长期以来，肌酸被认为仅仅是举重运动员的专属补充剂。然而，最新的研究表明，它的益处远超乎我们的想象，对骨骼、大脑健康甚至整体身心状态都有积极影响。作为肌酸研究领域的专家，我将深入探讨肌酸的诸多益处，以及如何安全有效地利用它。
肌酸的魔力：能量的源泉
肌酸的核心作用在于维持三磷酸腺苷（ATP）的水平。ATP是所有细胞的能量货币，为我们的身体活动提供动力。肌酸通过延长ATP的维持时间，从而提升运动表现，并对身体多个系统产生积极影响。
肌酸的广泛益处：从肌肉到大脑
肌酸的安全性与服用方法
多年来的研究表明，肌酸的安全性极高，没有证据表明它会损害肾脏或导致脱发。当然，如有任何健康问题，请务必咨询医生。
结语
肌酸并非万能药，但它是一种安全有效、多功能的补充剂，能为我们的健康带来诸多益处。 结合科学的训练和健康的生活方式，肌酸能帮助我们提升运动表现，增强体魄，并改善大脑和整体身心健康。 记住，在开始任何补充剂计划之前，都应咨询医生或注册营养师的意见。
Edit:2025.05.05
00:00
For a long time, we thought creatine was just for people who lifted weights, and we've clearly shown now that creatine has beneficial effects for not just muscle, but we can talk about bone, brain, and some of the really popular things out there. The more creatine in the brain, the brain can actually function at a higher level, and or during times of sleep deprivation, hypoxia, jet lag, depression, clinical anxiety, maybe it's coming to the rescue. Dr. Darren, welcome to the show.
00:27
Thank you so much for having me. Pleasure to be here. Yeah, I'm excited to have you. And, you know, creatine is one of the most researched supplements of all time. And you've done like a lot of research and studies on creatine. So you're pretty much one of the best people to talk with, talk to when it comes to creatine. So I'm excited to have you on the show and discuss all things creatine. Yeah, happy to be here. There's lots to talk about, so I'm sure, yeah.
00:53
Yeah. So maybe we can start with, you know, I said creatine is one of the most studied supplements of all time. What is like the actual, do you have like any number of like how many clinical trials are there on creatine and what is that kind of the pulse on creatine of what are like some major effects people see? Yeah.
01:12
Yeah.
01:28
females, older adults. We're actually looking at clinical populations. And so today it'll be exciting to look at not just muscle, but we can talk about bone, brain, and some of the really popular things out there. We could even talk about pregnancy and some of the new emerging areas of that. So it's really exciting. Yeah.
01:43
Right. So yeah, you mentioned brain, muscles, bones. There's some aspects of like sleep architecture as well. So what is, why is it like, sounds like a miracle molecule. So like, why is that? What does creatine do to your body when you ingest it?
02:00
Yeah, like it was discovered in the 1800s. And of course, we all remember back to our own high school biology or physiology that creatine is sort of helps maintain ATP. So adenosine triphosphate or the energy currency of all our cells. And keep in mind, a lot of people think just muscle, but no, all our cells and bone and brain use ATP for existence and longevity. And sure enough, when you look at all this emerging data, there's a common denominator that
02:26
creatine either through supplementation or through the diet or how we naturally produce it in the body, it seems to maintain ATP levels longer when we're doing activities of daily living or more importantly exercise. So that might allow the person to exercise at a higher volume and we think that's one of the main driving forces. But yeah, as you point out, in the last probably 20 or 30 years, now we're starting to have some beneficial effects on bone density for clinical populations.
02:53
And from the neck up, it's really emerged. We're now talking about depression, anxiety, sleep. We just published a paper last year on getting a little bit more sleep. What about those susceptible to head trauma, athletes, concussion? So there's a lot of emerging areas. And I think the neck up is probably the biggest area we'll focus on, probably for the next 20 or 30 years. So yeah, it's gone from just young males getting bigger, stronger, faster to probably having a global impact
03:21
uh, effort. Uh, I think the last estimate was about 35 million people on the planet take creatine supplementation and, and it's projected to be 350 million in 10 years. So I think with all the evidence-based research there, and of course the safety profile is second to none. Uh, that's why a lot of people are having this new emerging interest in creatine. Yeah. So, uh, you mentioned that helps with ATP production creatine and, uh,
03:47
And you're like, all the cells require ATP. So your muscles contain some creatine, right? And with the higher the creatine stores in the muscles, then you have availability to recycle the ATP more efficiently or for longer. Yeah.
