(As Transcribed by Mini-Med Minutes Podcast)

Firstly, I’d like to apologize for all the audio so far. After some feedback from listeners and reviewing the audio myself, the quality of the audio was just bad.

 

I’ll be looking to improve that from now on. 

 

Unfortunately being so close to an airport there’s sounds of the airplanes overhead like all the time.

 

I’m having some medical issues that’s impairing my ability to talk normally.

 

The audio also was not edited to improve sound quality and clarity.

 

And the way I formatted the podcasts was kind of one-take, unscripted, with a few bullet points and was difficult to follow for some people.

 

So I think from now on we’re going to attempt to be a little more conversational in tone with hopefully clearer explanations.

 

Intro

 

So getting into today’s topic if you can tell by the title is about creatine.

 

If you’re into fitness or you’re an athlete, you probably know what it is. You know what it’s for and you probably take it too.

 

It’s one of the most researched and widely used supplements out there, especially in things like bodybuilding and sports, and that’s where it’s marketed the most.

 

It makes sense, that’s where it has huge applications.

 

And someone who doesn’t go to the gym to lift weights and competes in sports might overlook it and think, “That’s not for me. I don’t do sports. I don’t care about getting more muscular.”

 

And that’s a little bit where the misconception starts.

 

Creatine doesn’t have to be for people who want to bulk up or run faster.

 

Having lean muscle mass is important at all ages. And if you think about it, you would benefit the most from lean muscle mass in a period of your life when it’s deteriorating.

 

Doesn’t that make sense?

 

If you have weaker bones, you would want to do something to make your bones stronger.

 

If you’re losing your hair, and you care (some people don’t), you might want something to help grow that back.

 

If you have joint issues, you’d want to find a way to improve your flexibility.

 

If you have mobility issues, you might want to help the parts of your body that help move your limbs.

 

If you’re not thinking as clearly as before, you’ll want something to help improve your brain.

 

Misconceptions

 

But before we get into all of that, let’s address the elephant in the room.

 

When I’ve talked about creatine in the past one of the first things that come up is its safety.

 

It’s a dangerous ingredient that can cause harm over time. Or something like that.

 

So to kick that one in the butt first, it’s not a dangerous compound.

 

It’s actually endogenous, which means that your body naturally produces it. It’s akin to taking something like a melatonin supplement.

 

Your body already makes melatonin on its own, if you take a melatonin supplement you’re just adding to your own body’s natural supply.

 

What is Creatine?

 

So that’s kind of the introduction to today’s topic.

 

And as always let’s start with the basics.  What creatine is, where does it come from, and how does it work?

 

Creatine is found in food like meat or fish and it’s also made in your body and mostly stored in your muscles, something like 95% of it.

 

And why the muscles? Well it’s primary role is to help make energy for short bursts of quote-unquote, “intense activity.” and that’s a little different for everyone. That can be anything from sprinting to lifting weights to simply going up and down the stairs.

When your muscles need quick energy. Creatine helps make ATP which is what your body uses as cellular energy.

Just a quick lesson: ATP stands for Adenosine TRIphosphate meaning there’s THREE phosphate groups on the compound. 

 

When we use energy, ATP depletes immediately and turns into ADP, Adenosine DIphosphate meaning a phosphate group was used and now there’s only two when it needs 3 to work.

 

Creatine has a phosphate group and it will donate the phosphate group to ADP turning it back into ATP, so you can think of it like charging a battery.

 

ADP, is the empty battery

Creatine, is the battery charger

ATP, is the fully charged battery

 

And you might be thinking, “Well, I’m not sprinting or weightlifting, so why does this matter to me?” 

 

Here’s the thing—as explained before, your muscles still need energy for everyday movements. Getting up from a chair, carrying groceries, walking up the stairs, your body relies on these quick bursts of energy to function correctly.

 

A lot of users know this, but creatine also helps draw water into your cells, which helps with muscle hydration and muscle repair after workouts. 

 

Again, another misconception that this is only applicable to athletes. It’s important to anyone looking to maintain muscle mass and function, so in a way… it relates more closely for the aging population.

 

Because when we get older, the amount of muscle we have naturally declines—a process called sarcopenia. 

 

If you’re sarcopenic you’ll feel weaker, you might have problems with balance, and you might not move around as well as before. 

 

But creatine helps slow down this process by keeping muscles more energized and functional, so when you get older, you’re able to stay strong and mobile for longer.

 

Because as we know, your ability to ambulate, your ability to move around and take care of yourself is directly correlated to your quality of life and how long you’re going to live. And that’s why we’re always worried about fall risks in the elderly and we would prefer strong bodies that move well to decrease that risk.

Now is there science behind this? There’s definitely science behind this.

 

One study from 2008, showed that seniors who took creatine while doing strength or resistance training gained more lean muscle mass than those who did the exact same exercises, but without the creatine.

 

That by itself is huge and the overall conclusion is all I would really need.

 

But if you’re like me and you kind of see the flaw in what I just said. I told you that creatine helps improve muscle recovery so theoretically, someone who takes creatine… their advantage is that they could do more volume, maybe at a higher intensity. 

 

But if we’re doing the same exact exercises at the same volume, how did we gain more muscle mass?

