[el_benhameen]

Curious if anyone has had hair issues while taking it. I’m aware that there’s no positive evidence for an effect, but there is an at least plausible mechanism. I’ve gone through two periods where I took it and liked the effects, but felt like I shed way more hair and stopped due to that.

[RHSman2]

My personal experience has been dramatic:

5/6g a day.

Very demanding job with lots of ‘thinking’

3 times a week gym

Pre creatine I would struggle to maintain ability to do the hard thinking around 3pm. Just like, fog or I could feel my brain didn’t have capacity.

Now, I am capable till the end of the day. Feels like a well trained athlete at the end of a game being able to deliver rather than just holding on.

[karmakurtisaani]

Same, I feel I have way less brain fog days after taking creatine. Might be also due to more active lifestyle, which creatine is a part of.

[RHSman2]

I can off a few times and did loose the energy and focus.

I really noticed the effect coming back in but now it is my new normal.

[q1w2]

This mirrors my experience. Very significant increase in prolonged focus.

[zug_zug]

Do you work out?

If so creatine is supposed to help people push themselves harder and thus build more muscle. As a side-effect of intense exercises you'll create more testosterone. Increased testosterone leads to balding.

[noisy_boy]

Sometimes when I see muscular guy with a head full of hair, I wonder what is counteracting that increased testosterone.

[vkazanov]

Sometimes people just have good hair and spend a lot of time in the gym.

Even early 90s famous era mass monsters were not all bald.

Baldness is known to be related to a bunch of things: testosterone levels, something to do with blood delivery to the scalp, deeper genetic factors.

Surprsingly, for some of the cases scalp massage is known to help.

[asdff]

Arnold still has a full head of hair for example.

[stefs]

increased testosterone from working out is probably around 10-30% long time, which is a far lower variance than natural level variance in healthy adults. i think i heard from several (claimed natural) strength and bodybuilding athletes that their total testosterone is at the lower end of the scale.

that said, natural free test levels are at a fraction of what enhanced pro bodybuilders tend to supplement, and there are mass monsters with hair. cutler, yates, ferrigno and golden era bodybuilders like schwarzenegger, zane, columbu all had full heads of hair.

[vkazanov]

Yeah, wanted to point this out. I have mid-range natural test levels, more than my dad, and don't have any signs of balding. My dad lost half of his hair by the time i was born.

Steroid consumers have al least ten times my leves, and while this is a factor indeed, in is not necessarily decisive.

[lII1lIlI11ll]

The comments here are unfortunately reddit-level of (in)correctness, but if you really want to know: testosterone doesn't affect your hair in any way, what does affect it is DHT which is synthesized from testosterone by your body with 5α-Reductase and the way to significantly dial down that process is to take 5α-Reductase inhibitors (widely available and affordable medications).

[noisy_boy]

That means maybe the people with great muscles and good hair have a genetic mutation that reduces the efficiency of DHT synthesis? I am assuming DHT doesn't affect muscle growth.

[lII1lIlI11ll]

Firstly, "working out increases your T bro" is reddit-tier simplified. For example, if you are shredded, your testosterone (especially free testosterone due to higher SHBG) can be lower than normal. Just because someone is muscular doesn't mean they have a naturally high T.

Secondly, yes, someone might have just won a genetic lottery but 5α-Reductase inhibitors are quite popular these days.

[amelius]

Not what you want to hear, but genes, probably ...

[globular-toast]

Probably. Money seems to help too, though. A few Hollywood actors have miraculously reversed their male pattern baldness.

[Auracle]

Hair transplants are probably affordable enough for 90% of people on HN.

[larrywright]

Along with at least one tech billionaire.

[AngryData]

Yeah I think that is the biggest factor. I got family members that are built like brick shithouse from a life since childhood of physical labor that still have their hair into their 70s, there is no way they weren't maintaining high levels of testosterone their entire life but it didn't seem to matter.

[noisy_boy]

I would have thought so too. Also, I have heard oily scalp and stress to be factors detrimental to good hair but but not sure if they actually are.

[Taek]

Probably some combination of Minoxidil, Finastride, PRP injections, and hair transplants.

[mohamedkoubaa]

Scalp massages. No seriously

[maiti_ma]

What kind of massages? I'm curious of this really works.

[wtetzner]

Not sure about the "kind", but minoxidil works by increasing blood flow to hair follicles. So if massages can have a similar effect, I don't see why it couldn't help.

I've also read that maybe massaging the muscles around the scalp to loosen it might help. E.g., a scalp that's too tight can have detrimental effects on the hair follicles.

That being said, I don't know what kind of evidence there is to support either of those things. Seems like a safe enough thing to try though.

[appplication]

It’s not increased testosterone in general that causes balding, it’s increased concentrations/sensitivity of testosterone byproducts in the hair follicles. There is no correlation between testosterone itself and baldness.

[vkazanov]

The effect of creatine is measurable but in no way is related to balding.

Using steroids does have the effect. And a bunch of others, most of them unhealthy.

