Taking a large dose of creatine might help young healthy people remember words better after staying awake all night, with about a 10% improvement compared to taking a placebo.
Scientific Claim
A single high dose of creatine (0.35 g/kg) may improve word memory performance by approximately 10.3% in young healthy adults during 21 hours of sleep deprivation compared to placebo, as measured by word recall accuracy in a standardized memory test.
Source Excerpt
“Significant improvements revealed in WMT (10.3±3.8%, t43=2.7, p43=0.005) and speed in processing time in WMT (17.7±6.0%, t43=3.0, p43=0.002), language (29.1±5.3%, t43=5.3, p43=2.0×10–6), logic (16.0±4.0%, t43=3.9, p43=0.0002) and numeric (24.0±4.9%, t43=4.8, p43=1.02×10–5) task when pooled at all 3 time points (Fig. 5).”
Evidence from Studies
Supporting Studies
Single dose creatine improves cognitive performance and induces changes in cerebral high energy phosphates during sleep deprivation
The study measured word memory performance using a Word Memory Test (WMT) and found statistically significant improvements in the creatine condition compared to placebo during sleep deprivation, with a 10.3% improvement in recall accuracy.