TL;DR — The History of Creatine
Creatine has one of the longest and most fascinating histories of any supplement. Discovered in 1832 by French chemist Michel Eugene Chevreul, creatine spent over 150 years as a scientific curiosity before exploding into mainstream use in the 1990s. The pivotal moment came with Harris et al.’s 1992 study showing that oral creatine supplementation could increase muscle creatine stores by approximately 20%. Since then, over 500 peer-reviewed studies have examined creatine, making it the most studied sports supplement in history — and the evidence overwhelmingly supports its safety and efficacy (RB et al., 2017) .
1832: Discovery by Chevreul
The story of creatine begins in a French laboratory in 1832. Michel Eugene Chevreul, a chemist best known for his pioneering work on fats and soaps, was analysing the chemical composition of meat. By extracting and purifying a previously unknown organic compound from the aqueous fraction of meat, Chevreul identified what he called “creatine” — derived from the Greek word “kreas” meaning flesh or meat.
At this point, creatine was purely a scientific curiosity. Chevreul had no way to understand its biological function, and the compound sat in chemistry textbooks as an interesting constituent of animal tissue without any practical application. Nevertheless, this discovery laid the groundwork for nearly two centuries of research that would eventually transform exercise science and sports nutrition.
1847: Liebig Connects Creatine to Muscle
Justus von Liebig, one of the founders of organic chemistry and a giant of 19th-century science, made the next critical observation. In 1847, Liebig confirmed that creatine was a natural and abundant component of skeletal muscle. More importantly, he observed that wild animals — foxes, for instance — had significantly higher muscle creatine concentrations than domestic animals kept in cages.
This observation was remarkably prescient. Liebig hypothesised that physical activity somehow influenced creatine storage in muscle. While he could not explain the mechanism, this insight anticipated by over a century the modern understanding that exercise and training status affect intramuscular creatine levels.
Liebig also went a step further, commercialising what may have been the world’s first “creatine product” — a meat extract called Liebig’s Extract of Meat (later known as Oxo), marketed partly on the basis of its creatine content as a tonic for health and vitality.
1927: The Phosphocreatine Breakthrough
The next major milestone came in 1927, when Cyrus Fiske and Yellapragada SubbaRow at Harvard discovered phosphocreatine (PCr) in skeletal muscle. They demonstrated that creatine existed in muscle tissue in two forms: free creatine and phosphorylated creatine (phosphocreatine).
This discovery was transformative. It established that creatine was not merely a structural component of muscle but was directly involved in energy metabolism. Phosphocreatine, they showed, could donate its phosphate group to regenerate ATP — the universal energy currency of cells. The concept of the “phosphocreatine energy system” was born.
Throughout the 1930s-1960s, researchers progressively characterised the creatine kinase enzyme, the phosphocreatine shuttle, and the role of the ATP-PCr system in powering rapid, high-intensity muscle contractions (T et al., 2011) .
1960s-1980s: The Enzyme Era
The mid-20th century saw detailed characterisation of the creatine kinase system. Researchers identified multiple isoforms of creatine kinase (CK-MM in muscle, CK-MB in heart, CK-BB in brain, and mitochondrial mi-CK), revealing that the phosphocreatine energy system operated not only in skeletal muscle but also in cardiac muscle, brain tissue, and other high-energy-demand organs.
Wallimann and colleagues conducted seminal work during this period, characterising the phosphocreatine shuttle — the sophisticated energy transport system that moves high-energy phosphate groups from mitochondria to sites of ATP consumption within cells. This research established creatine as far more than a simple energy buffer: it was a central component of cellular energy management.
During this era, researchers also began investigating creatine supplementation in animals, showing that dietary creatine could increase muscle creatine stores. However, human supplementation studies were limited and the idea of using creatine as a sports supplement had not yet emerged.
1992: The Harris Study Changes Everything
The watershed moment for creatine supplementation came in 1992 when Roger Harris and colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm published their landmark study in Clinical Science. The study was elegantly simple: healthy human volunteers consumed creatine monohydrate orally (5g taken 4-6 times daily for 5 or more days), and muscle biopsies measured the resulting change in intramuscular creatine (RC et al., 1992) .
The results were striking. Oral creatine supplementation increased total muscle creatine stores by approximately 20%, with some subjects showing increases of up to 30%. Furthermore, subjects with lower initial creatine levels showed the greatest increases — a finding that would later explain why vegetarians respond particularly well to supplementation.