04:04
And I think your viewers would be more familiar with creatine and muscle or exercise performance. And, and yeah, uh, maintaining ATP or energy, uh, of the cell is one of the biggest mechanisms. So the athlete or the individual can maybe do more repetitions, lift a little bit more. Also recovery is a big thing between subsequent workouts.
04:23
But then when you go inside the cell, creatine does seem to work from a sort of multifactorial way. It actually has been shown to increase things called satellite cells or growth factors. And a lot of your listeners would like, oh, wow, these are really important for contributing to protein synthesis. It also reduces things called reactive oxidative species or inflammation. So now we're starting to see evidence that creatine not only is anabolic,
04:47
but also has anti-catabolic or anti-inflammatory properties. And that's why we're now bringing in the endurance athletes. For a long time, we thought creatine was just for people who lifted weights. And we've clearly shown now that creatine has beneficial effects for improving recovery after aerobic exercise. So soccer, tennis, Ironman, triathlon, that has beneficial effects there. So there's a lot of cellular aspects, but
05:11
one of the main driving forces. It allows the person to do more work, whatever that is, training in the gym, whichever, and therefore over time the adaptations can improve. From right off the top of my head, you get an increase of about 1.4 kilograms of lean body mass with creatine, so about 700 grams of muscle, but the
05:31
biggest and most robust area of evidence is improvement in muscle performance. So for those that are taking creatine and exercising, you should expect an increase in muscle strength and or endurance and power. And those are the big ones that's from a muscle perspective come to mind. Gotcha. Yeah. So supplementing creatine increases this creatine stores in the muscles that allows this to happen. What is like
05:56
limiting, not doing it without supplements? Like, is it not getting enough from diet or the body not producing enough of it? Or what is the kind of bottleneck? Yeah, that's an excellent point. So the average omnivore who's consuming a balanced diet has about 80% of their muscles full of creatine naturally. So supplementation can bring it up at maybe 20 to 30 more percent to about 100%.
06:22
But those emphasizing a vegan, vegetarian, or plant-based diet, they have substantially lower amounts in their muscle. So when they take creatine supplementation, they bring those levels up again. So the people who respond the best are vegans by far.
06:36
Those who respond the least or not are all or those on a carnivore diet. They're eating an enormous amount of meat per day and creatine, unfortunately, is only found in animal flesh. So that's going to be red meat or seafood primarily. Poultry has a little bit, but not as much high concentrations of those. So if you're eating red meat and seafood on a daily basis and you take creatine supplementation, you may actually not notice any significant effects there.
07:02
And they would fall into the non-responder category. Whereas the studies that have looked at vegans, picture your muscles only half full of creatine and then you take a supplement. They sort of double the capacity. They really improve from a muscle biopsy or perspective. So there are non-responders, but those are typically those that have been born with a high amount in the body that are eating a lot of red meat or other some modalities affecting it. But vegans really do respond.
07:31
Right. And what are like usual dosages that people would use to fully saturate the muscles? So the most rapid way is what we call the loading phase. And it's probably the most rapid viable way to fully saturate your muscle quickly. That's about 20 grams of creatine monohydrate a day for about five to seven days. In actual fact, you only need to do that for about two to three days and then we think your muscles are full.
07:58
And that is a really exceptional way to saturate your muscle and get the benefits out of that. A little bit of caution, though, for those that are listening. If you do the loading phase, that's where two things can creep in. One is a little bit of GI tract stress or irritation because you're taking so much. The reason being is creatine is osmotic.
08:18
So it likes to take water from the GI tract with it. And so that can cause a little bit of GI issues. The other thing is with the water retention that you typically get with high dose creatine, the number on the scale in the first week may go up a little bit. So a lot of individuals, primarily young females, don't like that. You do not need to do the loading phase. Again, I want to repeat that. You do not need to. You can take as little as three grams a day and that'll saturate your muscle in about a month.
08:47
So a little bit more patience. We use a relative dose, about 0.1 gram per kilogram. So if you're 70 kilograms, that's 7 grams a day. If you're 100 kilograms, like a football player, that's 10 grams a day. But the average daily dose, 3 to 5 grams, is a very viable amount for muscle benefits.
09:07
However, we don't think that's enough for bone and brain benefits. So I think a lot of people have heard of this three to five grams a day. That's probably a very viable amount for skeletal muscle. 95% of your creatine is in your muscle. But if you're saying, hey, I've heard about bone and brain is five grams enough.
