad and does not own stocks and shares in any organization. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results.
- Authors work at
- University of Novi Sad, Serbia; University of Pecs, Hungary
The paper
- Title
- Relationship between Dietary Creatine and Growth Indicators in Children and Adolescents Aged 2-19 Years: A Cross-Sectional Study
- Type
- Study
- Evidence
- Studies in people
- Summarised from
- Full text
- Licence
- CC BY. Words in quotation marks are the authors’; the rest is our summary.
- Cite
- Korovljev D, Stajer V, Ostojic SM (2021). Relationship between Dietary Creatine and Growth Indicators in Children and Adolescents Aged 2-19 Years: A Cross-Sectional Study. Nutrients. doi:10.3390/nu13031027Free full textPubMed 33806719DOI
Summary written 29 Sep 2026. Check it against the paper before it changes what you eat. How we summarise papers · Report an error