These things might look correlated as steroid ppl often consume creatine as well as some other things.

[calibas]

There's evidence creatine may raise DHT levels, and DHT causes hair thinning: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19741313/

[daneel_w]

I think male baldness is a bit more complex than creatine->DHT->loss of hair.

But if you want to go down that road, there's also indications that the oil in pumpkin seeds reduce the enzymatic process that turns testosterone into DHT - so just eat some pumpkin seeds with your creatine and the problem goes away! It's that simple!!!

[medler]

This is one study with 20 subjects and has never been replicated. There have since been multiple studies and reviews that have found no effect on hair loss or follicle health

[stefs]

that study is widely regarded as unreliable and outdated.

[shoobiedoo]

I bumped mine from 5g daily to 15 and noticed way less anxiety. It's a must have for me now. Besides that is the regular benefit of being able to squeeze out a few more reps during my kettlebell workouts

[zingababba]

There was one study that has never been replicated that showed it increased DHT levels in Rugby players. Higher DHT levels are associate with hair loss and enlarged prostate. Creatine has always come with too many side effects for me as well, I don't get how people take that stuff every day.

[avensec]

n=1 here, I noticed considerable shedding and thinning when taking creatine. I've taken it alone for 3 months and noticed thinning and shedding. I took it with Minoxidil and Finasteride for six months and noticed reduced shedding. At one point I stopped Mino and Fin, but kept the creatine and the shedding increased rapidly.

I am now on Minoxidil and Finasteride, with no creatine, and no longer have shedding.

[wtetzner]

TBH this sounds like it could be entirely unrelated to creatine. It just sounds like you have shedding and thinning without Minoxidil and Finasteride, and it stops when you start taking them again.

> At one point I stopped Mino and Fin, but kept the creatine and the shedding increased rapidly.

I think it's a common for shedding to accelerate after stopping Minoxidil.

[avensec]

I appreciate the comment, but the point of going to the trouble of posting the extra details is to show that I isolated. Understood if it wasn't clear.

I just want to raise my voice that, in my experience, yes, I had hair loss issues on creatine. Every time I respond to a comment on reddit, youtube, twitter, here, there is always a sea of "Nope, sorry" comments that I must be mistaken. My hair line disagrees. The extra rep isn't worth it.

100% correct on shedding after mino stoppage however.

[foo12bar]

I tried getting on it several times, I would feel energized at first but after a two or three days it would do the opposite and I would get very lethargic.

My body has a strange reaction to comonly used substances, though. For instance, even a single soda's worth of caffeine causes me to have an extreme 18-24 hour mania phase and then a two day crash afterwards. So, your mileage will definitely vary.

[fragmede]

Fun fact! that's most likely caused by your DNA having both the CYP1A2 gene and the ADORA2A gene. Means you can buy a bottle of soda and only drink a shot of it and get the same benefit as others without those genes set.

[almost_usual]

I take 10g a day, have for a couple years now. Started mostly because of training but it does wonders in sleep deprived states.

5g would probably be fine without a lot of training ( I train about 10hrs a week). Seems like I need 10g to both get the physical and mental benefits, especially during peak training blocks (running 50-60 mpw with strength training).

[jliptzin]

No but every time I try to take creatine supplements I get heart palpitations. Everyone says I am crazy and that it’s impossible but I have proof from my Apple Watch, one time it was so bad it said I had atrial fibrillation. I went to a cardiologist and he acknowledged it is a possibility but he hasn’t seen it before.

[wtetzner]

Just out of curiosity, were those creatine supplements pure creatine? Or were they workout supplements that might have also included caffeine or other things?

[jliptzin]

Pure creatine

[globular-toast]

The plausible mechanism is for male pattern baldness, but increased shedding is not MPB. MPB shrinks the size of the hairs on the top of your head over time. It isn't really affected by shedding which is normal and happens to everyone.

[softwaredoug]

I take 10 g a day and have maybe noticed muscles seem to bulk more after a hard strength workout. But other than that I feel about the same.

[frez1]

I've recently started taking it and I've definitely noticed improved cognitive function. obviously all anecdotal and likely other contributing factors too (have been exercising more)..

[YZF]

More water in the muscles is another effect. Also placebo. I do notice I'm a bit heavier when I'm on creatine.

[vkazanov]

Creatine is known to give you some more energy. Like, 3%-5%. That's just an extra rep, hardly noticeable.

[matwood]

I wouldn't say hardly noticeable especially for experienced lifters. After training for a few years those extra reps and slightly more weight have compounding effects over time.

[vkazanov]

True. What i am saying is that one has to have a good feeling of what this extra rep is like.

Personally, i only saw that it works over time because of my journal. Most people dont do records.

[wtetzner]

And extra rep seems like it could be a big deal when strength training.

[vkazanov]

Yeah, sure.

The point is that it doesn't work like those Witcher potions. Nothing changes here and now.

[koinedad]

Interesting, I also noticed thinning

[brador]

Same. Not clumps, but a definite uptick in hair shed. Stopped taking it.