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Research ·

Creatine gummies, by the numbers

Qaytona Team · 8 min read

Someone in a white shirt and pleated skirt running through tall green grass under a blue sky, seen from low behind, a straw hat in one hand.

Creatine's trial evidence is at 3 to 5 g a day. On the first page of Amazon results, that's a median of 4 gummies, though most listings don't say plainly how much is in one. What's inside is the bigger problem: in two rounds of testing, half or more of the gummies fell short of their labels, several held almost none, and every powder tested passed. Creatine also raises blood creatinine, which can make kidney function look worse than it is.

3 to 5 g a day: the dose in the trials

The trials gave 3 to 5 g of creatine monohydrate a day, sometimes after a week of about 20 g a day to fill the muscle quickly. Without that week, 3 g a day takes about four weeks to raise muscle creatine by the same amount.

4 gummies: to reach 5 g

We read the listings for the first 50 creatine gummies and chews on Amazon's results page. Where the amount can be worked out, 5 g takes a median of 4 gummies and 3 g takes 3. Only 3 of the 50 say plainly how much creatine is in one gummy. Seven give no amount anywhere, and 21 put a bare "5g" or "5000mg" in the title without saying it takes several gummies to get there.

At a median of $0.78 for 5 g, the gummies cost more than three times what the creatine powder in the same results did, at about $0.23. The NIH label database holds few gummies, but on the 16 gummies and chews it lists, a 5 g dose comes with a median of 4 g of sugar, and none of the labels mentions the kidneys.

0 mg: what several gummies held

In February 2024, the supplement maker NOW Foods tested 12 creatine gummies bought online. Three held no creatine, one held 8.7 mg against 1,000 mg on its label, and 6 of the 12 fell short. NOW sells creatine powder and ran the tests in its own lab.

In June 2025 SuppCo, a supplement-tracking app, sent six bestselling gummies to an outside lab. Four held between 0% and 0.5% of their labeled creatine; at one of them, 5 g would take about 2,000 gummies. All five powders tested held 98% to 103%.

Creatine is stable as a powder and breaks down to creatinine in water, faster when it's warm and acidic. Gummies are made with water, heat and usually citric acid.

On Amazon's first page, 23 of the 50 listings say the product is third-party tested or certified, and none links a certificate of analysis. Fourteen name NSF or Labdoor. When we looked those brands up, 13 had creatine gummies or chews in the certifiers' public listings, including two whose gummies failed the tests above.

4 lawsuits: what buyers say they got

Buyers have sued three gummy makers since June 2025 over creatine they say wasn't there. One complaint said its lab found less than 0.05 mg in each EcoWise gummy, against 1,250 mg on the label. All three cases were dismissed before any ruling on the claims.

A fourth, filed in September 2026, is about the front of the box. It says Animal's chews read "5g creatine" when it takes four chews to get there.

0.4 mg/dL: what it does to a creatinine test

In a trial of 30 young men, 3 or 5 g a day for five weeks raised serum creatinine by about 0.4 mg/dL and lowered estimated GFR by about 25 points. Markers of kidney injury didn't change.

Pooled across 26 trials, creatine lowered creatinine-based GFR by about 11 mL/min and didn't change GFR measured directly.

The international kidney guideline lists creatine supplements among the reasons to add cystatin C when a creatinine-based eGFR would change a decision. It also lists creatine among supplements linked to kidney injury in case reports.

1.4 kg: what it adds to resistance training

Across 22 trials in adults over 50 who lifted weights, creatine added about 1.4 kg of lean mass over placebo, and a little strength.

The training does much of the work. In postmenopausal women, lean mass rose only when 5 g a day or more was paired with resistance training, and trials of 3 g a day or less without training found nothing.

3 g: the dose Europe tested for memory

A third of the gummy listings on Amazon's first page claim benefits for the brain or memory. Europe's food safety agency reviewed creatine for memory and thinking at 3 g a day, on an application from a creatine maker, and found cause and effect not established. The memory effects reported in trials came at about 20 g a day for a week.

