Creatine is best known as a sports supplement used by athletes to improve strength, muscle power, and exercise performance.
However, a new study from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) suggests that creatine may have another important role inside the body.
According to research published in the journal iScience, creatine may help the immune system fight cancer by giving key immune cells more energy. Although the work is still at an early stage, the findings may eventually help scientists improve cancer immunotherapy.
Cancer develops when abnormal cells grow out of control. The immune system constantly searches for these abnormal cells, but cancer can sometimes hide from immune defenses or weaken the body’s ability to attack it.
Over the past decade, immunotherapy has become an important treatment because it helps the immune system recognize and destroy cancer cells. Even so, only about 20% to 40% of patients respond well to current immunotherapy, so researchers are looking for ways to improve its success.
The UCLA team focused on dendritic cells. These specialized immune cells act like scouts. They detect dangerous cells, collect information about them, and then alert killer T cells, which directly attack cancer. If dendritic cells do not work properly, killer T cells cannot launch their strongest response.
The scientists first studied mice with tumors and discovered that dendritic cells inside tumors produced much larger amounts of a protein that transports creatine into the cells. This suggested that creatine might be especially important for helping these immune cells function under difficult conditions.
To test this idea, the researchers created dendritic cells that could no longer absorb creatine. Without access to creatine, the cells survived less well, became less active, and lost much of their ability to activate killer T cells. As a result, the T cells multiplied less and produced fewer of the chemical signals needed to fight cancer effectively.
Next, the researchers tested the opposite approach by giving mice daily creatine. Tumor growth slowed, and larger numbers of active dendritic cells entered the tumors. These energized immune cells also released signals that attracted additional immune cells to join the attack.
Further laboratory testing showed why this happened. Creatine increased the amount of ATP inside dendritic cells. ATP is often called the cell’s energy currency because it powers almost every activity inside living cells. By increasing these energy stores, creatine allowed dendritic cells to remain active even when nutrients inside tumors were limited.
The team also tested human immune cells grown in the laboratory. Creatine improved the activity of human dendritic cells and helped them stimulate human T cells more effectively. These findings suggest that creatine might one day improve dendritic-cell cancer vaccines, which are designed to train the immune system to recognize cancer.
Despite these exciting findings, the researchers stressed that the study was performed only in mice and laboratory-grown human cells. It does not prove that creatine supplements improve cancer treatment in patients. Clinical trials involving people will be needed before doctors know whether creatine is safe and effective as part of cancer therapy.
This research provides strong biological evidence that creatine may support several parts of the immune response instead of acting on only one cell type. Its strengths include detailed laboratory experiments and consistent findings in both mice and human immune cells.
However, because no cancer patients were treated, the results should be viewed as promising but preliminary. People receiving cancer treatment should not start creatine supplements without discussing them with their medical team.
If future clinical trials confirm these findings, creatine could become a simple and affordable way to improve some forms of cancer immunotherapy.
If you care about cancer, please read studies that a low-carb diet could increase overall cancer risk, and vitamin D supplements could strongly reduce cancer death.
For more information about health, please see recent studies about how drinking milk affects the risks of heart disease and cancer and results showing higher intake of dairy foods linked to higher prostate cancer risk.
Source: University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
