Does Creatine Cause Hair Loss?

If you spend any amount of time in a gym, you’ve likely heard about creatine. I’d even bet good money that you’re already taking it. Alongside protein powder, it’s become the fitness buff’s favorite supplement. And for good reason: it can help you build muscle, get stronger, and squeeze more out of your workouts. Recent research has looked at its potential beyond the gym, too, like counteracting stress and a poor night’s sleep.In a nutshell, taking creatine could leave you with more muscle, more strength, and maybe even a sharper brain. It sounds like a W across the board—until you hear the rumor about your hair.According to Reddit and locker-room lore, creatine could elevate levels of a hormone implicated in androgenetic alopecia (aka pattern baldness). But where’d this rumor come from, is there any merit to it, and does creatine actually cause hair loss? Here’s what to know before you kiss that white powder (and its promising gains) goodbye.Where the rumor startedThe idea that creatine could trigger hair loss found its footing with a 2009 study of 20 rugby players in South Africa. Participants who did a weeklong loading phase of 25 grams of creatine per day saw their dihydrotestosterone (DHT) levels rise 56 percent. After two more weeks of five-gram daily dosing, they were still 40 percent above baseline.Unfamiliar with DHT? It’s a hormone made from testosterone. According to James Kilgour, MD, a board-certified dermatologist and the founder and CEO of KilgourMD, DHT can bind to receptors in certain hair follicles and gradually shrink them, producing finer, shorter hairs over time—namely in people genetically susceptible to male-pattern hair loss.“What the study really said was, ‘We saw DHT go up.’ What people heard was, ‘Creatine makes your hair fall out,’” says Ken Anderson, MD, a triple board-certified hair restoration surgeon and adjunct clinical professor of dermatology at Emory University School of Medicine. Yet the research has a few important nuances that warrant a closer look.Yes, DHT went up—but it remained within the normal range in every participant. And more DHT doesn’t automatically mean you’re bound to go bald. “DHT is a normal hormone that is present in all men, and simply having a high level of it does not mean someone will lose their hair,” says Dr. Anderson. “The key is whether your hair follicles are genetically sensitive to it.” Plus, while DHT is an important piece of the puzzle for pattern hair loss, it’s far from the only contributing factor.Most important is the fact that this study didn’t even look at hair. Like, not at all—which is kind of crazy considering the fear that stemmed from it. In plain English, the study that launched thousands of “Does creatine make you bald?” searches looked at hormones but not shedding, density, thickness, or any other physical marker of hair health.Okay, so what about the hair?Fast forward 16 years, and researchers finally asked the question the original study never did: Does creatine actually affect hair?In a randomized controlled trial published in 2025, researchers recruited 45 resistance-trained men ages 18 to 40; 38 completed the study. Participants took either five grams of creatine a day or five grams of a placebo. After 12 weeks, the researchers found no significant differences in DHT levels or parameters of hair health—including hair density, follicular unit count, or hair thickness—between the two groups.“The study doesn’t prove that creatine could never affect hair in any person over many years,” says Dr. Anderson, “but it is much more directly relevant to the question than the 2009 rugby study because it actually measured hair. So based on the evidence we have today, I don’t think there’s good clinical evidence that creatine causes or accelerates hair loss.”While promising, the study doesn’t mark a lifetime guarantee for your hairline. He notes that more research looking at creatine use in men with early male-pattern hair loss, or a strong family history of it, could be useful in the future. Longer-term studies would be welcome, too.The bottom lineYou shouldn’t toss your tubs in fear that they’re sabotaging your hairline. If your hair starts thinning while you’re taking creatine, don't jump to blaming your daily scoop.“There is actually quite a significant overlap between the population taking creatine and the population in whom pattern hair loss starts becoming noticeable,” says Dr. Kilgour. “Creatine is particularly popular among physically active people in their 20s, 30s and 40s, which is also when genetically driven androgenetic alopecia commonly starts to reveal itself.” In other words, suspicious timing isn’t the same thing as causation. “If someone is instead noticing gradual recession at the temples or progressive thinning through the crown, particularly if they have a family history of similar hair loss, I would be much more suspicious of androgenetic alopecia than creatine,” he says.If creatine is an established part of your regimen, there’s no need to stop taking it for the sake of preserving your strands. And if you experience changes in your hair at the same time, see a hair-loss specialist to figure out what’s actually going on. “I see patients with male-pattern hair loss every day, and I don’t tell them to stop creatine,” says Dr. Anderson. “I tell them to focus on the things we know matter: early diagnosis and treatments that actually slow the progression of hair loss.”