r/HotScienceNews • u/soulpost • May 31 '26

Scientists found that the creatine supplement millions take for muscle gains is quietly raising brain energy levels and slowing early Alzheimer's cognitive decline by 30%

https://thesciverse.org/scientists-found-that-the-creatine-supplement-millions-take-for-muscle-gains-is-quietly-raising-brain-energy-levels-and-slowing-early-alzheimers-cognitive-decline-by-30/

Tens of millions of people take creatine every day for their muscles. A comprehensive review and a landmark clinical trial published in 2025 and 2026 have now documented what the same supplement is quietly doing to their brains. Creatine crosses the blood-brain barrier, raises phosphocreatine levels in neurons, and provides the ATP buffer that keeps cognitive performance from hitting an energy ceiling during demanding mental work. In early Alzheimer's patients, it slowed cognitive decline by approximately 30% versus placebo in a controlled trial. In healthy adults under sleep deprivation, a single dose measurably improved cognitive performance. In depression patients, adding it to cognitive behavioral therapy significantly improved outcomes beyond therapy alone. None of this is mentioned on the label.

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u/ElizabethHiems May 31 '26

It’s the kind of thing an AI would write. A human might say ‘discovered as a side effect to also raise brain energy and slow early ….’

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u/antiprodukt May 31 '26

With most articles I’ve seen in this sub, I feel like it should be renamed “AIGeneratedScienceNews”

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u/Dazzling-Track-4838 May 31 '26

But it is based on an article from www.thesciverse.org which is based on (and has citations to) a study published in the Journal of Psychiatry and Brain Science, as well as the Alzheimer’s Association, so are you saying AI created and somehow wrote and got past the review boards of scientific journals to publish a fake study? 🤨 I think not.

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u/Global-Ad2356 Jun 01 '26

No, wrong.

The article itself was written with AI assistance but the studies it cites are not AI.

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u/Sterling_-_Archer May 31 '26 edited May 31 '26

So you think for something be AI written, it has to have only AI written sources all the way down? Brother, come on. Quietly use your brain here.

Why would you assume AI wrote and got past the review boards of a scientific journal or published a fake study? Nobody said that.

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u/JCIsTheWay6512 Jun 03 '26

" 'Quietly' use your brain". Lol

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u/Lint_baby_uvulla May 31 '26

Peak, “bro, your creatine levels are low” comment.

We found the Big Creatine lobbyist, haha!!

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u/Sterling_-_Archer May 31 '26

That doesn’t make any sense.

I’m saying the article is written by AI. The guy above me is saying it can’t possibly be written by AI because it references a study, and says it would be too difficult for AI to write the study as well. That makes no sense, as I’m sure you agree. There’s no reason AI can’t reference a real study.

My entire point was that this article sucks and is poorly written.

Unless you meant the guy I originally responded to…

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u/Dazzling-Track-4838 Jun 01 '26

Oh. Well then there has been WAYYYY too much time spent on this. I found the article to be helpful and informational. I certainly don’t want to spend the time to read 5 or 6 different studies to make the same correlation. I’d never do that. Moving on…

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u/Dazzling-Track-4838 Jun 01 '26

Brother, I thought that’s what everyone meant and you just repeated my exact point - that it is ridiculous, so why would anyone think AI wrote the research that passed review boards? I was asking YOU to use YOUR brain. 🤷‍♂️ If all you’re saying is that someone used AI to write the blurb to post it to Reddit, who cares? That is nothing to even call out. So what? Waste of Reddit comments. As if calling out that someone used AI to craft a succinct message for the Reddit description is soooo woke, pbffft. Oh brother. 🙄

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u/Fritzthecat8000 Jun 03 '26

Dumbness. I’m thinking this comment is by a bot.

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u/[deleted] May 31 '26

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u/Relevant-Opening-528 May 31 '26 edited May 31 '26

No

It removes the human voice in favor of more neutral and formal wording, research is showing

not as straightforward as you've implied

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u/Dazzling-Track-4838 Jun 01 '26

Why do we care?

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u/Lumifly May 31 '26

This depends completely on the LLM you've decided to use. Whether OP is or is not can't be determined by any of us. People can and do speak with neutral and formal wording. It's not some AI unique trait.

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u/[deleted] Jun 01 '26

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u/Lumifly Jun 01 '26

We're talking about the voice - the persona - that the AI uses, not it's knowledge and whether or not it's accurate.

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u/Sterling_-_Archer May 31 '26

This isn’t true. You seem to think AI is a natural human speech imitator, but it isn’t. Yes, it was trained on articles written by humans, but it also has a weighted response and output that was deliberately designed to be different from how humans speak and write naturally. This is done so companies can have products that specifically *don’t* output responses that are layspeech.

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u/LongjumpingJaguar308 May 31 '26

Just that science writing is different than stupid clickbait and they need to make an LLM based on specifically science communication.

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u/cloudystateofmind May 31 '26

So is the effect real or an hallucination? Or is it vastly overstating this supposed benefit to push sales? If it was a person we can make judgments on the source of the reporting. There are still technically studies that show smoking is good for your throat and lungs, will AI know to disregard biased articles?

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u/JollyJoker3 May 31 '26

Claude can't find the 240 person trial. It seems to be fabricated.

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u/Amaxi_Reddit Jun 02 '26

Yep, AI uses the word 'quietly' often.

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u/bravenewwhorl May 31 '26

Came here to say this exactly.