Does creatine make you smarter?

肌酸能让你变聪明吗？

dynomight · Jul 2026 · science health dynomight · 2026年7月 · 科学健康

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. 肌酸是一种奇怪的类固醇激素或药物吗？不是。肌酸是一种营养物质。大多数杂食动物每天通过肉类摄入一到两克肌酸。你的身体每天也会合成一到两克。你需要肌酸来为细胞内部输送能量。它是正常的，并不奇怪。

Does creatine increase testosterone? Unlikely. This concern comes from one study in 2009 on 16 male rugby players. 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. 肌酸会增加睾酮水平吗？不太可能。这种担忧源于2009年一项针对16名男性橄榄球运动员的研究。但该研究被认为极其可疑。至少有十二项其他研究发现，肌酸要么不会导致睾酮变化，要么变化在生理上无关紧要。此外，肌酸会增加睾酮的说法在逻辑上站不住脚，因为我们了解肌酸的作用机制，它与激素毫无关系。

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 study. But that study is contradicted by later research, and anyway didn’t measure hair. Anything is possible, but as far as I can tell, it’s equally plausible that creatine would increase hair growth. And if you’re really worried about this: Are you going to stop eating meat? 肌酸会导致脱发吗？不会。或者更准确地说：没有任何研究报告过这种情况。甚至有一项研究得出了相反的结论。从机制上讲，没有任何理由认为它会导致脱发。相反，有充分的机制理由认为它不会。这些谣言都源于对那项2009年单一研究的推测。但该研究已被后续研究反驳，而且它根本没有测量头发数据。虽然一切皆有可能，但据我所知，肌酸促进头发生长的可能性同样存在。如果你真的担心这一点：那你打算停止吃肉吗？

Is creatine safe? Probably. The International Society of Sports Nutrition says: Available short and long-term studies in healthy and diseased populations, from infants to the elderly, at dosages ranging from 0.3 to 0.8 g/kg/day for up to 5 years have consistently shown that creatine supplementation poses no adverse health risks and may provide a number of health and performance benefits. It’s been studied extensively, and no risks have been found. The way it works doesn’t suggest any risks. And supplementing a few grams per day doesn’t put you far outside the range that people get from normal food. 肌酸安全吗？大概率是安全的。国际运动营养学会表示：针对健康人群和患病人群（从婴儿到老年人）的现有短期和长期研究表明，在每天0.3至0.8克/公斤的剂量下，持续使用长达5年，肌酸补充剂不会带来任何健康风险，并可能提供多种健康和运动表现方面的益处。它已被广泛研究，未发现任何风险。其作用机制也不存在任何风险。每天补充几克肌酸，并不会让你超出从正常食物中摄入的范围。

Does creatine make you stronger? Yes. It’s very rare for a supplement to have such strong and consistent evidence. A widely-cited review says that short-term supplementation increases maximal power/strength by 5-15%. This in turn may increase the long-term gainz from strength-training exercise. Creatine also increases sprint performance by 1-5%. Though, there seems to be little if any benefit for endurance exercise like long-distance running. 肌酸能让你变得更强壮吗？是的。很少有补充剂拥有如此强大且一致的证据支持。一项被广泛引用的综述指出，短期补充肌酸可使最大功率/力量提高5-15%。这反过来可能会增加力量训练的长期收益。肌酸还能将短跑表现提高1-5%。不过，对于长跑等耐力运动，它似乎几乎没有益处。

But how does creatine make you stronger? Before answering that, can I go on a rant about how muscles work? …OK? Great! Here’s how muscles work: All cells have a molecule called ATP floating around inside, which they use for energy. Muscle cells have proteins in them called myosin. When ATP bumps into myosin, the myosin breaks the ATP down into ADP. This releases energy which is physically captured by the myosin as elastic strain. When triggered by neurons, myosin releases that mechanical energy. When you decide to move your arm, your brain triggers many muscle cells, carefully orchestrating the myosin twitches into large-scale movement. 但肌酸是如何让你变强壮的呢？在回答这个问题之前，我能先唠叨一下肌肉的工作原理吗？……可以吗？太好了！肌肉的工作原理如下：所有细胞内部都漂浮着一种叫做ATP的分子，它们用它来获取能量。肌肉细胞中含有被称为肌球蛋白的蛋白质。当ATP与肌球蛋白碰撞时，肌球蛋白会将ATP分解为ADP。这会释放能量，并以弹性应变的形式被肌球蛋白物理捕获。当受到神经元触发时，肌球蛋白会释放这种机械能。当你决定移动手臂时，大脑会触发许多肌肉细胞，精心协调肌球蛋白的抽动，从而产生大规模的运动。

