Disclaimer: This article is not meant to be medical advice and patients should notify their doctor of any supplement use.

When it comes to creatine, the bottom line of many uses is giving energy to cells that lack it. Enter cancer. We probably all know someone who has had cancer at some point and for those who helped to care for them at home they saw the cumulative effects the disease and treatment takes. Many report fatigue and weight loss prior to the diagnosis while still others see the ravaging effects of lack of appetite and nausea have after treatment begins.

If we simplify this idea, it would be accurate to say that our immune system cells have “lost” their energy to function as well as they are supposed to. In numerous studies, creatine content and energy has been found lacking in CD8 T cells in patients who have cancer (Di Biase and coworkers). It is these very CD8 cells that function to fight off cancer to begin with. Moreover, a great area of current research is finding drugs to hijack the patient’s immune system and cause it to use its natural defenses to fight even more aggressively. In addition to CD8 cell defense, our bodies sometimes use more creatine to infiltrate tumors. One such mechanism is creatine transport SLC6A8 gene expression which encodes a surface transporter controlling the uptake of creatine into cells that infiltrate tumors (Di Biase and coworkers).

One cancer drug, methylglyoxal (MG) was shown to work much better when creatine and ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) were added alongside (Pal and colleagues). In some cases, this combination therapy eliminated visible signs of cancer growth (Pal and colleagues).

See this shorter article on a viable form of creatine.

For a longer discussion, check out this article on creatine use in our immune system here

Citation: Kreider RB, Stout JR. Creatine in Health and Disease. Nutrients. 2021 Jan 29;13(2):447. doi: 10.3390/nu13020447. PMID: 33572884; PMCID: PMC7910963.