Creatine with resistance training changed a brain-oxygen reading in perimenopausal women, not reaction time

What the research found

The European Journal of Applied Physiology published this online on 24 October 2026 (DOI 10.1007/s00421-026-06481-6; PubMed 42926218). Baker and colleagues studied 51 perimenopausal women, reported age 46 plus or minus 5 years. Eighteen took creatine monohydrate, 20 took a placebo, and 13 were a non-training comparison group. The creatine schedule was 20 g a day for five days, then about 4.5 g a day for six weeks, together with progressive high-intensity resistance training twice a week. The Stroop task is a cognition test. Reaction time improved over time (congruent p under 0.001, incongruent p 0.004) with no difference between groups. Prefrontal oxygenation during the Stroop task changed by +0.32 plus or minus 2.01 percent with creatine versus -1.62 plus or minus 2.01 percent with placebo (p 0.003). Sleep consistency showed a time-by-treatment interaction (p under 0.001); at week 6 the baseline-adjusted creatine-versus-placebo gap was +7.4 points (p 0.015). A count of temperature-sensitivity days was not stated in the sources used here. The trial is exploratory (NCT07027800). Conflicts: A.S.R. is a scientific advisor to Alzchem, Create Wellness, and NeoLife, which sell creatine products, holds equity in Create Wellness, and has received industry funding related to creatine. G.J.G. is a WHOOP employee who exported WHOOP data and analyzed sleep and symptoms while blinded. That analysis was not independently reproduced by an investigator outside WHOOP. The code is public. WHOOP the company had no role in the design, interpretation, decision to publish, or approval of the manuscript. This is not a menopause treatment. Not medical advice.

Evidence level: Clinical trial. This is among the stronger kinds of evidence, but one study rarely settles a question.

Read the original at European Journal of Applied Physiology