09:25
I personally don't think so. I think we need to do a little bit higher dose. Yeah. Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah. It depends a lot on the body weight and how much muscle. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I did also like the loading phase a few, few weeks ago or a month ago, um, where I took 28 grams. I did it for actually another reason. I did it for the,
09:44
sleep deprivation effect so there was a study that 0.35 grams per kilogram which for me is 28 grams that was seen to improve cognition under sleep deprivation and I did notice some benefits for that and you know
09:59
With that protocol, it apparently like saturated my muscle creatine stores as well. So I can reduce my dose and go back to like, yeah, like seven, eight grams for me. Yeah. And that's Ali study from Germany. Very elegant. They use MRS. So it was very cool that 28 grams a day would be way higher than what you need. But in their study,
10:17
the nice thing is after 21 hours of sleep deprivation, you actually were able to have a greater capacity for memory and cognition. So all that study clearly showed is that creatine can accumulate into the brain with one mega dose.
10:30
We don't know if that's a sustainable amount, but if you knew you had to stay up for 48 hours, I think of an emergency doctor or something, you know, a night shift worker and memory and cognition are coming to mind. It clearly shows creatine has the capability to influence brain bioenergetics. And I think that's why we have a lot of good data coming out on sleep deprivation or hypoxia or other types of things with sleep and or memory where creatine is used in the brain, just like our muscle memory.
10:57
And sometimes when our brain is really stressed, it relies on supplementation. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good tip. So like if you're jet lagged, sleep deprived or something like that. Yeah.
11:09
And I use that for university students, final exams, staying up all night. If you're flying from, you know, North America to Europe, overnight flight, your jet lag, uh, going all the way to South Africa, whatever it is, it seems to have that potential to at least get rid of some of the cognitive or impairments, um,
11:26
And we never thought of that before until new emerging data, especially using MRS, which is basically an MRI for the brain to show that creatine can accumulate. It's really slow. The brain is stubborn compared to muscle. We can probably talk about the differences there, but why I think a higher dose might be more viable from a total daily body perspective. Yeah.
11:48
This episode is brought to you by Bond Charge, my favorite company for blue blocking glasses, red light therapy devices, and red light light bulbs. These items are essential for keeping your sleep-wake-on-the-cycles aligned in a world that tries to mess them up. Instead of looking at your phone before bed and letting the blue light disrupt your melatonin production, why not wear blue blockers instead that prevent that from happening? Instead of having your bedroom lit up with bright lights, use the more sleep-friendly alternative by uplifting your bedroom with a light bulb.
12:14
for flicker-free red light light bulbs that don't disrupt your sleep. Bonn Charge also has amazing infrared sauna blankets that can give you the same health benefits as the traditional sauna. You also get the unique benefits of infrared light that improves joint and skin health. Head over to bonncharge.com/seamlund and use the code SEAM for a 15% discount.
12:36
I want to start with still the muscle component because that's what people usually associate creatine with. And yeah, bodybuilders have been taking creatine for decades to build their muscle. What is the research about creatine and creatine?
12:52
let's keep it in the like muscle and strength realm right now. So muscle strength, power, kind of this anaerobic performance. What does it say there? Yeah. So the vast majority supports a very favorable effect. So anybody engaged in weightlifting or anaerobic or high intensity sporting events usually benefit from creatine in combination with exercise training. And there's about five main areas that you should expect. So,
13:14
So obviously if you're performing weightlifting as part of your exercise program and taking creatine as little as three grams all the way up to a little bit more, you should get an increase in lean body mass and or muscle size. So that is fantastic for aging and or obviously for exercise performance. The
13:31
The big areas around muscle performance, strength, endurance, and power have also been shown to go up. And also functionality. So we talk about agility, balance, moving quickly for the athletes. So those are all the areas from a muscle performance perspective. The area that doesn't get enough love, so to speak, is the recovery aspect.
13:51
So creatine seems to reduce markers of inflammation. It's been shown in males to reduce protein breakdown or markers of protein breakdown. So that might allow the athlete who's training twice a day or every day to get into the gym or wherever it is and still train at the same intensity. So it has a lot of anabolic promoting effects, but the anti-catabolic or anti-inflammatory ones definitely need to be considered as well. Yeah.
