#100 The Optimal Creatine Protocol for Strength, Brain, and Longevity | Darren Candow, PhD

“Today, we're doing a deep dive into one of the most well-researched and widely used supplements, creatine. And joining me is Dr Darren Candow”

“it's just helping the negative effects of poor sleep. So by the end of this episode, you'll have a comprehensive understanding of creatine, how it works, how to use it, and whether it makes sense for you. If you haven't yet downloaded our free guide, How to Train According to the Experts, you can get it at howtotrainguide.com”

“forward slash topics, where you'll find a deep dive into all the current evidence-based research on creatine. Just scroll through the alphabetical listing until you'll find the letter C. It's also a part of my mission and sincere commitment to deliver high-quality evidence-based science and practical health tools to everyone entirely free. So if you're interested in exploring”

“contractions and phosphocreatine, which is what we're going to be talking about today from creatine supplementation, it really maintains ATP or adenosine di-triphosphate. So if you have more ATP longer, you can exercise at a higher capacity, a higher intensity, and that delays the utilization of other energy systems that might be a bit slower.”

“anaerobic type of sports, weightlifting, high-intensity interval training, for example, probably would experience some benefits from creatine supplementation. And how is it going to benefit you? Is it going to improve your training volume? Is it going to make you stronger? All of the above. So it definitely seems to increase training volume”

“seems to increase training volume. So that's either the load by the reps by the set or exercise capacity from a cardiovascular perspective. It definitely, if you were to choose one thing why creatine has been so effective, it's improving muscle strength. You could also encompass that with endurance and power, it also improves lean body mass”

“anti-inflammatory effects. And that's interesting because it's from the aerobic community. For the longest time, we never thought creatine was for endurance or aerobic type athletes. And the best lines of evidence from a recovery aspect come from long duration aerobic exercise, a marathon, ultra marathon, a triathlon.”

“Yeah. Is creatine benefiting? Is that how it's benefiting, increasing the training volume? Or is there something else that's happening? Yeah, in two ways. So it really seems to maximize either the recruitment or the ability of type two muscle fibers.”

“if you were to do four sets of leg press, compared to placebo, you may not notice any difference in the first set, because we think we have enough ATP or phosphocreatine stores in our muscle. But when it comes to set two, three and four, that's where creatine really comes to the rescue. The individual or group can do more repetitions. And then over time, they can actually do a greater volume.”

“you can actually get greater physiological adaptations. So when we look at all the meta-analysis, when you compare creatine and weight training to creatine placebo and weight training, there is a greater increase in lean body. Muscle size, as well as muscle performance. So creatine, there is something there from a mechanistic standpoint to allow that.”

“Excellent question. It does. It really speeds it up. So on average, if you were to totally wipe out your normal creatine stores, it takes about three to five minutes for your mitochondria to recover that. However, creatine really, really speeds up that recovery, which is great for the average person”

“we got to get people to move and then allowing them to give some type of benefit to their training program. So creatine is probably the one that will be number one when people select it, even probably more than caffeine nowadays from an exercise training capacity.”

“creatine, I'm all for it. And I think most people hopefully will be as well. Yeah. So the improvements in the muscle strength presumably are coming because you're increasing your training volume, right?”

“The other big thing from a cellular perspective is that creatine causes calcium to come back in a little vesicle in our muscles. If you take in high school biology or university, this will be your nightmare. But I remember everybody talking about the sarcoplasma reticulum.”

“remember everybody talking about the sarcoplasma reticulum. And it's an area that just releases calcium to allow our muscles to contract. And creatine speeds up the uptake of calcium. So some of the evidence out of Europe has shown that it increases relaxation time or the ability of the proteins in your muscle to grab hold of each other to contract.”

“I think people underestimate the benefits of moving. And then if anything can be taken in, in this form, creatine, it'd be very, very beneficial. You mentioned some of the anti-inflammatory effects of creatine, particularly in the context of more endurance type of training, people that are perhaps running marathons or just clocking in a lot of hours.”

