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- Vol 025–Creatine, the lies and truths of its benefits
Vol 025–Creatine, the lies and truths of its benefits
Workspaces, Nothing, This house does not exist
Martin Martinez
October 30, 2022
1 oz of water to garden your health
2 Tools for growth
1 Cool Product
Random Musings
Reading Time: 6 minutes and 31 seconds.
How often do we take supplements and have no idea what they do? Or worse, we regurgitate the slogan from the brand itself. When I was in the military, I took loads of supplements, one of them being creatine, but never really knew what it did or what it was good for.
Let's arm you with the truth about creatine and the lies that people tell you. Here is a brief, but comprehensive overview of creatine.
Action to water your health
Molecular breakdown. Creatine (N-(aminoiminomethyl)-N-methyl glycine) is a naturally occurring nitrogen-containing compound that plays an integral role in cellular metabolism. It's primarily made in the liver and (to a lesser extent) in the kidneys and pancreas.
Creatine is an amino acid derivative that is endogenously synthesized from the amino acids arginine and glycine by L-arginine. The biochemistry of creatine is insanely complex and dates back to Vassel and Garst (1953) who describe generally the guanylation of amino acids, including sarcosine, using calcium cyanamide or free cyanamide.
Creatine stores high-energy phosphate groups in the form of phosphocreatine. These phosphate groups are donated to ADP to regenerate it to ATP, the primary energy carrier in the body.
And as you've felt during intense physical or mental exercises, you need that energy.
Benefits of Creatine:
Improvement in strength and power output
Increase lean mass
Improved anaerobic running capacity (training that is short in duration and high intensity)
Drawbacks of Creatine. Diarrhea and nausea. Weight gain - as it can increase total body water. For people with kidney issues (chronic kidney disease or other kidney diseases), there are no long-term studies and its effects so I would discuss it with a medical provider before starting.
Creatine vs Creatinine. Creatinine is a biological waste formed by the metabolism of creatine and excreted from the body in urine. I often use it as a function of how well your kidney is doing. This is a blood test; if the creatinine is elevated above normal levels there is some type of kidney damage (could be short-term or long).
Ok? so the big questions. Can taking creatine supplements increase your creatinine and mess up your kidneys?! First, Creatine can be found in animal-based foods and is most prevalent in meat and fish. So if consuming creatine would worsen kidney function, we would not be eating fish or meat. Second, in people with normal working kidneys taking the recommended dosage amount (see here for in-depth info), there should be no concern.
You can even read this journal article from the "Journal of Kidney Diseases" and a report on the short-term effects of creatine supplementation on kidney function in a young man with a single kidney. Showed no effect on kidney function.
DAM! There are So Many Creatine Variations!!
So let's take a deep breath. Section "1.6 formulation and variations" has the biggest in-depth differences of several types of creatine that I've found.
Most common types (quoted from examine.com)
Creatine Monohydrate
Creatine is most commonly found in the basic form of creatine monohydrate, which is the standard form and usually recommended due to the low price. It can also be micronized to improve water solubility, or the monohydrate can be temporarily removed to concentrate creatine in a small-volume supplement. Neither alteration changes the properties of creatine.
Creatine Hydrochloride (Creatine HCl)
Creatine HCl is touted to require a lower dosage, but this has not been proven through studies and seems unlikely, since the stomach has an abundance of HCl anyway and creatine will freely dissociate with HCl in the stomach. Thus, both creatine HCl and creatine monohydrate form free creatine in the stomach.
Liquid Creatine
Liquid creatine is ineffective as a creatine supplement due to its limited stability in solution. This shouldn’t be an issue for people preparing a creatine solution at home, since it takes a few days for creatine to degrade. This is a problem for the manufacturers, where creatine in solution has a limited shelf-life.
Buffered Creatine
“Buffered” creatine (Kre-Alkylyn) is suggested to be a better-absorbed form of creatine supplementation, but it can be rapidly neutralized in the stomach if it is not in an enteric coating. Even if it is enteric coated, there is no evidence to support its efficacy above creatine monohydrate.
Creatine ethyl ester
Creatine ethyl ether is likely ineffective as a creatine supplement for general use. Despite being able to passively diffuse through cell membranes in vitro, it degrades into creatinine rapidly in the intestines.
Magnesium-chelated creatine
Creatine magnesium chelate has some limited evidence for it being more effective than creatine monohydrate, but this has not been investigated further.
Creatine nitrate
Creatine nitrate is a highly water-soluble form of creatine that appears to be equivalent to creatine monohydrate in its ergogenic properties.
Creatine citrate
Creatine citrate and creatine malate are variants of creatine with increased water solubility.
