This Scientometric Analysis section quantifies and visualizes the global research output on creatine, tracking trends, social media analysis, and impact over time. This provides a clear picture of how creatine research has evolved and its future directions.
Google Trends Analysis
A data analysis that uses the Google Trends tool to examine search patterns for the term “creatine” over time. This analysis identifies trends, interest peaks, and geographic variations in searches, providing insights into the popularity and impact of a topic in public opinion.
Interest over time in Google. The image displays a line graph depicting the evolution of an indicator related to the “Creatine For Health” initiative from January 1, 2004, to October 1, 2022. The vertical axis shows values ranging from 0 to 100, while the horizontal axis marks key dates at intervals of several years. The graph illustrates a progressive increase in interest or impact of the initiative over time.
Sentiment Analysis
A big data text analysis was conducted using the YouTube application programming interface (API) version 3, provided by YouTube for developers, and was authorized by the Twitter (X) Academic Research program (San Francisco, USA) to access the Twitter (X) API. The analysis was based on the information provided by the DBSS Research Division (Project name: “Creatine Safety”- APP ID: 21590870). To gather social web texts, we utilized the Academic Research version of the Mozdeh software, which automatically anonymizes usernames.
We performed a sentiment analysis using supervised machine learning to detect and classify subjective content, a proven method for social web text analytics. Utilizing the Mozdeh software with the SentiStrength algorithm, we evaluated the strength of positive and negative sentiment in text. SentiStrength employs a manually curated lexicon of over 3,000 terms and term stems, along with additional rules, to assign sentiment scores ranging from 1 (no sentiment) to 5 (very strong sentiment), with negative values indicating negative sentiment. The software calculates the average positive and negative sentiment scores for all relevant posts, including 95% confidence intervals.
YouTube Sentiment Analysis
A total of 129,782 comments were collected from YouTube videos published between April 2011 and February 2025 that contained the term “creatine” in their title or description. The majority of comments exhibit no strong sentiment, suggesting that many are informational rather than opinion-based. Overall, positive comments (blue) outnumber negative ones (orange), though neutral comments show a slightly higher proportion of negativity.
Bar plot presenting the proportion of texts (Y-axis) and the sentiment strength scores (X-axis) for all collected comments (A), as well as for those including the words “monohydrate” (B) or “HCl” (C).
YouTube Time Series
Significant peaks in the time series analysis (July 2021, March 2022, August 2023, and September 2024) coincided with key events led by ‘Creatine for Health’. These included the special issue “Creatine Supplementation for Health and Clinical Diseases” (first half of 2021), the Creatine Conference 2022 held in Alpharetta, US, increased activity and publications on the YouTube channel @creatineforhealth (first half of 2023), and an advertising strategy launched in early 2024 to boost the channel’s reach, resulting in videos surpassing one million views.
Time series graph displaying all YouTube comments from videos containing the word “creatine” in title or description, organized by publication date.
Twitter sentiment analysis
Regarding Twitter (X) data up to 2021, a total of 657,039 tweets (90.5%) matched out after the search for “creatine” in the initial gathered data of 725,788 tweets. No significant differences were found on average sentiment; therefore, there was a neutral sentiment on creatine if we consider the mean values of the analyzed population (mean positive – mean negative = 0.0098). However, there is a higher prevalence of strong negative sentiment (2.09%) compared to strong positive sentiment (0.69%). It should be noted that, as of April 2023, free access to Twitter (X) data was discontinued, making it unfeasible to extend the analysis in Mozdeh to the present day.
Plots for the set of search results on creatine. A. Bar plot presenting the proportion of texts (Y axis) and the sentiment strength scores (X axis). B. Bubble plot depicting the association between negative and positive sentiment. C. Time series graph showing the tweets by the publication date.
Word Association Analysis in YouTube
A comparative analysis of association word mining was conducted using the 129,782 comments that were collected from YouTube videos published between April 2011 and February 2025 that included “creatine” in their title or description. This identifies keywords that were statistically associated with comments containing “monohydrate” or “HCl” on YouTube.
Table. Top 30 word association mining results for “monohydrate” and “HCl” within the collected YouTube comments containing “creatine” in title or description.
The “Match” column indicates the percentage of comments containing the word that match each term (“monohydrate” or “HCl”). The “No Match” column shows the percentage of comments containing the word that do not match the search terms “monohydrate” or “HCl.” The “Matches” column represents the number of comments that match the word with each term (“monohydrate” or “HCl”). The “Total” column displays the total number of comments containing the word. The “DiffPZ” column shows the difference in proportion z. The “Sig” column indicates whether the relationship was significant according to the Chi-square test performed. A 2×2 chi-squared test was used to assess these associations, with Yates correction applied when necessary. The Benjamini-Hochberg procedure was used to control the false discovery rate. This ensures that only statistically significant differences in word usage were considered. *** p<0.001
The ‘Creatine for Health’ Initiative
In 2021, the global initiative ‘Creatine for Health’ was launched to unite creatine researchers and accelerate awareness about the role of creatine supplementation in health and clinical diseases. This initiative seeks to bridge the gap between scientific research and public understanding, highlighting the potential benefits of creatine in enhancing health outcomes and managing disease.
Creatine for Health is powered by the Exercise & Sport Nutrition Laboratory at Texas A&M University and the Research Division of the DBSS – Dynamical Business & Science Society. Sponsored by: Creavitalis® & Alzchem Group AG. Available at: https://creatineforhealth.com/
“Creatine for Health” contains research-based information for educational purposes to promote awareness of potential creatine applications in health and disease. The “Creatine for Health” initiative is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
History
Oportunities
Creatine Conference 2025
The Creatine Conference 2025 brings together the world’s leading creatine researchers to advance awareness of creatine monohydrate supplementation’s role in health and clinical conditions. Once again, hosted by the Alzchem Group AG, the Exercise and Sport Nutrition...
Exploring Creatine Supplementation: Enhancing Physical and Cognitive Health in Older Adults
Background As we age, physiological changes such as reduced muscle mass and strength, along with cognitive decline, become prevalent. Creatine, a naturally occurring compound found in the body and dietary sources, has gained interest for its ability to improve energy...
KREAFOOD
KreaFood is a research and innovation project led by Prof. Diego A. Bonilla, focused on advancing creatine-fortified foods to promote health and well-being. The project explores the development and functional benefits of foods enriched with ultra-micronized creatine...