“10 seconds of work, three minutes of rest. 10 seconds of work, three minutes of rest for whichever it is. And we just don't see creatine having a lot of superior effects from a resistance training recovery aspect, probably because the rest intervals for the average person are there. But from a long distance event, you're running hours, you're swimming, whichever it is.”

“hours, you're swimming, whichever it is. The best lines of defense come from triathlon and marathon running, where the increase in these markers called cytokines were elevated. The creatine sort of attenuated that rise, could allow the individual to recover and get back on the track”

“we're not seeing any evidence that creatine increases protein synthesis. So, unlike protein, which it does, creatine seems to help increase muscle size in other ways, satellite cells, growth factors, things like that. But it does decrease protein breakdown, primarily though, in males.”

“or does it get spread around? Yeah, that's an excellent question. So the thought is as we get older, we have reduced fossil creatine stores in our body. So they might need more. Um, and the hope is about 95% is re is housed in our skeletal muscle, but now with the emergence of research, the rest is in bone and brain specifically.”

“So again, that's a half a salmon steak. That would be a half a chicken breast or whichever. So it's very viable. They call that the maintenance phase. The only problem with the loading phase is it's so rapid, it does cause water to enter a lot of our cells. And a lot of individuals do not like this potential net water retention or GI tract irritation.”

“your explosive power and your strength, right? Right. Um, how is creatine adding to that? By two ways, a direct and indirect. So let's go with the boring direct. It sort of increases osteoblast cells. Either these are the cells that sort of create a, or the formation of our bone cells.”

“So this is really crucial. We are not saying that creatine and weight loss, weight training increases bone mineral density, but it certainly decreases bone mineral density loss and really specifically around the hip region, which is crucially important for a lot of older adults because when they fall, if they, if they land on their hip, they could be more susceptible to fracture.”

“So you, so you think, um, just supplementing with creatine by itself, even if you're doing eight grams, isn't, isn't really going to necessarily affect your bone health if you're not doing any weight bearing exercise, even, even considering the, you know, preventing the breakdown.”

“bearing exercise, plyometrics that cause the bone to turn over. And then maybe creatine doesn't increase the resorptive or it increases osteoblasts a little bit more. the cool thing with osteoblasts, it releases the cytokine called osteoprotegerum, which acts as a decoy.”

“If I did, I don't think they'd expect anything on the bone. The bone is really stubborn. It's just like our brain and creatine. It's rarely really stubborn. I think the main forces is the driver of weight training. What about someone who is, let's say a post-menopausal woman who, who's experiencing some perhaps osteopenia?”

“like bisphosphates for example, you mentioned doing the weight-bearing training and the creatine perhaps eight grams or 10 grams a day would be a good first line of defense to try before trying some of these other drugs that do have negative side effects.”

“I 100% agree. If I had to choose one for bone, it's weight training or plyometrics or anything that you feel to the body and then consider creatine in your treatment program. Creatine would never replace a pharmaceutical intervention from a bone perspective.”

“What if we took a population with severe osteoporosis? Maybe creatine could come to the rescue there. That's another thing we're starting to hopefully get governmental funding for down the road. But a lot of young females, a lot of young males, and of course, older females, even postmenopausal, their skeleton is still very beneficial and strong.”

“rows, you know, presses, anything that's multi joint. And then perhaps in combination with creatine, if it's really if it's preserving bone, that does really suggest a preventative role, right? Yeah. And that's 100% correct.”

“Like the movement is got to be there. And I think most people are aware of the benefits of exercise. And then if creatine or protein or whatever it is you're eating can give you a small beneficial effect, I'm all for it. And I think a lot of people would be there as well. So creatine definitely has the potential.”

“Um, but without protein, um, you know, those two need to be there. Um, we don't think creatine can rescue a hypo caloric diet, especially low in protein. Um, but we just don't know. I argue that creatine falls in line with protein with his aging, anabolic resistance.”

