The supplement that almost EVERYONE should take| Creatine This video will cover:
-What creatine is and how it works.
-Why you should consume it
-How to/how much you should consume
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Creatine is one of the most researched and effective supplements available to improve athletic performance, increase muscle mass and strength, prevent injury, provide neuroprotective effects, and improve disease states. [1, 3] It’s safety as a supplement is also well known. Creatine use has demonstrated therapeutic effects in both healthy and diseased people ranging from infants to elderly. The only reason why the title says almost everyone and not everyone should take it, is because it is contraindicated, or not to be taken if you have kidney disease or diabetes. Other than that, there is almost no reason why everyone shouldn’t take it as it has both physical and cognitive benefits with an incredible safety rating and little to no side effects. We will dive deeper into these benefits, but first let’s break down how creatine works.
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Creatine is an organic compound found in vertebrates that facilitates the recycling of adenosine triphosphate or ATP. This is the primary energy currency of the cell, and it is found primarily in muscle AND brain tissue. Here is how this recycling occurs:
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ATP contains 3 phosphates which are bound together. When that bond breaks and 1 phosphate is released energy is also released which can be used by the body. ATP is now ADP with 2 phosphates. It must become ATP again to repeat this process to generate energy. A creatine molecule bound to a phosphate, phosphocreatine, donates its phosphate group to make ADP into ATP again, making it readily available for energy use. So, in short summary, more creatine means more available ATP which means more available energy for a longer period of time.
Given that creatine acts on the brain as well, there are also cognitive benefits to creatine consumption. “Studies show that oral creatine administration improves short-term memory, intelligence and reasoning of healthy individuals.” [5, 6]
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Creatine is an extremely safe supplement. There are very minor short-term side effects to taking creatine but in fact, most people don’t notice anything. [10] Side effects may include stomach pain, nausea, diarrhea and muscle cramping. Muscle cramping may be due to the fact that creatine is osmotically active. In other words, it acts as a salt or solute, which then causes more water or the solvent to follow it. Some of the science of this is up for debate, with articles even stating that athletes who exercised in a very hot dehydrating environment noticed no side effects and actually improved in performance. [10] Nevertheless, there is really no downside to drinking more water, so it’s best to just do that when taking creatine to possibly prevent potential cramping and dehydration regardless.
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There are also little to no long-term side effects of creatine use. “To date, studies have not found clinically significant deviations from normal values in renal (kidney), hepatic (liver), cardiac or muscle function.” [9] Over 10 different studies show that short and long-term supplementation (up to 30 g/day for 5 years, which is way more than usually consumed) is safe and well-tolerated in healthy individuals and in several patient populations ranging from infants to the elderly. In fact, it was found that significant health benefits may be provided by ensuring habitual low dietary creatine ingestion (e.g., 3 g/day) throughout the lifespan. So, perhaps the question isn’t how much long-term creatine consumption might have a negative impact on our health, but rather, how much will it help our health.
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How to consume it
There are two phases of creatine consumption: a loading dose phase and a maintenance dose phase. During the loading phase, the most effective way to increase muscle creatine stores is to ingest 5 g of creatine monohydrate four times daily for 5–7 days. [7, 8] This is about 20g per day or you can be more precise and take 0.3 g/kg of your body weight per day. After this, your maintenance dose should be abou2-5g/day or .03g/kg. Creatine is naturally found in meat and fish, but it would take about 2100 calories of salmon alone to reach 2.5g per day, which is about the average maintenance dose. So, if you ate nothing but salmon or beef all day, you would likely still be unable to ever reach an appropriate loading dose or a full maintenance dose of creatine even.
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So, again, creatine is one of the most useful supplements, one of the most researched supplements, and one of the safest supplements that you can take.
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I Hope this video helped you out. If you have any other questions or future video requests please comment below. Please like and subscribe for more evidence-based content coming to you on a weekly basis. Thanks for watching!
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