Creatine has long been associated primarily with stronger muscles and improved performance during exercise. But women’s bodies use creatine for much more than that. Our sex hormones affect how the body both produces and uses creatine, and this also changes during the menstrual cycle.
That’s why the significance of creatine differs somewhat for women compared with men. Our needs and circumstances do not remain the same throughout our lives—or even throughout the month. As hormones change, so does the body’s energy use, and creatine is part of what helps cells meet these shifting needs.
How and when does the body use creatine?
All our cells need energy to function, and the energy cells can use is called ATP. When cells suddenly need more energy, creatine helps regenerate ATP.
This is one reason creatine is recommended for strength training, when muscles need a lot of energy in a short amount of time.
But it’s not only muscles that use creatine. The brain and parts of the female reproductive system also use creatine for their energy supply.
Hormones affect how the body uses creatine
During a normal menstrual cycle, oestrogen and progesterone levels fluctuate. Research suggests that these hormonal changes, in turn, affect how the body produces, transports, and uses creatine.
The connection between creatine and the female reproductive organs is particularly evident in the uterine lining. A human study showed that the uterine lining contains both the enzymes needed to produce creatine and the functions required to take it up and use it.
The researchers also observed that this activity changed during the menstrual cycle. After ovulation, when progesterone levels rise, the uterine lining begins preparing for a possible pregnancy. The tissue changes and becomes more active to create the right conditions for a fertilised egg to implant.
It was during this phase of the cycle that the researchers observed increases in several functions involved in producing, taking up, and using creatine. The uterine lining therefore does not merely use creatine as an energy resource; it can also adapt its own creatine metabolism to the major changes that occur during the menstrual cycle.
Creatine is much more than a gym supplement
Creatine cannot “balance” oestrogen or progesterone. But research from recent years makes it clear that women have reasons to think beyond muscles when we talk about creatine.
On average, women get less creatine from their diet than men. Creatine is found primarily in meat and fish, which means intake may be particularly low for people who eat only vegetarian or vegan foods.
And when we also know that creatine is used far beyond the muscles, and that women’s own creatine metabolism is affected by our fluctuating hormones, it becomes clear that creatine plays a greater role in our bodies than the marketing around “stronger muscles” has led us to believe for so long.