“Younger individuals may respond from 20 to 25 grams all the way up to, uh, older adults. So I think creatine is definitely a part of my day. Um, and I try to promote the, the evidence-based research, especially from an older adult population. If anything, we can do to offset chronic disease or getting chronic disease, uh, that's beneficial.”

“And we're starting to really focus on young females. Exercise is so important, adequate, uh, protein. And then creatine, it's not just for, for males. We're seeing a plethora of benefits for young biological females, which is really important. It is, you know, when you, when you hear the word creatine, you think about like the gym bro, right?”

“your own habitual preference is. And if they're third-party tested, it's the safest, most effective ergogenic aid out there right now. The safety profile is exceptional, especially at the dosages we're talking about. Like, when we talk about protein, we're talking hundreds of grams.”

“I'm interested in the brain and we've gone from, we've gone from the, the role of creatine. It seems to have multiple roles, um, anti-inflammatory, anti-catabolic. Right. Um, it's obviously important for producing ATP, regenerate, you know, regenerating the ATP.”

“uh, metabolically stressed primarily from a cognition perspective. And that's where creatine seems to have the best lines of evidence. Sleep deprivation, hypoxia, eye jet lag. I was up at three o'clock this morning and flew down. So I'll be taking a really high dose today to hopefully offset the, the chance of inflammation or a cognitive decline.”

“And the common denominator seems to be the more that the brain is stressed, the more creatine seems to come to the rescue. Same analogy from a muscle and bone perspective. So, uh, we can talk for hours just on the brain and, uh, it's a very exciting area for sure. Yeah.”

“So, so brain aging, brain age, older adult. Yeah. That's, that's aging is a stress on the brain. It is. So supplementing with how much creatine can improve cognition in, let's say older adults. Yeah. As little as about five grams has been shown to have some potential, but this is interesting.”

“bone and brain. And the theory here is that since the blood brain barrier is very resistant to creatine. And unfortunately we have this really important glial cell called astrocytes, which are the most, the biggest in our central nervous system. It sort of acts as a filter from our blood into our cells.”

“And it says, Hey, foreign pathogens no you're not getting into the neuron or the cell. So unfortunately they don't have the creatine transporter or doorway. So that's why uptake into the brain is very blunted. So the thought is to get an improvement in brain creatine stores, you need longer duration of supplementation or higher dosages.”

“three months to accumulate in the brain, unlike our muscle, which acts as like a vacuum, it sucks in all the creatine from our blood. Our brain says, no, no, no, I'm only going to take what's in our blood, i.e. supplementation when need be. So that's why sleep deprivation seems to have the best lines of evidence or mental fatiguing challenges.”

“So we're sort of, sort of, checking off all the boxes. My guess is five grams. You'd have a small increase in brain creatine content. But if you have a really non-stressful life, the brain says, no, go to the bone or we'll excrete it down the toilet.”

“And this is where I personally take at least 10 and they use MRS studies and they only, they showed that about 10 doubled the percent increase in brain creatine content, but they also measured it in the gray matter, the white matter. And I believe the thalamus and it all improved by about 10%.”

“I'll decrease it back down to 10. If any is being excreted down the toilet, I'm totally fine with that. Creatine is very cost effective, but I want to make sure I'm maximizing all my abilities and the immune system, especially in Canadian winters is really heightened and activated.”

“I'm not getting flu-like symptoms. Hopefully that's from exercise or diet, but who knows? Maybe creatine is helping because there is, is some anti-inflammatory effects. You went to another area that I definitely want to talk about, but like before that, so 20 grams, then you're saying acutely when you're in this sleep deprived state,”

“And they measured it for 21 hours of sleep deprivation. And it really improved memory cognition and it increased brain creatine content. So that high a dose, not only does it get into your plasma or blood really quickly, probably in about three hours is peaking when your brain is stressed, it's being taken in quite readily.”

“I've increased the amount. I would say I might be the most saturated person on the planet. Cause I've been taking creatine for decades. There's no reason to stop. We can talk about cycling or continuous, but I'm even taking more in hope that it's getting into my brain again, 20 years ago, it was just muscle.”

