NEW YORK — The athlete and bodybuilder supplement creatine is increasingly being looked at as an all-round health boost, as awareness grows of its use as an anti-inflammatory and bulwark for cells that work to keep cancer at bay.
And while there is research pointing to a link between creatine and cognitive function, which has added to its growing popularity among older people, there is less certainty about another of its purported effects: helping to ward off depression.
A team of scientists led by Bassam Jeryous Fares of the University of Ottawa has found there is no conclusive evidence either way about creatine’s impact on depressive symptoms or bipolar disorder — conditions that sometimes overlap.
“Creatine remains a promising lead rather than a proven remedy,” the researchers said, in a paper published in the journal Brain Medicine in June.
“Two trials pointed one way and three pointed another,” Fares said, after reviewing the evidence from several tests of how the supplement affected people diagnosed with depression.
And while the findings do not amount to what Fares labeled “the kind of evidence on which you change clinical practice,” there is enough to go on to warrant “further exploration.”
After all, the brain runs on much the same chemistry as muscles, the researchers said — a fact they argue is not widely known.
Found in food such as meat and fish and produced by the human body, creatine supplements usually come as tablets or powder, sometimes flavored, to be stirred or shaken into a snack or drink.
Generated in the liver, kidneys and pancreas from amino acids, creatine is carried to the muscles where it generates energy and ensures cells maintain function during stressful or intense activity.
In June, a team of scientists based at the University of California, Los Angeles found indications creatine “supercharges a critical class of immune cells that activate and prepare the body’s key cancer-fighters.”
“Creatine may eventually be recognized as an over-the-counter therapeutic agent rather than merely a dietary supplement,” according to Mehdi Boroujerdi, author of the “Handbook of Creatine and Creatinine In Vivo Kinetics”.