Does creatine cause hair loss?

The myth has a single source. In 2009, van der Merwe and colleagues had a group of rugby players take creatine for three weeks and measured hormones in their blood. DHT, a hormone linked to hereditary hair loss, rose by 56 percent during the first loading week and stayed 40 percent above baseline after two weeks of a maintenance dose. The ratio of DHT to testosterone went up. That is all the study showed. It never looked at the hair: not density, not follicles, not whether anyone actually lost any. Going from a changed blood test to a thinning scalp is an assumption, not a finding.

Since then no trial has reproduced the hormone change, and in 2025 the study that finally examined the hair itself was published. Thirty-eight resistance-trained men took creatine or placebo for twelve weeks, and the researchers measured follicle health directly with a trichogram and a standardised camera system: hair density, thickness and the share of follicles in the growth phase. No difference appeared between the groups, in DHT, in testosterone or in any hair measure.

So the evidence is not empty; it leans clearly one way. A single hormone finding that was never repeated stands against a direct measurement of the hair that found nothing. Creatine is also among the most studied supplements we have, and reviews of the common questions about it have not tied it to hair loss. What uncertainty remains is that the direct hair research is still small, not that a hidden link is lurking.

The myth survives for several reasons. Hair loss is a loaded subject, and a simple thing to blame feels better than the chance and genetics that drive most of it. A study with a clean percentage travels easily through forums and gym circles, while the caveat that it never measured hair drops off along the way. Confirmation bias does the rest: someone already thinning who happens to take creatine quickly draws a line between the two. There is a market here as well. Creatine is cheap and unpatentable, so no one profits much from defending it, while supplements and treatments for hair loss have everything to gain from the doubt.

If you avoid creatine purely out of worry about your hair, that decision rests on an assumption the research does not support. If hereditary hair loss runs in your family, it is driven mainly by genes and age, not by a supplement. If you do notice thinning, creatine is an unlikely cause, and it is a question for a doctor or dermatologist rather than for the tub. If you want to take creatine for your training, you can do so without factoring your hair into the choice.