“And I think a university students midterm week at final exams, staying up all night, cramming, maybe creatine could really improve their ability to score better on tests. And when you look at the mental, a fatiguing study, that's when creatine seems to work after you've done a whole bunch of fatiguing exercises”

“neural filament, things in the brain or BDNF and that's some of the mechanisms primarily in rodent. So there is some mechanisms showing that creatine is decreasing oxidative stress or really having some potential for neuronal health, which now you think of Alzheimer's dementia, neuro degenerative diseases.”

“Probably the best overall segue. So it increases brain bioenergetics. And if it can, one of the common numbers with depression or concussion is that they have reduced brain creatine stores and bioenergetics compared to, a healthy control on average. And so maybe creatine is bringing those values up or even slightly more.”

“But if you're in contact sports, creatine should be taken on a daily basis because unfortunately if you do get hit in the rodent model when, because you can't do this as in humans, but when they've actually forced concussion in rodents taking creatine beforehand, the recovery symptoms are really accelerated.”

“As soon as these people in Scotland got head trauma, they put them on 0.4 grams of creatine per kilogram. So about 20 grams. These are just children immediately. And over six months, these children that were taking creatine had substantial improvements in self care and efficacy.”

“So NFL, NCAA, especially down here in United States, trillion dollar industry. I got to believe these players are taking creatine in anticipation. I know the quarterback for the Dolphins, I think he's had three concussions this year. So his brain is so compromised right now.”

“So how would you adjust, let's say, you know, you're taking 10 grams of creatine per day and you're wanting the effects, the benefits of muscle, bone, brain, as do I. Right. However, I do not weigh as much as you. Right. So would you, is there a scalable amount per kilogram body weight you think would be, something that, or is it hard?”

“very similar to how people do protein based on lean mass or a total body structure. So you can take creatine based on lean body mass, but it's very difficult. You would have to have some type of imaging apparatus. So we just usually recommend it on body mass. They hit the, all the aspects. That makes sense.”

“there's been some interesting research with creatine and depression.”

“So maybe creatine supplementation can bring those levels up. There's potential to increase BDNF. So that has been implicated there as well. And there's another thing called neurofilament or light chain. It's an indication of neuronal damage and one gram of creatine in your diet has been shown to reduce that.”

“So you'll start to hear these two words, anti-catabolic and anti-inflammatory. People think of Advil or Tylenol from an anti-inflammatory, but creatine seems to work very similar to Cox inhibitors as well. And but it seems to decrease cytokines. So it could be something there to consider.”

“you know, and to basically become active and fight off pathogens, right? And so I'm wondering if creatine is taken up by, you know, these immune cells and it maybe helps in some way. I mean, you're saying it reduces cytokines. I mean, a lot of these T cells are, you know, producing cytokines to fight off things, but who knows if they have if they have that energetic boost?”

“You know, I wonder if there's any has anyone ever looked at, you know, creatine's role in helping prevent infectious, you know, disease or, respiratory illness fighting off pathogens like just anecdotally, I supplement with glutamine and create my five grams of it's about 5.6 grams of glutamine.”

“but it works out and understanding it. Yeah. Well, there's certainly doesn't seem to be. Any shortage of interesting the things to study with creatine and it's like, you know, there's the field is exploding. So maybe someone out there will be looking at that at some point. Another really interesting area is the vascular health.”

“there's just like a we were just chatting about a recent study coming out. Endothelial cells have transporters for creatine. They do right next to the astrocytes, which don't so the endothelial cells at the blood-brain barrier, especially but around all the smooth muscle. They do have the transporter.”

“If they're compromised, as we get older, they're probably going to be more of an effect. And then the question is, was it dietary change that did it or was it the creatine itself? So that's one of the big issues when we give a creatine supplement. If you don't consider what they're already consuming or now, they've initiated exercise compared to a true placebo.”