14:17
That's interesting. How much muscle are we talking about? Like how much can you expect to build? Yeah. So the problem with lean body mass, it looks at muscle or sorry, muscles, a component, but it also has organs, you know, blood plasma. So,
14:32
So we think half of the increase in lean body mass is pure muscle. So for example, most meta-analysis suggests 1.4 kilograms of lean body mass greater with creatine in combination with weight training. So at the end of it, if you say 700 grams, I think most people would buy that. We've also shown really small increases in limb muscle thickness. I think though that I would look at muscle mass
14:57
as a secondary benefit of creatine. Where creatine is only essentially a combination of non-essential and one essential amino acid, it does not increase the rates of muscle protein synthesis like essential amino acids do. So it's likely one of the limiting factors. But…
15:14
Since it really improves high energy phosphate metabolism, that's why the most robust evidence is, hey, I'm looking to improve muscle performance. I think creatine would be right up there with caffeine from a muscle performance perspective. When you look at the data, creatine is a little bit superior there. Yeah, that's interesting. And I would imagine that you still need to do resistance training. Like, are you going to build muscle even if you don't lift?
15:42
Yeah. So the, we just published a study a few months ago, clearly showing that creatine by itself will increase water retention and improve lean body mass. But please note for those that are taking creatine without exercise, it's primarily water. Right. You have to perform resistance training to get the muscle accretion or growth effects. There's been a handful of studies showing that you can still get muscle performance benefits without exercise. Right.
16:08
But unlock the totality of that exercise is foundational. And 99% of the studies clearly show that weight training is the most effective modality. Gotcha. Yeah. So, you know, ideally you want to do lifting and consume the creatine while you're doing the resistance training in those phases. Yeah. And that brings up a really important point I get asked. Does the timing matter? The timing of caffeine matters because it peaks in your blood.
16:34
But for those that are weightlifting, this is really important and kind of cool that you can take creatine at any time of the day.
16:40
We don't think there's actually benefits to when you take it. However, in 1992, the seminal study clearly showed that muscle contractions open the doorways to allow creatine in. So I'm a big proponent of taking some of your creatine on a daily basis, either before, during or after exercise. I think around the exercise training session is a great time to do that. So I say in proximal or proximity sessions.
17:04
to exercise. But if you say, Hey, Dan, I can only take my creatine in the morning or at night, it still needs to accumulate. You will get the benefits. So the luxury is take creatine whenever it's consistent for you. I think if you're taking more than five grams, try to take some in close proximity to exercise.
17:22
Gotcha. And, uh, is it, is the difference how you take it like mixed with water or mixed with some, I don't know, electrolytes or juice or food? You can, you can essentially take it any way you want. Muscle contractions will cause an increase in creatine uptake. Carbohydrates will as well, but there's a bit of caution here. The dose needed is around 75 to a hundred grams of carbohydrates. Most individuals don't want that much. Uh,
17:47
But the cool thing is you can combine creatine with protein. Protein is very insulogenic and you get the benefits of protein. And there's been two studies out there showing that when creatine is added to whey protein, you get a greater increase in strength and lean body mass. So for me, for example, I take five grams with my Greek yogurt and protein mixture in the morning. And then I also drink five grams during my workout. That's how I get my daily dose of 10 grams or more on a daily basis. Super convenient.
18:14
And the other area, and we'll talk about myths.
18:17
comes around caffeine. So there's a big thing globally. Should I put my creatine in coffee? And there's important distinctions here. The caffeine molecule and the creatine molecule don't really like each other when caffeine becomes a certain dose. And it has to do with calcium in the muscle. But the average black coffee or tea is less than 80 milligrams of caffeine. The average even medium is less than that.
18:43
The dose of caffeine that has been shown to sort of interfere with creatine is 250 milligrams. So that would be a large coffee, but you'd have to do this on months and months before they interfere. So I think if you're mixing your creatine in coffee or tea, that should be fine. It seems like it's the dose of the caffeine and not the average beverage. And speaking of muscle strength and power. So when I was looking at the research, then the power output,
19:10
It appeared to be like the biggest thing that you see from creatine. Um, yeah. And more so than muscle mass. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And it seems to have a drive from the neuromuscular recruitment. And when it gets to strength, endurance and power, the interesting thing is it seems to be later on in the session. So for example, if you do four sets of squat or four sets of bench press,
19:31
creatine really seems to come to the age during sets two, three, and four when the body is naturally using energy, doesn't have enough time for the mitochondria to resynthesize it. So creatine supplementation speeds up the rate of recovery between sets that allows a person to exercise quicker. And of course, obviously lack of time is the world's barrier for exercise. So creatine might just help you get to a better workout more efficiently. Yeah.
