Gutiérrez-Hellín, Jorge, Del Coso, Juan, Franco-Andrés, Arturo et al. · Nutrients · 2024 · DOI
This review article examines how creatine, a natural substance that helps muscles produce energy, might help people beyond just athletes. The authors suggest creatine supplementation could reduce fatigue in women during certain phases of their menstrual cycle, help vegans and vegetarians compensate for lower creatine from their diet, and potentially support people with chronic fatigue syndrome, muscle loss, and other health conditions by improving how their cells produce energy.
ME/CFS is explicitly mentioned as a clinical population that may benefit from creatine supplementation through improved energy metabolism—a core dysfunction in ME/CFS pathophysiology. This review provides a broader clinical context for investigating creatine as a potential metabolic intervention, particularly relevant since ME/CFS patients often experience severe fatigue and impaired energy production at the cellular level.
This narrative review does not prove that creatine supplementation is effective for ME/CFS, as it does not present clinical trial data specific to ME/CFS populations or establish causation. The review synthesizes existing literature without systematic inclusion/exclusion criteria or meta-analysis, so claims about efficacy remain preliminary and require formal clinical testing. Additionally, it does not establish optimal dosing, safety profiles for ME/CFS specifically, or whether benefits observed in other fatigued populations translate to ME/CFS.
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