Does Creatine Cause Hair Loss? What the Research Actually Shows

Current research doesn't support creatine causing hair loss. The fear comes from a single small study that measured a hormone linked to hair loss, not hair itself, and a newer, more direct trial that actually measured hair found no effect at all.

If you've seen "creatine causes hair loss" repeated enough times to wonder whether it's true, here's where that claim actually comes from and what happens when you trace it back to the source.

Where does the creatine hair loss worry come from?

It comes from one study: a 2009 trial by van der Merwe and colleagues, published in Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine, that followed 20 college-aged rugby players for three weeks. They took 25 grams of creatine a day for the first week, a typical loading dose, then 5 grams a day for the next two weeks. Testosterone stayed flat, but DHT (dihydrotestosterone, a hormone that plays a role in male pattern baldness) rose by about 56 percent after the loading week and stayed roughly 40 percent above baseline during maintenance.

That's the entire evidence base the hair loss claim is built on. The study has never been replicated, and crucially, it never measured hair in any way. No hair counts, no density scans, no follow-up on who actually lost hair. It measured a hormone and stopped there, and everything built on top of it since has been inference, not observation.

Does creatine actually raise DHT?

That's genuinely unsettled, and the newer evidence leans the other way. The 2009 result (a 40 to 56 percent rise) is the only study to find an increase, and the DHT values involved stayed within the normal clinical range even at their peak. A larger, better-designed 2025 trial, described below, found no significant difference in DHT between creatine and placebo groups at all. Without replication, it's hard to say whether the original finding was a real effect, specific to that small group of 20 men, or statistical noise.

Did the study that started this ever look at hair?

No, and this is the part that gets lost every time the study gets cited. Researchers measured blood hormone levels. They did not assess hair density, hair counts, follicle health, or shedding at any point in the three weeks. Everything connecting that study to actual hair loss is an assumption layered on afterward, not something the researchers found.

What does the newer research say?

In 2025, a team led by Lak and colleagues published a 12-week randomized controlled trial in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition specifically designed to answer this question properly. Forty-five resistance-trained men, ages 18 to 40, were randomly assigned to either 5 grams of creatine monohydrate a day or a placebo, and the researchers measured hair count, hair density, the ratio of growing-to-resting hair follicles, and terminal-to-vellus hair percentage, alongside DHT and the DHT-to-testosterone ratio.

They found no significant differences between the creatine and placebo groups on any of those measures. The authors noted this was the first study to directly assess hair follicle health after creatine supplementation, and it came back showing nothing, no hormonal shift, no hair change.

Should you still worry about taking creatine?

Based on what's actually been measured, there's not much reason to. The study that started the worry never looked at hair, and the study that did look at hair found nothing. That doesn't prove with total certainty that creatine has zero effect on hair in every person, research rarely proves a universal negative, but it's about as reassuring as the evidence gets for a widely repeated supplement fear.

If you're taking creatine for its actual, well-established benefit of building muscle and strength, the hair loss concern shouldn't be what decides whether you take it. The more useful thing to track is whether it's doing its job, consistent daily use building up over weeks, the same way you'd evaluate the right time of day to take it. Ori logs your sessions and strength numbers over time, so you can see whether your lifts are actually trending up during the weeks you're supplementing, instead of relying on how a single workout felt.

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FAQ

Does creatine cause hair loss? There's no direct evidence that it does. The worry comes from a 2009 study that found creatine supplementation raised DHT, a hormone linked to genetic hair loss, but that study never actually measured hair. A 2025 randomized controlled trial measured hair directly (density and follicle count) alongside DHT, and found no significant differences between creatine and placebo after 12 weeks.

Does creatine raise DHT levels? The evidence is mixed. One small 2009 study of 20 rugby players found DHT rose about 56 percent after a loading week and stayed roughly 40 percent above baseline during maintenance, though levels stayed within the normal clinical range. A larger, more rigorous 2025 trial found no significant difference in DHT between creatine and placebo groups after 12 weeks. The 2009 result has never been replicated.

What did the 2009 creatine and DHT study actually find? Twenty male college rugby players took 25 grams of creatine daily for a week, then 5 grams daily for two more weeks. Testosterone didn't change, but DHT rose during both periods. The researchers did not measure hair loss, hair density, or follicle health at any point, so the study says nothing about hair directly, despite how often it gets cited that way.

Is there newer research on creatine and hair loss? Yes. A 2025 randomized controlled trial published in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition followed 45 resistance-trained men for 12 weeks on either creatine or a placebo, and directly measured hair count, density, and growth-cycle markers alongside DHT. It found no significant differences between the groups on any measure, hormonal or hair-related.

Should you stop taking creatine if you're worried about hair loss? Based on current evidence, there's no good reason to. The one study that raised the alarm never looked at hair at all, and the one study that actually did look at hair found nothing. If you're already genetically prone to male pattern baldness, that process is driven by your own hormone sensitivity over years, not by a supplement, though if you're still uneasy about it, there's no harm in mentioning it to a doctor who knows your history.