“So maybe could help speed up your ability to recover quicker. We don't know any of the effects of creatine on cross-education where if someone has an immobilized limb and they train the opposite limb, we don't think there's any effect. It's a great study to do and that could have huge applications for professional athletes”

“instead of sitting around all day go to the gym and train the healthy limb and maybe creatine could potentially increase more drive there. It's a study I've always wanted to do. We just haven't done it yet. Okay. So it sounds like, you know, in most cases, you know, the creatine plus the training resistance training or endurance training is the key.”

“you know, perhaps an injury or surgery or sleep deprivation, creatine can can shine on its own. Is that correct? Yeah, there's actually a small body of research in healthy individuals young and old that say creatine without exercise actually improves muscle performance.”

“just just getting up out of a chair is is hard. It's challenging. It can be challenging. Do you think that even supplementing with creatine in that regard? Maybe help them a little bit more? Two meta analyses have been performed both in Canada. We were fortunate to do one of Stu Phillips.”

“I know it's been a guest I think for you and we've done two. Two meta analysis and then when you look at creatine in older adults with resistance training though, it did improve tasks of functionality sit to stand. So getting out of the bed off the toilet getting out of a chair again, that was with exercise”

“but again the movement of exercise, but the nice thing is for those willing to do, you know, is it resistance bands anything that you feel mechanical stress creatine will give you a slightly greater benefit, but for those that are in jeopardy of chronic disease, I think you should consider it. Absolutely.”

“So the interesting thing is the area that is created. It goes through circulation to different transport. So male fertility has become a big issue and there was a thought that all creatine since sperm rely. It's a flagella. So since sperm relying for movement on creating so much, maybe it's down regulating sperm production.”

“creatine on a daily basis, those organs don't need to make as much because you're offsetting that but again, when you stop supplementation, it goes back to baseline or it doesn't disrupt any of that. And and the good thing is from a fertility perspective, there's no evidence to suggest it down regulates a sperm motility health.”

“but that was the same idea. Maybe creatine was causing baldness. So maybe it must be doing the same thing to sperm. It must be killing off the cell and we just don't see any of that. Research. You know, so good. Yeah. Well, let's get into those myths before we get into those.”

“I kind of wanted to we've talked a lot about adults. We talked about older adults the effect of creatine on many different tissues and those populations. But at the start of this podcast, you said something that caught my attention and that was you said children and pregnancy.”

“But is there any, has there been any, you know evidence in children? Has anyone looked at children? Besides the TBI study. Yeah. No, there has chart. Chad Kerksick and Andrew Jagim at the Mayo clinic here in the United States are the two most profound researchers in that area. And they've looked at study after study in children, young children, adolescents, and there's no adverse effects.”

“on their liver ability to make creatine, right? So that would be phenomenal to get a study like that done. But do you think it'll be approved? I think down the road, when they look at the hypoxic environment of fetal growth, I think it probably will get approved.”

“I know I'm jumping all over the place here. But going back to the kids, you mentioned the creatine supplementation was shown to improve agility. Now, why is that? Is that because of the type two muscle fibre or the motor unit recruitment or maybe muscle activation? So there's a whole plethora of ideas from a balanced agility coordination perspective.”

“I have for breakfast, I'm sort of boring, but I take Greek yogurt, collagen protein, whey protein, blueberries, and I usually put 10 grams of creatine in my yogurt. But some people can't. So if you want, you want to put two and a half grams there. But if you want to start as low as three grams, one and a half in the morning, one and a half in the evening, or you could do”

“The reason for that is that we think blood flow or transport kinetics is turned on with muscle contraction. So if you want to take creatine within an hour before your workout, or I drink five grams during my workout, or right after, that seems like a very viable time. But for the viewers, the timing seems to be irrelevant.”

