Original title: Potential interactions between creatine supplementation and prescription drugs: a narrative review and evidence-mapping perspective
Sergej M Ostojic · September 2026
Creatine is a widely taken dietary supplement. People often use it to build muscle or boost brain and body health. Today, many older adults and people with long-term medical conditions take creatine while also taking prescription medications. This raises a key safety question: can creatine mix badly with these medicines? Creatine and certain drugs both pass through the kidneys, which could cause them to clash or confuse medical tests. To investigate, researchers combed scientific databases for human studies on creatine taken alongside prescription drugs. They also checked major drug databases for warnings. Surprisingly, they found zero human trials testing these drug combinations. Furthermore, the drug databases listed only minor or theoretical risks, with no proven harmful reactions. However, having no research does not prove that these combinations are entirely safe. The authors warn that real risks might still exist, especially for vulnerable patients.
Imagine two friends packing a shared backpack for a trip. They each throw in their own items without checking whether anything might spill or break. They assume everything is fine because they packed separately. But they have never actually tested how their items interact when jostled together. In this paper, creatine and prescription drugs are those items—they are commonly used together, but no one has run a real test to see if problems arise.
Millions of people, including older adults and those with chronic conditions, take creatine alongside prescription drugs. Without direct human studies, doctors and patients lack reliable guidance on whether these combinations are safe. This review exposes a critical evidence gap that could affect clinical advice and public health.
This review found no controlled human studies directly assessing creatine-drug interactions, so its conclusions rely entirely on theoretical mechanisms and database entries. The absence of documented clinical evidence does not prove interactions cannot occur, especially in high-risk populations like older adults or those with renal impairment. The review itself did not conduct original experiments—it only mapped existing gaps.
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Potential interactions between creatine supplementation and prescription drugs: a narrative review and evidence-mapping perspective — Sergej M Ostojic — Current therapeutic research, clinical and experimental — doi:10.1016/j.curtheres.2026.100844
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.