Does creatine cause hair loss?

Reviewed June 6, 2026 by Aniol Comas.

No study has ever shown that creatine causes hair loss. The entire fear traces to a single 20-person study from 2009 that never actually measured hair. It measured DHT, a hormone associated with male pattern baldness, and found a rise that no follow-up study has replicated. A 2025 randomized trial that did track hair-growth measures found no effect. This is the most famous example of a bad science game of telephone in fitness nutrition.

Last updated June 6, 2026 · 6 min read

If you search for "creatine hair loss," you'll get thousands of Reddit threads, TikTok videos, and hot-take YouTube essays all warning you that creatine might be making you go bald. They all, eventually, trace back to the same paper. So let's actually read the paper.

The 2009 study, in detail

The study is van der Merwe et al., "Three weeks of creatine monohydrate supplementation affects dihydrotestosterone to testosterone ratio in college-aged rugby players," published in the Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine.

The design: 20 college rugby players in South Africa were randomized to creatine or placebo. The creatine group took 25 g a day for 7 days (loading), then 5 g a day for 14 days (maintenance). At baseline, after loading, and after maintenance, researchers measured testosterone and DHT.

The finding: DHT rose about 56 percent after the loading phase and stayed roughly 40 percent above baseline through the 14-day maintenance phase. Testosterone didn't change. The DHT-to-testosterone ratio also rose. To be clear, DHT did not "spike and return to normal" — it stayed elevated for as long as the study tracked it.

What the study did not measure: actual hair. Not hair thickness, not follicle count, not scalp biopsies, not patient-reported hair loss. Not even self-reported shedding.

Why the study got picked up

DHT is the hormone that's causally linked to male pattern baldness. If you're genetically predisposed (specifically, if your hair follicles are sensitive to DHT), DHT causes miniaturization of follicles over years, leading to the classic pattern of thinning.

So if creatine raises DHT, the thinking goes, creatine might accelerate baldness in people who are predisposed. That's not a crazy inference. It's just not very well-supported.

What happens when you test it directly

For years the obvious experiment hadn't been run: give a bunch of men creatine, track hair and DHT, compare to placebo. In 2025 a group finally did a version of it. A 12-week randomized controlled trial tracked DHT, the DHT-to-testosterone ratio, and hair-growth measures in resistance-trained men taking creatine. It found no effect on any of them — no change in DHT, no change in the hormone ratio, no change in hair.

The honest caveat is that 12 weeks is short. Pattern baldness develops over years, so a truly definitive study would need to track hair density over 2 to 5 years, and that study still doesn't exist. But the 2025 trial is the first to directly measure hair in creatine users, and it found nothing — which is the opposite of what the 2009-study-based fear would predict.

What actually causes male pattern baldness

The honest answer is genes. Specifically, variants in the androgen receptor gene on the X chromosome and a handful of other loci. If you have the genetic predisposition, your follicles are sensitive to DHT, and you will probably lose hair by your 40s regardless of diet, supplements, or lifestyle.

Things that actually move the needle on balding:

• Finasteride (a 5-alpha reductase inhibitor that lowers DHT). Prescription, well-studied.
• Minoxidil (topical, vasodilator). Over-the-counter, moderate effect.
• Dutasteride (stronger 5AR inhibitor). Prescription.

Things that almost certainly don't move the needle:

• Creatine supplementation at normal doses.
• Biotin, collagen, or most "hair growth" supplements.
• Hair products in general (shampoos, conditioners).
• Vitamins, in anyone who isn't deficient.

If you're worried about thinning, see a dermatologist. They can tell you whether what you're seeing is genetic pattern loss, telogen effluvium (stress/illness), or something else, and give you options that actually have data behind them.

What about anecdotes

"I started creatine and my hair started falling out" is a common forum post. It's also a textbook example of confounding. People often start creatine in their 20s, which is exactly when early male pattern baldness becomes visible in people who were going to lose hair anyway. The creatine didn't cause it. It coincided with it.

If creatine caused noticeable hair loss, given how many millions of people take it, we would see an obvious signal in the epidemiology. We don't. The ISSN's review of common creatine misconceptions explicitly notes there is no demonstrated link between creatine and hair loss.

Practical advice

If you have a family history of male pattern baldness, you're going to lose hair. Finasteride and minoxidil are the interventions with evidence. Stopping creatine is not.

If you don't have a family history, the odds of creatine triggering hair loss in you are effectively zero based on current research. Creatine itself has one of the strongest safety records of any supplement, with the 2017 ISSN position stand reporting no adverse health effects in healthy people across more than 1,000 studies.

If you've started creatine and noticed increased shedding, it's almost always either coincidence, telogen effluvium from stress, or genetic pattern loss you were already heading toward. Talk to a dermatologist. Don't give up a supplement with a massive upside for a small-sample hypothesis that has never been replicated.