“for maybe two months, three months, it's very likely your muscle stores are so saturated that when you're consuming the extra creatine, that you would just be excreting it. So some people say, hey, I don't want to do that. I don't want to waste my money. I'm going to cycle it. I now argue you should take it on a daily basis because of the emergence of”

“But now I'm hoping our bone is taking in some, our brain is taking in some. So we used to be in the camp where you just need creatine on the days you work out. Now I say, take it every day and hope some is going to go to your brain and muscle, or sorry, bone, because on the days you're not working out, your muscle is not sucking it in as fast, maybe those other tissues are getting replenished”

“So do you think it's better to take creatine, like you're taking it in the morning if you're going to work out in the morning, but what if you work out in the evening? Do you want to take it in the evening? Yeah, I would take it any in close proximity to exercise. I would take it.”

“Yes. So I'm one of the rare people, and most people argue against me. I don't do it either. So there's two ways to look at this. The pharmacokinetics of creatine and caffeine do not oppose each other. But from a cellular perspective, they certainly do. So remember when I talked about the sarcoplasmic reticulum, caffeine likes to release calcium, but creatine likes to take it in.”

“it doesn't seem to have an interference effect. So the average large black coffee from Starbucks might be 300, 400 milligrams of caffeine. So if you were to put your scoop of creatine in there and sip on it for hours, you probably won't notice an interference effect in a few times. But if you did that every day for months, you might notice a blunting effect.”

“I always have coffee early in the morning, I love coffee, and then I wait at least two hours before I take my first thing of creatine in anticipation of that cellular interference. But other people, other big time creatine researchers say, no, they, I take it together. If it works for you, great. But there's something there that makes me a little cautious.”

“And we've done the only training study. It was underpowered, but they did interfere with each other. Yeah. Okay. Is, is creatine heat sensitive? It is. It denatures a little bit. So if you warm up the solution, some people don't like the grittiness. So when the temperature rises, it will decrease the, or increase the solubility”

“So don't run out and buy creatine and think you're going to lose 20 or 30 pounds. We're seeing at best about a 1% decrease in body fat and about 0.5 kilogram reduction over time in combination with weight training.”

“over time in combination with weight training. Now that could have implications for obesity, type two diabetes or chronic diseases down the road. But the nice thing is a lot of people had a myth that creatine increased body fat. We don't see any evidence to that. Okay. So it's doing the opposite. Yeah.”

“It's opposite. It's super hydrates the muscle. So it could be from the sodium potassium pump or disruption from dehydration. But if you're metabolically dehydrated, creatine is not the cause. If anything, creatine is trapping water into the cell. It also has been shown to increase, uh, extracellular water and total body water in some studies.”

“NFL football players, uh, two a day practices in July, creatine might actually help hydrate the muscle and decrease the chance of a muscle cramping or dehydration. Oh, that's super, super important. Interesting. Um, has anyone directly looked at that? I think Rick Crider's done some studies with that when he looked at NCAA players.”

“creatine supplementation, tell your doctor, because it's logical that your creatinine in the blood will be elevated. That's just from the metabolism of the supplement. Now, if your liver enzymes are through the roof, that could be an infection.”

“Baldness. That's one. That's one. It was that rugby. Was it rugby players? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was going bald way before I started taking creatine. So a lot of people say, well, obviously. And it's interesting. It was a great study in a sense that they looked at a novel concept. So they had elite rugby players do a crossover design.”

“a crossover design is really powerful, it means the group gets both placebo and creatine. So it really controls for diet, genetics, hormones, things like that. And when they took 20 grams a day, it might have been even 25 grams a day for seven days. During the creatine supplementation phase, they increased the hormone dihydroxy testosterone or DHT.”

“I'm not sure, but I do know that there's been a paper submitted that have looked directly at hair follicle loss and thinning with creatine supplementation. And that was going to be my next question. I mean, first of all, has anyone replicated this study? It sounds like no. And second, has anyone directly looked at hair follicle?”

“it doesn't affect hair follicle loss or thinning. So if people are watching me, they're like, oh, and then they look at other creatine researchers. I can blame my parents and primarily my mother for that. The maternal DNA. But then there's other people with full heads of hair. So it can't be a cure.”

