Perimenopause, Brain Fog, and Recovery: Where Creatine May Help Women Most

In this portion of the interview, Susan Kleiner, PhD, RD, FACN, CNS-E, FISSN, Founder of High-Performance Nutrition LLC, explains how creatine may support women through key hormonal transitions, from the menstrual cycle to perimenopause and menopause. She discusses creatine’s role in stabilizing energy availability and its potential to improve mood, cognition, brain fog, strength, and recovery.

Dr. Kleiner emphasizes that creatine is not a cure-all, but a foundational tool that can help women feel better, maintain regular exercise, and support overall physical and mental health across midlife.

Partial transcript:

Sebastian Krawiec: Digging into the hormonal fluctuations women experience throughout their lives, also during pregnancy and peri and post menopause. Can you talk about what the data shows in terms of creatines, benefits, and or risks in those populations?

Susan Kleiner: Starting with the menstrual cycle, we know that creatine levels seem to go, sort of alter our stored creatine levels go up and down throughout the menstrual cycle, and so supplementing helps keep them steadier, which we assume and we have some data to support, that you just feel better, and anything that can help a woman feel better during her menstrual cycle is a win. And for the week before and during, those two weeks are, are, can be dicey.

And so, along with, if you're looking for performance outcomes, especially in power and strength, probably will help enhance your performance in that way. But, of course, you have to be doing the exercise, it doesn't just happen, you have to be doing the exercise. This supplements and enhances and supports.

When we move beyond our reproductive years, and we start to move into perimenopause, it's kind of the same thing again, but now it may be more, the effect in the, in the brain, and cutting through sort of the natural lows in hormone, peaks and valleys and hormone levels. This isn't going to change that, but having adequate energy, access to energy during that time that helps maybe enhance mood, maybe enhance cognition and focus, decrease brain fog. Those factors are profound factors for many women during perimenopause, and if you feel better and feel stronger, you're more likely to maintain your exercise program. And what is undeniable is that a regular exercise program during these years enhances both your physical as well as mental health and well-being, and so that is then going to enhance sleep, which is a whole other factor.