. 2023 Mar 18;15(6):1466. doi: 10.3390/nu15061466

Table 1.

Experimental studies investigating the effect of creatine supplementation on kidney function in animals.

Study	Sample Characteristics	Experimental Groups	Creatine Supplementation Protocol	Comparison	Main Findings
Edmunds et al. (2001) [22]	Han:SPRD-Cy Rats *	(i) Creatine diet (ii) Control diet	Creatine/glutamine (5:1 w/w) L: 2.4 g∙kg⁻¹∙day⁻¹ of diet for 7 days M: 0.48 g∙kg⁻¹∙day⁻¹ of diet for 35 days	Purified diet	↑ Serum Crn ^# ↓ Crn clearance ↑ BUN ↑ Cyst scores
Taes et al. (2003) [69]	Male Wistar rats	(i) Sham-operated/control diet (ii) Nephrectomized/control diet (iii) Sham-operated/creatine diet (iv) Nephrectomized/creatine diet	Creatine monohydrate (2% of diet∙day⁻¹) for 4 weeks	Soy-based chow (14% protein)	↔ mGFR ^† ↔ Serum Crn ^† ↔ Crn clearance ^† ↔ BUN ^† ↔ Urea clearance ^† ↔ Serum CysC ^† ↔ Proteinuria ^† ↔ Albuminuria ^†
Ferreira et al. (2005) [23]	Male Wistar rats	(i) Sedentary/control diet (ii) AE/control diet (iii) Sedentary/creatine diet (iv) AE/creatine diet	Creatine monohydrate 2 g∙kg⁻¹∙day⁻¹ of diet for 10 weeks	Standard chow	↓ mGFR ^& ↓ RPF ^& ↓ Filtration fraction ^& ↔ Proteinuria ↔ UFR
Souza et al. (2009) [24]	Male Wistar rats	(i) Sedentary/control diet (ii) AE/control diet (iii) Sedentary/creatine diet (iv) AE/creatine diet	Creatine monohydrate L: 5 g∙kg⁻¹∙day⁻¹ of diet for 1 week M: 1 g∙kg⁻¹∙day⁻¹ of diet for 4–8 weeks	Not specified	↑ Serum Crn ^& ↑ BUN ^& ↑ RHA ^&

AE: aerobic exercise; BUN: blood urea nitrogen; Crn: creatinine; CysC: Cystatin C; L: loading phase; M: maintenance phase; mGFR: measured glomerular filtration rate; RHA: renal histological abnormalities; RPF: renal plasma flow; UFR: urine flow rate. * animal model of inherited renal cystic disease; ^# only in males; ^† significant difference between sham-operated and nephrectomized rats; ^& only in non-exercised animals. Arrows indicate similar results (↔) or significant increased (↑)/decreased (↓) in creatine-supplemented animals versus controls.