“the world's best creatine researchers and medical doctor Mark Tarnopolsky read really good section on that. So if anybody's interested, read that and it seems to have some potential for cancer rehabilitation. When you're looking at tissue loss, Caxia seems to have some beneficial effects there.”

“the common denominators, all these are sort of asking something for help. So the rehabilitation or prevention, and that's where I think creatine has really changed. It used to be for just young individuals who are healthy. And now it seems to have some of these health aspects. So very exciting times to be talking about it. Yeah.”

“So I'm just wondering if you've come across any evidence looking at creatine supplementation and homocysteine levels, for example? Yeah, the most studies don't support it.”

“And that's where we got to the point where, oh, if it doesn't decrease homocysteine levels, then maybe exogenous creatine doesn't reduce our natural creatine synthesis. The studies that show it does are in animals, and I believe there was one human trial, but the majority shows it doesn't have any effect”

“Now, that could be the dose there, but you're totally right. Methionine is donating, I think it's 40% of our methyl groups to creatine synthesis. So if I'm taking more dietary creatine or supplementation, why use that? Why not decrease the amount being synthesized?”

“The best way to augment creatine into the muscle is with muscle contraction, which is great. But the dose of carbohydrates shown to sort of increase it is almost over 75 grams. And I think most people are not going to consume that. Protein is a great one to add creatine to, because it is insulinogenic too.”

“There's been two studies that show you get a greater increase in muscle performance and lean body mass when you combine creatine with protein. In this protein case, it was whey protein. It was only about 30 grams. So now when you're looking at your post-exercise meal, pre-exercise meal, I think creatine and protein are good friends. Consider them as something that you may want to consider.”

“We also talk about different forms of Creatine. Monohydrate is the gold standard, but what about HCL or other formulations?”

Also filed under Creatine

“I think, because bone takes a long time to turn over, but this is interesting. The lowest dose ever been shown to be effective is eight grams of monohydrate a day. Now, as we just talked about three to five grams, it's great for muscle, but now you're getting into bone. What needs to, what's going to happen is a dosing study.”

“bit deeper. You first mentioned, of course, I think a lot of people that are familiar with the creatine field know creatine monohydrate. Yeah. Creatine monohydrate. Is that still the gold standard for supplementing with creatine? If so, why? Yeah, it's the only standard. So when I say creatine today, it's monohydrate. And the reason being is based on the safety and efficacy.”

“So it gets through. And then when it gets in our blood, the creatine that you're taking from supplementation monohydrate is identical to what's being synthesized in the liver. So that's likely why the safety profile is so exceptional. Now, There's probably 50 different other market forms of creatine out there. First, it has to be creatine when it gets into your blood.”

Also filed under Creatine

“phospholipid bilayer of your cells quicker, but no study has ever showed it to be safer or more effective. So I know monohydrate has been boring. It's been around since the 1990s. But in my opinion, why mess with a good thing? And probably because the efficacy and safety behind it.”

“hey, like, I get GI, like stomach distress, GI problems if I take creatine monohydrate. Some people have to go to another form or they have to lower their dose. Why does that happen? Are there any ways around that? Is there like any tricks to improving, you know, the ability to do that?”

“and probably from the loading phase. So creatine monohydrate has been shown to increase intracellular water. So it's based on the doorway, it sort of brings water with it. And some people get GI tract irritation, or some weight gain and other forms of creatine are marketed to not do that.”

Also filed under Creatine

“If you're taking a form of creatine that doesn't increase intracellular water a little bit, I would question the validity of that type of creatine. So I'm in the camp of 100% monohydrate based on the mechanisms, the structure of the molecule and the efficacy behind it.”

Also filed under Creatine

“the bulk of the research is done using monohydrate. And 99% of all the thousands, the papers, and the one I hear a lot is there's a better bioavailable form than monohydrate. And I'm like, wait a minute, creatine monohydrate's bioavailability is near 100%.”

