Creatine Monohydrate and medications.
Creatine Monohydrate is in the Distil supplement database, evidence Grade A. The page below lists every medication we have explicitly assessed it against.
Creatine monohydrate is the most researched sports supplement there is, and the evidence reaches well beyond the gym. It supports strength, power, and muscle mass, and a 2023 meta-analysis of 22 studies found it may also improve memory independently of exercise, with the strongest signal in older adults and vegetarians who start with low dietary creatine. The practical dose is 3 to 5g daily, and most people do not need a loading phase. A genuine limit worth knowing: roughly a quarter of people are genetic non-responders, so a fair trial of several weeks tells you whether it works for you. On interactions, the main flag is chronic NSAID use, which adds renal stress, and anyone with kidney disease should avoid it; in healthy people at standard doses there is no evidence of kidney harm. One useful thing to know before a blood test: creatine raises the creatinine level the test measures, because creatinine is its natural breakdown product. That is a harmless effect of supplementing, not a sign of kidney trouble, but it can make a kidney-function estimate look slightly worse than it really is, so tell your GP you take creatine before any kidney blood test, particularly if you take a medicine whose dose depends on kidney function. The common side effect is mild water retention in muscle, which is desirable for performance and neutral otherwise. Split the dose if a single serving causes any stomach upset.
Below are the 2 documented pairs we have explicitly assessed for Creatine Monohydrate: 2 amber. The pairs cluster around 1 mechanism: Additive renal stress. Every call is cited to either a clinical reference (PMID) or the British National Formulary. Anything not listed here is either still to be assessed or beyond our database scope. The checker beneath surfaces assessments by medication, and the missing-item form at the bottom of the page routes any uncatalogued medication into our next curation pass.
Documented interactions
Additive renal stress
On its own, creatine is safe for the kidneys in healthy people, and an occasional ibuprofen is fine alongside it. The caution is for taking ibuprofen often over a long stretch, or if you already have reduced kidney function: ibuprofen lowers blood flow through the kidneys, and that is the situation where adding creatine's extra workload is worth a doctor's eye. One more practical point: creatine naturally pushes up a blood marker called creatinine, which is the same marker used to check your kidneys, so tell your GP or the lab you take creatine before any kidney blood test on ibuprofen, or the result can look worse than it really is.
Reviewer-flagged: awaiting clinical-reviewer sign-off.
On its own, creatine is safe for the kidneys in healthy people, and occasional naproxen is fine alongside it. The caution is for taking naproxen often over a long stretch, or if you already have reduced kidney function: naproxen lowers blood flow through the kidneys, and that is the situation where adding creatine's extra workload is worth a doctor's eye. One more practical point: creatine naturally pushes up a blood marker called creatinine, which is the same marker used to check your kidneys, so tell your GP or the lab you take creatine before any kidney blood test on naproxen, or the result can look worse than it really is.
Reviewer-flagged: awaiting clinical-reviewer sign-off.
What this list does not say. Pairs not flagged here are not implicitly safe. They are either not yet in our database, or fall outside our inclusion scope. Use the checker below to surface any medication, and submit a missing item if you take something we have not catalogued.
How we grade severity, choose what's in scope, and what we exclude.
Every call on this page is reasoned. We publish the full rubric for severity tiers, the medication inclusion logic, the evidence grades we accept, and what we deliberately leave out. About three thousand words. Worth reading once if you use this tool more than occasionally.
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- the same graded, cited interaction check across your whole stack, not just the pairs you thought to type in
- where your current routine may be leaving you short of your goals
- the evidence-backed compounds worth adding, and the ones worth dropping
It's a paid report: £79, or £49 for the first 25 customers. The interactions check is one section of it, and you can read a real one in full before you buy.
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