The Association Between Creatine Monohydrate Supplementation and Cognitive Performance

The Association Between Creatine Monohydrate Supplementation and Cognitive Performance

BACKGROUND: Cognitive performance plays a crucial role in everyday life. It is essential for all mental processes, including perception, learning, memory, judgment, and intuition. In recent studies, creatine monohydrate supplementation has been said to have some cognitive benefits, although the results are not definitive. Creatine monohydrate is a popular supplement among athletes because of its proven ability to improve athletic performance and recovery. OBJECTIVE: This literature review will look at peer-reviewed studies conducted to see if there is an association between creatine monohydrate supplementation and increases in cognitive performance. METHODS: The articles used in this literature review were identified through a systematic search of databases, including MEDLINE Complete, CINAHL, and Google Scholar. Search terms such as "cognitive performance" and "creatine supplementation" were used. The articles were only included if they were original research articles, peer-reviewed, and published in 2015 or later. After the search criteria were applied, seven studies were included. RESULTS: Six of the seven articles in this review showed a positive association between creatine monohydrate supplementation and increased cognitive performance functions such as memory, reaction time, and processing speed. Five studies included were randomized controlled trials; one was a cohort study, and one was a cross-sectional study. Six studies included participants who were younger adults ranging in age from nineteen to thirty-three years old. One study involved older adults aged sixty years and up. The sample size in five of the studies was relatively small, including only 15-30 participants. Two studies are included with large sample sizes of 123 and 128 participants. CONCLUSION: This literature review provides evidence of a positive association between creatine supplementation and increases in cognitive performance. Since creatine monohydrate is known to be highly available, safe, and cheap, more extensive studies should be performed with larger sample sizes to help solidify these findings.