Creatine pyruvate
Creatine pyruvate has once been noted to reach higher levels of plasma creatine relative to an isomolar dose of creatine monohydrate. The lone study failed to note differences in absorption, however, which conflicts with the observation of increased serum levels. This result has not been replicated.
Creatine α-ketoglutarate
Creatine α-ketoglutarate is thought to be an enhanced form of creatine supplementation (similar to Arginine α-ketoglutarate, which has an increased rate of absorption), but this has not been investigated.
Sodium creatine phosphate
Sodium creatine phosphate appears to be about half creatine by weight, and it is not certain if this variant offers any advantages over conventional forms.
Polyethylene glycosylated creatine
Polyethylene glycosylated creatine (PEG creatine) appears to be somewhat comparable to creatine monohydrate.
Creatine gluconate
Creatine gluconate is sort of a glycoside of creatine, and it is thought to be better absorbed when taken alongside food, since many other gluconate molecules, particularly in the context of minerals like magnesium, are absorbed better with food. However, there are currently no studies on this particular variant.
Cyclocreatine
Cyclocreatine appears to be passively diffused through membranes and not subject to the creatine transporter, which can be beneficial for cases where creatine transporter function is compromised (creatine non-response and SLG6A8 deficiency). Similar to other forms of creatine, it buffers ATP concentrations, although its efficacy as a supplement in otherwise healthy people is currently unknown.
So what type of creatine should I take?
I would still take creatine monohydrate. That particular form is the most studied of all. If you have a specific reaction to creatine monohydrate, you might benefit from taking these other alternatives.
Buying creatine. FDA doesn’t evaluate supplements. These are some things you should look out for when buying creatine:
NSF International “Certified for Sport”: This seal means that the product contains what the label says it does, has been tested for contaminants and for substances banned by major athletic organizations, and is made at a facility audited twice annually for quality and safety.
Micronized creatine: This is creatine that’s been broken down into smaller crystals. The greater surface area improves its ability to dissolve into water.
CreaPure: Is the brand name for pure creatine monohydrate produced by AlzChem Trostberg GmbH in Germany. IFS FOOD certified, a quality standard recognized by the “Global Food Safety Initiative”.
I emailed the company where I purchased my creatine and asked several questions in regard to the quality control process for contaminants, the percentage of creatine (varies), and more. Email me if you want to know the brand and what they said.
Wow. Thanks for making it this far! If you want me to research other information, let me know. I'll add it!
Gnarly. This is the creatine I use. They are NSF-certified and NSF sport certified. I emailed them a couple of questions. Here is their answers:
Gnarly creatine is NSF contents certified which means it has been evaluated for safety by the NSF toxicology team and tested for label claims and contaminants. Contaminant testing includes heavy metals, microbes and a full pesticide panel. I can send you the testing thresholds if you are interested. Gnarly Creatine is also NSF for Sport certified, meaning that it is tested for all banned substances on the World Anti-Doping Agency banned substances list.
Our product is 100% Creatine Monohydrate. As part of the NSF label claim testing, the product is tested to be sure that 1 serving of Gnarly creatine, which is 5g, contains 5g of creatine. I'd be happy to send you the testing methodology if you are interested.
Our manufacturer is NSF certified and inspected every 6 mos. Every production lot of Gnarly creatine is tested for label claims, contaminants, and WADA-banned substances. A production lot of Gnarly creatine is not released until all testing has been passed.
Tools for growth
Workspaces.xyz: Looking for inspiration on your workspace? This website was made for you. Be careful though you can spend hours on here.
This House Does Not Exist: This website uses AI to generate modern architectural homes. So many unique, beautiful houses.
Cool Product
Nothing: I have a set of nothing earphones, and they are constructed with detail and workmanship. I have Apple AirPods as well, and these are more reasonably priced with similar quality.
Random Musings
I'm on a fleece sweater kick. It's just so comfortable.
I've been looking for protein shakes, but now use collagen powder (see my write-up about it here) with peanut butter powder and hemp seeds.
Very sad about what happened in Seoul, Korea. Where at least 153 people were crushed to death when a crowd surged into an alleyway during Halloween festivities, apparently wiki has a list of human stampedes and crushes.
Soup season is starting again. My favorite is pozole! Try it sometime. It's a flavor slap in the face that will instantly bring joy in your life.
You're an awesome human
Martin, CEO of braincrumbss
Stuff I created, that you might find helpful.
I created a sleep 💤 course after 6+ months of reading books, research studies, blogs, and podcasts. I wrote a post that includes a sneak preview of the content too.sl💤💤
2. This product is free. It is the most comprehensive tool for digital nomads who end up with diarrhea 💩. How to treat it, when to worry, and what to pack. Everything. I spend an embarrassing amount of time writing this.
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