 

Well I have a few points of quote unquote “speculation”:

 

Number 1: Despite doing the “same exercise” the creatine group was actually doing more volume and the study’s description is off. Because we’ve seen from previous studies that creatine users exhibit the ability to do somewhere between 5-20% more repetitions. So if you did 20 push ups before, with creatine use you’ll do like 1-3 more reps.

 

It sounds insignificant but overtime, that could mean a lot. Especially if 20 reps previously meant you going to failure and that extra 1 rep took a significant amount of effort.

 

Number 2: Exercise consistency. There is 1 study in the European Journal of Applied Physiology from 2013 that suggested people on creatine felt that their exercises were simply easier. They called their metric “Rating of Perceived Exertion” which they found to decrease with the creatine group and they were willing to do it more often.

 

There is also a study in the Journal of Sports Science, in regards to sports supplements, not creatine specifically that suggested that there is a placebo effect with supplement users and that it motivated people to work harder during workouts and stay more consistent to their routine.

 

Number 3: Muscle cell volume. Pure speculation on my part for this one. But we talked about how more water is retained in the muscle which increases muscle cell volume. Now this doesn’t mean that there’s more muscle tissue, but what it does mean is that it creates a more anabolic environment. Meaning muscles are in a better environment to make more muscle.

 

Because when cells swell, they activate pathways in the body, like mTOR, which promotes protein synthesis. If you didn’t already know and I know a lot of you do, muscle is made of protein which is made of amino acids.

 

Going along with that, water retention can improve blood flow to the muscles which helps with the transport of nutrients, which are those amino acids to help with protein synthesis.

 

Also, the anabolic environment is correlated with insulin sensitivity. What insulin does is help bring in glucose (which is what your body uses for energy), into the cell and of course that’s important for the muscle building process as well.

 

Put these all together and you could have a recipe for improved muscle growth.

 

BRAIN FUNCTION

 

Now there is something about Creatine that is beyond muscle and I think this is going to be the biggest selling point for creatine use in the aging population.

 

And that is Creatine is shown to help with brain health.

 

For instance, there’s evidence that creatine can help with memory and cognitive processing speed. 

 

One study found that older adults who took creatine showed improvements in tasks that involved short-term memory and quick thinking.

 

Like recalling a list of words or numbers after a short delay.

 

Testing reaction time by pushing a button after seeing a light or hearing a sound.

 

Improvement in spatial memory by remembering where certain objects were in a room, etc.

 

Now although this topic is newer and the studies are few and far between. It makes a lot of sense.

 

Your brain by weight uses more energy than any other part of your body. It’s an extremely energy-intensive organ and uses a disproportionate amount of your total body’s energy.

 

It makes up on average like 2% of your total body weight but it uses about 20% of its energy.

 

You have about 86 billion neurons in your brain and when you’re actively thinking, they’re firing, and maintaining the activity requires a ton of energy.

 

Professional Chess players are known to burn 2 to 6 hundred calories per hour in an intense chess game because of mental stress and high-level of concentration.

 

Even when you’re not thinking your brain is trying to maintain a “resting potential” which is the baseline electric charge difference across your entire brain which requires constant energy.

 

So you can see how creatine’s role as a battery charger would be extremely helpful in maintaining your ability to think efficiently as you get older.

 

Now Let’s Talk About Safety

 

For the young people listening, a lot of research has been done on creatine, a ton of people take it and are just fine. So the main concern is with the elderly because fewer older adults take it there’s a lot less research for it.

 

So far, I’ve found no significant health risks in older people with both short and long term use in the studies that I’ve come across. 

And to put things into perspective, they were using doses between 3-5 grams per day with an occasional loading dose (which is a big first dose to get your levels up) of about 20 grams, but not all studies used a loading dose.

 

I specifically looked into common causes of concern for older people when we talk about giving them supplements or medicine as well.

 

We worry about kidney function with older adults. I’ve found that there’s been no correlation with impaired kidney function creatine use in people with healthy kidneys so if your kidneys are not healthy, I would sway towards the side of caution and talk to your doctor about it. If you’d like my personal recommendation, I just wouldn’t try creatine all together if there’s a pre-existing kidney issue because kidney health is extremely important.

 

We might worry about dehydration, I didn’t see any correlation with dehydration there.

 

We might worry about GI Issues and I saw some bloating, cramping, diarrhea. Not really huge issues that can’t be solved. 

 

You could split up the doses of creatine, no one said you had to take it all at once. Or you can just take a lower dose.Taking it with food can help or you can get a creatine supplement that’s more easily digestible like creatine monohydrate.

 

Weight gain has been the talk of the town for a while. So weight gain is possible with creatine and exercise. It only makes sense, you have more water retention in your body and you’re building lean muscle which is going to weigh more per volume. 

 

So if you gain weight in an amount that’s not excessive, there may be an underlying issue if you are, it would be more like an expectation than a concern for some, particularly non-obese individuals.

 

Outro

 

So that’s all I have for you today.

 

I hope you learned a bit of something you didn’t already know.

 

I like this supplement a lot, I use it myself and anecdotally, I think it definitely helps a lot. In fact, I think it would be the biggest bang for the buck in my opinion for supplements that I take. Kind of between that and the magnesium because of how affordable these two are.

 

If you enjoyed our conversation today, I encourage you to definitely follow. And if you’re looking for more information on health topics you can check us out at PharmacistNutrition.com.

 

Thanks for tuning in and I’ll see you next time.

 

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