Why is this one study more believable than the others?
> Also hell, your own damn link says that elite athletes seem to get no benefit from creatine vs younger ones,
Where are you seeing that? All I could find was the opposite:
> In trained athletes, creatine has been reported to reduce body fat and improve some measures of anaerobic exercise performance, strength, and power output.
But regardless,
> meaning that its not really increasing muscle mass, just a combination of placebo, water retention, and maybe a burst of energy in the early stages of getting fit.
doesn't follow; it's perfectly plausible that something could help more in initial training but actually work then.
"improve strength, and power output" -> ability to train harder -> more muscle growth to put it simply.
Also hell, your own damn link says that elite athletes seem to get no benefit from creatine vs younger ones, meaning that its not really increasing muscle mass, just a combination of placebo, water retention, and maybe a burst of energy in the early stages of getting fit.