Dietary creatine is associated with lower serum neurofilament light chain levels.
Level 4 - case-series / case-control
Cross-sectional population survey analysis (NHANES)
PubMed 38780027 · doi:10.1139/apnm-2024-0064
What was done
Researchers analyzed cross-sectional data from the 2013-2014 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) comprising 1,912 participants (52.2% female) aged 20-75 years. They evaluated the association between dietary creatine intake and serum neurofilament light chain (NfL) levels, adjusting for nutritional covariates known to influence neuronal viability.
What was found
Dietary creatine intake showed a negative correlation with serum NfL concentrations that persisted after adjusting for nutritional covariates. The abstract reports the direction of the relationship but provides no numerical effect estimates, correlation coefficients, confidence intervals, or p-values.
Why it matters
Neurofilament light chain is a biomarker of ongoing neuronal injury; this study offers population-scale observational evidence that higher dietary creatine is associated with lower circulating NfL.
Limits
The study is cross-sectional and cannot establish temporal sequence or causality. The abstract omits all numerical values and statistical test statistics, dietary intake estimates are subject to recall bias, and residual confounding from unmeasured health and lifestyle factors remains possible.
Cited by
- partial Dietary intake of 1 gram of creatine has been shown to reduce levels of neurofilament light chain, a marker of neuronal damage.