Creatine and Resistance Training in Mild Cognitive Impairment — a Trial Under Way

What is being studied

A 26-week trial at Western University in Canada is testing creatine supplementation and resistance training, separately and together, in adults over sixty with mild cognitive impairment. Recruitment is open, with 200 participants planned and primary completion expected at the end of 2027.

The design is the reason we are flagging it. It is randomised, triple-masked and — unusually — factorial, meaning participants are allocated to creatine alone, training alone, both, or neither. Most studies in this area test one thing against nothing, which leaves the obvious question unanswered when a combined programme works.

Why the design matters

The trial's own rationale states the gap plainly: resistance training has been shown to improve cognition and brain health in older adults, and creatine is known to increase muscle mass and bone density when supplemented, but little is known about how creatine affects the ageing brain alone and in combination with training, particularly in people with existing cognitive impairment.

A factorial design answers three questions at once. Does creatine do anything on its own? Does training? And does the pair do more than the sum — the interaction that supplement marketing routinely assumes and rarely demonstrates.

The primary outcomes are span and reaction time on the Corsi Block Tapping Task, a measure of visuospatial working memory. That is a narrow endpoint, which is a virtue in a trial of this kind: a specific pre-registered target is harder to reinterpret after the fact than a battery of tests.

What the existing evidence looks like

A systematic review by Avgerinos and colleagues examined randomised trials of oral creatine and cognitive function in healthy individuals, and a 2021 review in Nutrients surveyed creatine and brain health more broadly, describing it as a growing field. Neither supports a confident statement about cognition.

The recurring theme in that literature is that creatine's effects on the brain appear most plausible under metabolic stress — sleep deprivation, for instance — rather than in rested, well-nourished people. An ageing brain with existing impairment is a reasonable place to look for a signal on the same logic.

What this will not settle

The population is people over sixty with mild cognitive impairment. Whatever the result, it will not transfer to a healthy adult in their thirties looking for an edge at work — a distinction that gets lost the moment a trial like this reaches a headline.

The trial is also unfinished. Recruitment is ongoing and primary completion is more than a year away. Nothing here indicates a direction of effect, and a registry entry never does.

Editorial Comment

MindHeaven® does not sell creatine and makes no claim about it. We note for completeness that creatine's authorised health claim in the EU concerns physical performance, not cognition, so even a positive result here could not be used to make a cognitive claim on a product without a new authorisation.

We will report the outcome when it is published, including if it is null.