Creatine Caused No Hair Loss in the Only Trial to Check

By David Beckwith

Evidence check, November 2, 2026

The claim: Taking 5 g of creatine a day won't thin your hair.

Our grade: Promising. In the only trial that counted hair, men on 5 g a day for 12 weeks matched men on a dummy powder, both on hair and on DHT, the hormone behind male pattern baldness. Caveat: 37 men over 12 weeks is too small and too short to rule out a slow change.

"Creatine makes you go bald!" That is the title of a June 2023 TikTok from the account @stophairloss [10].

Here is what the one trial that actually counted hair found. Among 37 men who lift, those who took 5 g of creatine a day for 12 weeks came out the same as those on a dummy powder, with dermatologists checking the hair [1]. For 16 years nobody had measured. So why did the study that started the scare see DHT, the hormone behind male pattern baldness, jump 56% [2]?

The answer matters beyond your hairline. Muscle and strength are what keep the body working as it ages, and our creatine article grades the supplement's muscle and strength benefits Solid, so a hair scare that puts people off it has a real cost.

This is part of our series on creatine, after creatine and your kidneys and creatine and memory.

Where the claim came from

It started with one study, and it never looked at hair.

In 2009, researchers in South Africa gave 20 college rugby players creatine and a placebo in turn, and neither the men nor the researchers knew which was which [2]. The dose was 25 g a day for 7 days, then 5 g a day for 14 days. DHT in the blood rose 56% after the first week and stayed 40% above the start after the third. The ratio of DHT to testosterone rose 36%, then stayed 22% higher. The authors wrote that creatine may speed the conversion of testosterone to DHT.

The idea spread on the biggest health podcasts. On April 11, 2022, Dr. Kyle Gillett told Andrew Huberman on Huberman Lab: "Creatine, like creatine monohydrate can significantly increase the conversion of testosterone to DHT." Asked about hair, Gillett said: "I don't like to say it causes it, but it can be a little bit more fuel to the fire" [3].

Rhonda Patrick traced it back on FoundMyFitness on May 13, 2024: "So that link between creatine supplementation and hair loss originates from this one study" [4]. Peter Attia added on his September 9, 2024 Q&A that "genetic sensitivity to DHT appears far more important than absolute DHT level" [5].

The fear is reasonable. DHT can bind to susceptible hair follicles and shrink them [1]. But nobody had shown the next step, from creatine to DHT to less hair.

Does creatine cause hair loss?

At 5 g a day for 12 weeks, it did not. Hair and DHT on creatine matched placebo.

The trial, with Mohammadyasin Lak of the Sport Sciences Research Institute of Iran as first author, randomly assigned men aged 18 to 40 who had lifted weights for at least a year [1]. They averaged 26.7 years old. Neither they nor the researchers knew who got what: 5 g of creatine monohydrate a day, or 5 g of maltodextrin. There was no loading phase. Of the 39 men who started, 38 finished, and 37 had their hair checked at the end.

Dermatologists at the Iran Skin Research Center imaged the crown, a common site of pattern thinning, and read the images with a standard hair analysis. They tracked eight measures, from hair count to total thickness. None differed between the groups, and none changed clearly over time.

Blood tests told the same story. DHT stayed flat in both groups. The ratio that had worried people in 2009, DHT to testosterone, fell in both groups, with no difference between them. Total testosterone rose and free testosterone fell in both groups, so creatine wasn't the cause. The authors suspect the season.

In the closest test yet to a normal lifter's routine, 12 weeks of the usual dose did no measurable harm to the men's hair.

That leaves the 56% jump. Nobody has tested why the rugby study looked so different, but two clues stand out. One is the dose: it opened with five times as much creatine. The other is the starting line. DHT began 23% lower before creatine than before placebo, 0.98 against 1.26 nmol/L, and every value stayed within the normal range [1, 6]. A 2021 review adds that the result has not been repeated, and that of 12 other creatine studies measuring testosterone, 10 found no change and 2 found small rises [6].

What the hair trial can't tell you

How much can one trial of 37 men rule out?

Less than its headline suggests. It was small and the measure was noisy. By our calculation from the paper's Table 2, the result fits anything from about 56 fewer to 28 more hairs per square centimeter than placebo, against a start of about 168. A dramatic loss is unlikely. A slower one isn't ruled out.

Twelve weeks is short for a process that runs over years, and the trial never asked about family history. That matters: the authors note that men whose fathers lost their hair were twice as likely to lose theirs [1]. Men who had used finasteride or minoxidil were excluded, and the paper doesn't say whether any men were already thinning.

It tested 5 g a day, not the 25 g loading dose from the rugby study. It measured DHT in blood, not in the scalp. And it tested only men. We found no trial of hair in women on creatine, so that question has no direct answer.

Then there is the question of who ran it. The trial reports no funding, but the paper thanks the Iranian representative of the brand that made the creatine, and three authors have ties to supplement makers or to the sports nutrition society that publishes the journal [1]. Dermatologists did the hair checks, and the people analyzing the data were blinded.

Our grade

The case for the other side starts with the rugby study. It was blinded too, and its DHT rise was large. A 12-week trial at a lower dose doesn't erase it.

The second point is the critics. The American Hair Loss Association faulted the trial for screening no one's genes and measuring no DHT in the scalp [7]. Those are fair gaps.

In creatine's favor, its researchers see no pattern in the wider record. Darren Candow, who studies creatine, told FoundMyFitness in 2025 that across more than a thousand people he has tested, no one has reported hair loss [8]. That is one researcher's experience, not data, but it fits the absence of any study reporting it [6].

Two things would change the grade. A second trial with the same result, lasting 6 months or more, would move it toward Solid. A trial showing faster thinning in men with baldness in the family would pull it down.

What this means for you

If you lift, or want the muscle and strength benefits our creatine article grades Solid, the hair worry is no reason to skip it. Take 3 to 5 g a day. You don't need a loading phase [6], which also keeps you at the dose that was actually tested on hair.

Over 12 weeks, the trial suggests you should see no change in hair at all. If your hair does start thinning, the likelier story is the one you'd have had anyway, since pattern baldness runs in families [1]. See a dermatologist, who can check the cause. No study has tested whether hair grows back after stopping creatine, because no trial has shown creatine took any away.

If baldness runs in your family, the honest answer is that this trial didn't check men like you separately. A simple step is to photograph your crown in the same light every 3 months, so you are judging by evidence and not by the mirror on a bad day.

So the tub can stay on the shelf. The only trial that counted hairs gives you good reason to keep taking your 5 g a day.

What's next

The trial that would settle this is already written. In 2020, Texas Tech University registered a double-blind trial of 5 g a day for 6 months in men aged 18 to 35, with hair checks and DHT, and it was withdrawn before anyone enrolled because the sponsor stepped back [9]. Run that design, ask about family history, and add women, and the question gets a firm answer. We will update this article when a new trial reports.

Meanwhile, see what creatine does for muscle, whether it is safe for your kidneys and what it does for memory. Those answers are the reason this question matters: for a supplement with this much behind it, the hair worry has so far come up empty.

Sources