Now, here’s something that’s crucial for our story: Very little energy is stored as ATP. Your body contains ~100 grams of ATP, representing ~10,000 joules of energy. But your body at rest burns ~100 watts. So you only store enough ATP to keep yourself alive for ~100 seconds. If you sprint, you could easily burn ~3000 watts, which would use all your stored ATP in ~3 seconds. Through the magic of eating, you’re always making more ATP. Typically, your mitochondria recycle ~1 gram of ADP back into ATP per second, the same amount you need to stay alive. But it takes a minute or two for your mitochondria to really get cranking. 现在，有一个对我们的故事至关重要的事实：以ATP形式储存的能量非常少。你的身体含有约100克ATP，代表约10,000焦耳的能量。但你的身体在静止时消耗约100瓦的功率。因此，你储存的ATP仅够维持生命约100秒。如果你进行短跑，很容易消耗约3000瓦的功率，这会在约3秒内耗尽你储存的所有ATP。通过进食的魔力，你一直在制造更多的ATP。通常，你的线粒体每秒回收约1克ADP转化为ATP，这正是你维持生命所需的量。但线粒体需要一两分钟才能真正全速运转。

So then why am I able to sprint for longer than three seconds? Because creatine acts as an additional energy reservoir, coupled to the ATP reservoir. After you eat or synthesize creatine, 60% is converted into phosphocreatine. This is done by an enzyme that grabs a creatine molecule and an ATP molecule and moves a phosphate group between them. This “charges” the creatine into phosphocreatine and “discharges” the ATP into ADP. But if your ATP levels drop—e.g. because you’re running away from a tiger—those enzymes will run in reverse, meaning they “discharge” phosphocreatine into creatine and “charge” ADP back into ATP. This happens almost instantly, so that ATP and phosphocreatine deplete at the same rate. At rest, your muscles contain around 3-4 times as much phosphocreatine as ATP. So the “extra” energy storage in phosphocreatine is much larger than the “base” storage in ATP itself. That’s why you can sprint for ten seconds rather than just three seconds. 那么，为什么我能冲刺超过三秒呢？因为肌酸充当了额外的能量库，与ATP库相连。在你摄入或合成肌酸后，60%会转化为磷酸肌酸。这是通过一种酶来实现的，它抓住一个肌酸分子和一个ATP分子，并在它们之间转移一个磷酸基团。这会将肌酸“充电”为磷酸肌酸，并将ATP“放电”为ADP。但如果你的ATP水平下降——例如当你正在逃离老虎时——这些酶会反向运行，这意味着它们将磷酸肌酸“放电”为肌酸，并将ADP“充电”回ATP。这个过程几乎是瞬间发生的，因此ATP和磷酸肌酸以相同的速度消耗。在静止状态下，肌肉中磷酸肌酸的含量约为ATP的3-4倍。因此，磷酸肌酸中的“额外”能量储备远大于ATP本身的“基础”储备。这就是为什么你能冲刺十秒而不是仅仅三秒的原因。

Does supplementing creatine increase creatine levels in muscle cells? Yes. Typical levels are: Vegetarian: 100 mmol / kg; Omnivore: 120 mmol / kg; Someone who supplements creatine: 140 mmol / kg. So, everything seems to add up. If you supplement creatine, you increase your levels by ~16.67%, implying ~12.5% more total short-term energy storage. That’s in line with the 5-15% increase in strength seen in creatine trials. It also seems to make sense that creatine trials find little benefit for endurance exercise. If you don’t have sudden bursts of activity, a larger short-term energy reservoir won’t really help you. 补充肌酸会增加肌肉细胞中的肌酸水平吗？是的。典型水平为：素食者：100 mmol/kg；杂食者：120 mmol/kg；补充肌酸者：140 mmol/kg。所以，一切似乎都吻合。如果你补充肌酸，你的水平会增加约16.67%，这意味着总短期能量储备增加了约12.5%。这与肌酸试验中观察到的5-15%的力量增长相符。肌酸试验发现其对耐力运动几乎没有益处，这也说得通。如果你没有突然的爆发性活动，更大的短期能量储备并不会真正帮到你。

But isn’t this all very strange? Well, I find it strange. All else equal, more strength is good. The body already knows how to make creatine. If you can just raise creatine levels and get more strength with no downsides, then shouldn’t evolution have done this already? Some variant of the Algernon argument would suggest that the fact that creatine works so well should be impossible. You might think that higher creatine levels are bad somehow, and that’s why evolution didn’t make them higher. But that seems wrong. Creatine levels vary naturally based on what you eat. If higher levels were bad, evolution could have… 但这难道不奇怪吗？嗯，我觉得很奇怪。在其他条件相同的情况下，更强的力量是好事。身体已经知道如何制造肌酸。如果仅仅通过提高肌酸水平就能获得更强的力量且没有副作用，那么进化难道不应该早就这样做了吗？“阿尔吉侬论点”（Algernon argument）的某种变体可能会暗示，肌酸效果如此之好这一事实本身是不可能的。你可能会认为更高的肌酸水平在某种程度上是有害的，所以进化才没有让它们更高。但这似乎是错误的。肌酸水平会根据你的饮食自然波动。如果更高的水平有害，进化本可以……