For those with no attention span, the answer is YES it likely causes water retention when you first start, but after the first week or so, NO.
From our research in peer reviewed published articles, one metanalysis concluded there is evidence that creatine increased water retention intracellularly in the short term, but it does not change the total body water relative to muscle mass over longer periods of time. “Creatine supplementation may not lead to water retention.”
Why the confusion? Early studies documented in short term studies that creatine did increase total body water. People then used that data and extrapolated it out. Creatine is osmotically active, which means it attracts water. It made sense it could attract water into the muscle.
For those who want to see studies, read on:
- An early study showed increase in total body water, when 20g/day for 6 days was used.
- Another study showed 3 days of creatine increased total body water and extracellular body water and intracellular body water.
- Exercise training studies (5-10 weeks) showed creatine did NOT increase total body water. These studies had loading doses of creatine for the first week, followed by lower doses for the month after.
- Another study showed men and women on creating .03g/kg/d for six weeks had no significant increase in total body water.
- Other studies did show increase in total body water, but when you looked at the ratio of skeletal muscle mass increase to the water weight increase, the ratio remained the same.
For a deeper dive into the studies, go to the original article on CREATINE.
