Dietary intake of creatine and risk of medical conditions in U.S. older men and women: Data from the 2017-2018 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

Abstract

We examined dietary intake of creatine in U.S. men and women aged 65 years and over, and evaluated the association between creatine intake and risk of self‐reported medical conditions, and physical functioning/disability variables using data from the 2017–2018 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). The NHANES 2017–2018 target population included the noninstitutionalized civilian resident population of the United States aged 65 years and over. Detailed dietary intake data from NHANES elderly were obtained by dietary interview component through a 24‐h dietary recall interview, with estimated individual values for total grams of creatine consumed per day for each respondent. A threshold for dietary intake of creatine used to calculate risk between creatine intake and medical conditions was set at 1.00 g/day. The sample population included 1500 participants aged 65 years and older, of which 1221 individuals (627 men and 594 women) provided detailed dietary data via a dietary interview. Creatine intake across all participants was 0.76 ± 0.79 g/day (95% CI from 0.72 to 0.81). As much as 70% of U.S. elderly consume <1.00 g of creatine per day, with about 1 in 5 individuals (19.8%) consume no creatine at all. Elderly with the suboptimal intake of creatine were found to have 2.62 times higher risk of angina pectoris (adjusted OR = 2.62, 95% CI from 1.14 to 6.01, p = .023) and 2.59 times higher risk of liver conditions (adjusted OR = 2.59, 95% CI from 1.23 to 5.48, p = .013), compared with older counterparts who consume ≥1.00 g of creatine per day after controlling for demographic and nutritional variables. The considerable shortage of dietary creatine is associated with an increased risk of heart and liver conditions, which calls for public measures that foster diets rich in creatine‐containing foods, and additional research to investigate the role of creatine in age‐related diseases.