“that means it is a form of creatine, but did it lead to performance benefits better than monohydrate? I've never seen it. So I just caution people, just don't get conned into a lot of these marketing forms, really expensive forms when monohydrate is the one true. I'm going to Germany and we're going to be talking for four straight days and two weeks on monohydrate.”

Also filed under Creatine

“that seems to be very viable. Well, aside from the marketing, I think some people I know some people personally that even taking like a five gram dose of creatine monohydrate experience like stomach issues. Yeah. So what can those individuals do? Yeah. So I recommend to these people, and it happens quite often, the sort of micro dose. So”

“again, you don't necessarily need it if you're getting it through your diet, but make sure third-party tested. I would really focus on monohydrate based on the evidence-based research. Monohydrate has grass status. CreaPure is from Germany. It's the most scrutinized. It has less purities.”

“it's safe. Just look at the ingredients. It should say monohydrate, or if you're entertaining another form of creatine, that should be the only ingredient or at least the most important ingredient on the product, yeah. What about microionized?”

“make it more attractive. But it's another form that can just sort of be, sort of solubility is very high. Is there any reason to believe it wouldn't work? It's because it's monohydrate, right? So it should do the same thing. 100%. It's just a different way to get it into your body if you like it really, really micronized.”

“For a very, very, very, very long time, I put creatine in my coffee. I put everything in my coffee because it just masks everything. I just didn't do it in one. I've never really had any GI problems with creatine supplementation myself.”

“lower, it doesn't seem to have an interference effect. So the average large black coffee from Starbucks might be 300, 400 milligrams of caffeine. So if you were to put your scoop of creatine in there and sip on it for hours, you probably won't notice an interference effect in a few times.”

“shot, you know, you were doing an experimental trial, you might not notice it. So I never combine the two. I always have coffee early in the morning, I love coffee, and then I wait at least two hours before I take my first thing of creatine in anticipation of that cellular interference.”

“at the creatinine unless it's super heated for a long period of time. So if you are putting it in your coffee. The heat is not the act. It seems like the caffeine molecule. Might be the one that might interfere with it. Okay. So you don't have to worry so much about it being in like a hot liquid, like tea or. No. But if you had a, like a normal K cup is 80”

“milligrams, there should be no interference effect. You could have two of those, but if you get up to like a large coffee, so a normal cup of coffee here in the United States, maybe 80 to 100 milligrams should be totally fine. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, this is all really good information. I think addressing some of these, the, the, the myths and,”

“I have for breakfast, I'm sort of boring, but I take Greek yogurt, collagen protein, whey protein, blueberries, and I usually put 10 grams of creatine in my yogurt.”

“There's been two studies that show you get a greater increase in muscle performance and lean body mass when you combine creatine with protein. In this protein case, it was whey protein. It was only about 30 grams. So now when you're looking at your post-exercise meal, pre-exercise meal, I think creatine and protein are good friends. Consider them as something that you may want to consider.”

“So if there's, if you're in line for a bisphosphonate, there's no way that creatine or weight training will come close. So a drug effect will always be superior. The, the effects we're seeing even from a significant, significant perspective with creatine are so small.”

“CreaPure. CreaPure. CreaPure monohydrate, yep. That's very pure. It's very pure from Germany. It's third-party tested. Now, as a disclosure, I'm on the advisory board for CreaPure, so full disclosure. And that's helped sponsoring the creatine conference in Germany in a few weeks. But it has grass status. And when you look at the independent lab results, it's 100% pure.”

“then it may not be doing what it's supposed to do. And ultimately, that's the whole point. So the question is if you're taking Creatine HCL or there's liposomal creatine is or there's a GNC brand that's like, it's an AMP creatine, HCL. So it's like, at the end of the day, the bulk of the research is done using monohydrate.”

Also filed under Creatine

“Yeah, yeah. And hundred percent. So the anti-inflammatory role comes back there as well. So you'll start. To hear these two words anti-catabolic and anti-inflammatory people think of Advil or Tylenol from an anti-inflammatory, but creating seems to work some very similar in the Cox inhibitors as well.”