Last Updated On September 21, 2023
If there were a fitness supplement that could make you taller, everyone would be taking it. Unfortunately, height and human growth are the two things you can’t change in the gym, no matter how many reps you do.
However, creatine is one of the more studied dietary supplements. Creatine is a natural substance, and it alone has over 500 research studies that evaluate its effects on exercise capacity and muscle physiology in trained and untrained people.
So if there were a supplement that could make you taller even if you don’t do a daily workout, it would be creatine supplements, right? Before you rush out to your vitamin store to stock up on your creatine, let’s answer the question, “does creatine make you taller?
Does Taking Creatine Help You Grow Taller or Not?
When you google the phrase, “creatine grow taller,” you will get thousands of results, so let’s take a look. Creatine is an amino acid in your body's muscles and brain.
Creatine can be found in seafood and red meat but at levels far below the levels of synthetically made creatine supplements.
Your liver, pancreas, and kidneys produce about 1 gram of muscle creatine per day. Your body stores creatine as phosphocreatine in your muscles and uses it as a source of muscle contraction energy and muscle growth.
Supplementing your creatine so it restores faster allows your muscles to grow faster. That’s why creatine has become very popular in the athletic world to improve athletic performance and increase muscle mass.
Taking creatine is mainly meant for growth, not weight loss and people trying to lose weight. However, is it for people trying to get taller? Let’s take a look.
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Does Creatine Make You Taller At 20?
Once you hit 20 years old, taking creatine supplements has little to no effect on height. Even on the rare occasion you hit puberty a little later than most, you are still unlikely to grow significantly after 18 or so. Once puberty has come and gone, you won’t get any taller.
The majority of boys reach their peak height at 16. After that, growth factors like proper nutrition and growth hormone levels don’t cause them to get taller. Instead, these factors affect body mass and muscular strength after age 18, not bone growth.
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Can Creatine Make You Taller At 16?
Creatine can still have a positive impact on your height at 16. When you’re 16, your bones are still growing, and your growth plates are active. Proper nutrition and consuming enough creatine each day increases height in adolescents.
Creatine is a protein by-product that increases your growth by stimulating cell protein synthesis. In addition, loading creatine helps boost growth hormone levels in the body, which leads to faster and improved growth.
However, teenagers should avoid creatine supplementation and get it from natural food sources like red meat.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Sports Medicine agree that teenagers shouldn’t use creatine or other performance-enhancing supplements like pre-workouts.
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How Creatine Affects Your Height Growth
Creatine increases the growth rate of body cells by causing protein synthesis. But before we dive into the effectiveness of creatine for height gains, let’s take a look at how humans grow taller.
Most of the skeleton in a newborn is made of soft cartilage, which is eventually replaced with hard bones. Bone formation is a time-consuming process and isn’t complete until about 19 or 20 years old.
Children and adolescents have soft growth plates at the end of their long bones, and the tissues respond to nutrients and growth hormones by growing bigger and stronger.
However, over time, all of the soft cartilage will be replaced by hard bones which do not grow any longer, even when supplied with nutrients and hormones.
That means you can increase your height with proper creatine supplementation (through natural forms) until you reach adulthood.
Several studies have shown creatine's impact on growth, proving that it results in greater decreases in Myostatin (a molecule that slows down the growth process) concentrations.
Since creatine will inhibit Myostatin, it will eventually lead to a taller stature. Creatine also increases the blood's insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1) level, promoting growth.
Scientific evidence shows that growth factor (IGF-1) reduces the insensitivity of body tissues to growth hormone (GH). As a result, those tissues will start responding to GH, and their growth rate will increase.
Creatine's influence on height is confirmed by a cross-sectional analysis of the 9-12 years old U.S population. The research states that children and adolescents who consume a high amount of creatine are taller than those who consume lesser dietary creatine.
The study discovered that each 0.1 gram of creatine consumed daily resulted in a natural height increase of up to .60 cm.[1]
You can take actual measurements to see how taking creatine affects your height over time.
The Science Of Creatine And Height
Here’s a technical rundown of how creatine affects height:
Does Creatine Increase The Human Growth Hormone?
Creatine is a completely legal fitness supplement that could increase HGH. Acute creatine intake can increase human growth hormone secretion. However, small doses do not appear to affect hormonal secretions.[2]
The effects of creatine on protein synthesis are confirmed by abundant research. However, there are only a few pieces of research on the impact of creatine on human growth hormone concentration.
These studies infer that creatine affects growth hormone secretion, but only at a higher concentration. In Belgium, a clinical trial was performed to study the effects of creatine and weight training on the hormonal system.
The research found that small doses of creatine for short periods do not change the blood concentration or secretion level of hormones, including growth hormone, testosterone, and cortisol.
However, another research paper found different results and concluded that high doses of creatine lead to higher growth hormone secretion. That has led many fitness experts to recommend a creatine-loading phase to maximize growth effects.
There are, however, adverse outcomes associated with consuming large doses of creatine.
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To increase height with creatine, you should use a supplement with different types of creatine molecules.
Can Creatine Actually Stunt Growth?
There’s currently no evidence that suggests that your growth will be stunted when you take creatine. On the contrary, scientific evidence indicates that the daily intake of dietary creatine promotes and supports development by helping to strengthen and repair muscles.
Creatine is a completely naturally occurring amino acid formed in your body and stored within the muscles. It increases lean muscle growth, strength, power, and endurance.
A regular diet of healthy foods and exercise paired with health supplements like creatine will support further growth and overall health.
Creatine And Height Growth FAQs
We recommend creatine monohydrate if you want to grow taller, more muscular, and healthier. Monohydrate is the most widely used form of creatine and the form that has the most research studies. The positive effects we associate with creatine use come from studies of creatine monohydrate. Some newer forms of creatine claim to improve the percentage of creatine available to the muscles. However, as much as 99.1 percent of the monohydrate is delivered to the skeletal muscle, so there's little for the newer forms to improve on.
Synthetic creatine is often necessary to significantly increase creatine levels. However, 15-year-olds should get their creatine from natural sources. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends against supplementing creatine for adolescents. Most creatine includes warning labels that the supplement is not recommended for anyone under 18.
Your genetics primarily determines height and human growth. However, there are several steps you can take to at least appear taller and optimize your growth potential. First, when your bones are still growing, you must ensure that your body gets all the nutrients it needs. Occasionally skimping on sleep won’t affect your height in the long term, but don’t regularly clock less than the recommended amount because your body releases HGH while you sleep. Regular exercise is also vital during your formative years, and you should try yoga.
Conclusion
Creatine is made of amino acids and can boost height on an active growth plate because it inhibits Myostatin and helps to stimulate growth hormone.
Your growth plates are only active until about 19 years old, so adults cannot increase their height even if they take creatine. Consuming more than 1 gram of creatine per day as a child or adolescent could help you grow taller than your peers.
The source of dietary creatine should be food, not synthetic bodybuilding supplements. For example, use ground-fed beef and seafood to reach your creatine goals as an adolescent.
References:
- https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/13/3/1027
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11252073/