This single study provided the scientific foundation for the entire creatine supplement industry. For the first time, it was demonstrated that a simple, inexpensive, orally consumed compound could meaningfully increase the body’s phosphocreatine reserves and, by extension, its capacity for high-intensity work.
1992-1996: Olympic Fame and Market Explosion
The timing of the Harris study coincided with the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. British sprinters Linford Christie (100m gold medallist) and Sally Gunnell (400m hurdles gold medallist) reportedly used creatine as part of their preparation. Media coverage of their success, combined with the scientific backing of the Harris study, brought creatine to public attention on a massive scale.
The supplement industry responded rapidly. Creatine monohydrate products flooded the market, and by the mid-1990s, creatine was one of the best-selling sports supplements in the world. Annual sales exceeded $400 million in the United States alone. Bodybuilders, football players, sprinters, and recreational gym-goers embraced the supplement.
Hultman et al. (1996) further validated the loading protocol, establishing the standard 20g/day loading phase (4 x 5g for 5-7 days) followed by 3-5g/day maintenance. This protocol became the default recommendation that persists to this day.
2000s: Beyond Muscle — Brain, Health, and Clinical Research
As the evidence base grew, researchers began exploring creatine’s effects beyond skeletal muscle. The 2000s saw a dramatic expansion of research scope.
Rae et al. (2003) demonstrated that creatine supplementation improved cognitive performance — specifically working memory and processing speed — in vegetarian subjects. This was among the first studies to show that creatine’s benefits extended to the brain, not just the muscles.
Sullivan et al. (2000) explored creatine as a neuroprotective agent following traumatic brain injury. Studies on creatine and depression, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, and diabetes opened entirely new clinical research directions. The traditional view of creatine as “just a gym supplement” began to crumble.
Wallimann et al. (2011) published a comprehensive review characterising creatine as a multifunctional compound with roles in energy metabolism, neuroprotection, antioxidant defence, and cell signaling — far beyond simple ATP buffering (T et al., 2011) .
2007-2017: The ISSN Position Stand Era
The International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN) published its first position stand on creatine in 2007, and an updated, expanded version in 2017. The 2017 position stand, authored by Kreider et al., was a landmark document that reviewed over 500 studies and made several key conclusions.
The ISSN declared creatine monohydrate the most effective ergogenic nutritional supplement currently available for increasing high-intensity exercise capacity and lean body mass during training. It confirmed creatine’s safety profile across short-term and long-term studies, and acknowledged emerging evidence for cognitive, neuroprotective, and clinical applications. No other form of creatine (HCl, ethyl ester, buffered, liquid) was found to be superior to creatine monohydrate (RB et al., 2017) .
2020s: The Longevity and Healthy Ageing Wave
The most recent chapter of creatine research focuses on longevity and healthy ageing. Studies have explored creatine’s role in combating sarcopenia (age-related muscle loss), supporting bone health, maintaining cognitive function in older adults, and even its potential effects on mitochondrial function and oxidative stress.
Roschel et al. (2021) reviewed the broader biological effects of creatine beyond athletic performance, positioning it as a compound with relevance across the entire human lifespan — from paediatric neurology to geriatric medicine.
The Malaysian Chapter
In Malaysia, creatine awareness has grown substantially since the early 2020s, driven by several converging factors.
E-commerce growth: Malaysia’s supplement e-commerce market expanded rapidly, with platforms like Shopee and Lazada making international and local creatine brands accessible nationwide.
Halal certification: The emergence of halal-certified options from local brands such as AGYM and PharmaNutri addressed the primary concern of Malaysia’s Muslim-majority population. When consumers can verify a supplement’s halal status, adoption barriers drop significantly.
Fitness culture expansion: The proliferation of commercial gyms, CrossFit boxes, and social media fitness communities across Kuala Lumpur, Penang, and Johor has created a population increasingly interested in evidence-based supplementation.
Regional market growth: The Asia-Pacific creatine market is growing at an estimated 25-28% compound annual growth rate, with Southeast Asia emerging as a key growth region.
For Malaysian consumers, understanding creatine’s nearly 200-year scientific history provides confidence that this is not a fad supplement but one of the most thoroughly researched compounds in nutritional science.
Sources & References
This article cites Harris et al. (1992) on the landmark loading study, Kreider et al. (2017) on the ISSN position stand, and Wallimann et al. (2011) on the creatine kinase system and multifunctional roles of creatine. Full citations with DOI links are available in our Research Library.