12 weeks: the hair loss trial

The hair loss worry traces to a 2009 study in which a week of 25 g a day raised dihydrotestosterone (DHT) by 56% in 16 rugby players. It didn't look at hair. A 2025 trial of 5 g a day for 12 weeks in 38 men found no change in DHT or in hair counted by dermatologists.

6 things to tell a patient

  1. Powder is the form the trials used, and it passed every test above that included it. Of 82 creatine monohydrate powders in the NIH database, 75 hold 3 to 5 g a scoop.
  2. If they want gummies, check the grams per serving and how many gummies make a serving, and look the brand up in NSF's public listings. A vague "third-party tested" says little.
  3. At 3 to 5 g a day with no loading week, expect about a month before the muscle is full.
  4. The gains in trials came alongside resistance training.
  5. Creatinine will likely rise. Say so before the next blood test, and use cystatin C if a decision depends on kidney function.
  6. There are no trials in pregnancy. Health Canada's monograph covers adults 18 and over, and asks people who are pregnant, breastfeeding or have a kidney disorder to check with a practitioner first.

The creatine monograph covers the other uses studied, the forms on the market and the interactions.

Sources

  1. 1Kreider et al., 2017PubMed CentralPosition stand of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. Funded by the Council for Responsible Nutrition, an industry group; most authors have ties to creatine makers.
  2. 2Amazon, October 2026amazon.comFirst page of results for creatine gummies, creatine gummy and creatine chews on October 9, 2026: 50 products, 42 of them gummies. Listing text is written by sellers and wasn't verified; amounts shown only in images weren't read.
  3. 3NIH Dietary Supplement Label DatabaseNIH label databaseSearched October 9, 2026: 16 products from 11 brands, newest label each. Only 3 are gummies; the rest are chews or chewable tablets.
  4. 4NOW Foods, 2024web.archive.orgPublished March 1, 2024. One lot per brand, tested by HPLC. The failing gummies also held creatinine, the breakdown product.
  5. 5SuppCo, 2025files.supp.coBought on Amazon without brand involvement. The lab, accredited to ISO 17025, isn't named. One lot each.
  6. 6Antonio et al., 2021PubMed CentralInternational Society of Sports Nutrition review of common questions. Efforts to make a stable creatine drink at 3 to 5 g a serving have failed. Several authors advise a creatine maker.
  7. 7NSF listingsinfo.nsf.orgNSF Contents Certified and Certified for Sport listings, and Labdoor, checked October 10, 2026. NSF's contents certification checks that a product holds what its label says. One brand that claimed NSF wasn't listed.
  8. 8Fetters v. EcoWise, 2025courtlistener.comCentral District of California, filed October 10, 2025, dismissed January 27, 2026. The other two were against PerfectFit365 and Create.
  9. 9Fetters v. Universal Protein Supplements, 2026courtlistener.comCentral District of California, filed September 1, 2026. No ruling yet.
  10. 10Vilar Neto et al., 2020PubMed Central10 men per group, 35 days. The changes were within groups; the differences between groups weren't significant. No funding.
  11. 11de Souza Almeida et al., 2026PubMedMeta-analysis of 1,036 people, including some with kidney disease. Measured GFR used chromium-51 EDTA clearance.
  12. 12KDIGO, 2024kdigo.orgKidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes guideline on chronic kidney disease. Table 8 covers cystatin C; the case reports are in chapter 4.
  13. 13Chilibeck et al., 2017PubMed Central721 adults, 7 to 52 weeks. Lean mass includes water, which creatine draws into muscle. No conflicts declared.
  14. 14Naddafha et al., 2026PubMed Central7 randomized trials, 608 women, mean age 62. Lean mass up 0.37 kg overall. Bone density unchanged.
  15. 15EFSA, 2024PubMed CentralOpinion of the Panel on Nutrition, Novel Foods and Food Allergens, October 2024. It set aside a 2024 meta-analysis for counting the same participants more than once.
  16. 16Lak et al., 2025PubMed CentralPlacebo-controlled, resistance-trained men aged 18 to 40. Two authors advise creatine brands.
  17. 17Health Canadawebprod.hc-sc.gc.caNatural Health Products monograph for creatine monohydrate, 2024.