19:57
Gotcha. So like once in the beginning of the workout, your own body's natural creatine stores are kind of helping with the reps. And by the end of the reps, your subsequent sets, you know, sets three, four, then you're tapping into the…
20:16
the creatine stores from the supplement kind of. That is a hundred percent correct. And that's why we start to see you're always, you're expanding this energy system. That's really tough and delaying, you know, the glycolytic system or even oxidative system. So it just maintains a high energy capacity, allowing the individual to maybe do more reps or weight over time. And of course that leads to improvements in body composition. Yeah. You're a hundred percent correct. Yeah. I actually remember one study where taking creatine and
20:45
resulted in fat loss as well. So usually people associated with like water retention, they look a bit more bloated or puffy. But in that study, they actually saw fat loss. Yeah, we did two meta-analysis, looked at everybody from 18 and above, and it clearly had the same effects. If you combine creatine with weight training,
21:02
you lose two things. Now, they're very small, but they are reductions. You lose a little bit of absolute body fat, about 0.5 kilograms, and about 1% body fat. So for those saying, oh, creatine increases body fat, we don't see any evidence of that. We see the opposite. So if you increase lean mass,
21:22
decreased body fat, there may be a change on the scale or no change at all. But please notice probably having beneficial effects. And if anything, it's driving water and other nutrients into the muscle, which is a really favorable environment. So that's sort of increasing net body water retention. Gotcha. Yeah. What about bone density? So you mentioned that. Yeah.
21:44
Yeah, it's primarily focused on older adults, about 15 and above, and again, in combination with weight training. But this is where the dose is different. The lowest dose shown to have some bone benefits is about 8 grams all the way up to about 12. And then you need to do training for at least a year, if not longer. There's a great group out of Brazil that showed that 1 to 3 grams of creatine a day without exercise for all the way up to 2 years had no bone benefits.
22:09
And my colleague, Dr. Phil Chilabek, has clearly shown that 8 to 10 grams or sorry, 8 to 12 grams for one or two years of weight lifting primarily and adding in walking, it decreased the rate of bone mineral loss around the hip. But we also saw an increase in bone surface area and strength in the lower limbs as well. So, you know, that has application.
22:30
for older adults as we're more prone to falls and a subsequent fracture, maybe the older adult's bones are preserved a little bit more. Um, so again, we don't see a lot of promise in young individuals, probably because their skeleton is healthy, but those postmenopausal females or older males, you know, as we're losing, uh, uh,
22:48
muscle mass and introducing sarcopenia. So the bone benefits seem to be very popular or prevalent in older adults. It has not been shown to increase bone mineral density. So that's really important. It seems to just reduce the rate of loss. But, you know, if you have a history of osteoporosis or osteopenia, that might be interesting for an older adult, especially to take or
23:09
Flip it. What about the younger individuals who never care about bone? You know, when you look in the mirror, they only see body composition. But as we can build up bone at a younger age, especially for young biological females, that might have huge applications for longevity later on in life. So that is an area of merging and more interest for sure. Yeah, like bone density, bone
23:28
is something you want to bank up uh when you're young because it's much easier to build it and much harder to build it uh in your elderly years so yeah it's impossible yep exactly yeah yeah if creating can help you like add a little more bone density and you know the only reliable method to increase bone density is to lift anyway yes you're not going to build bone density without lifting that much right so uh creating might add a little bit more
23:53
And from an indirect way, if you have more muscle, it's pulling on the bone when you're doing activities of daily living. So the extra benefit of having more muscle mass, it's pulling on the bone, causing that stimuli for bone to grow. Look at gymnasts. They have some of the highest bone mineral density and muscle density on the planet. And it's likely because of all the vectors to the bone and or muscle. Well, we never thought about it that way.
24:16
Just having more muscle means that you're carrying more weights around every day, and that stimulates the bone density. Those ligaments and tendons are really activated when you're lifting, and if you have more things pulling on bone, our bone is very stubborn, but it does respond to a lot of variety of forces, absolutely. And another interesting area of performance creating might help, you mentioned these endurance sports, so maybe you can talk about that.
24:44
Yeah, it's kind of come out of nowhere. We used to think, oh, God, if you're an aerobic trained individual, why would you take creatine? And then when you look at all the studies from soccer, swimming to ice hockey to triathlon and marathon, we started to see, yeah, there's improvements in agility balance. And again, it is an energy component of the anaerobic system. So those sports that are intermittent or long duration seems to have some favorable effects.
25:10
The nice cellular data comes from Ironman and marathon training, where those individuals took creatine, the loading phase, five days before they did the long race. And when they measured their blood after they had a reduction in this inflammatory protein, they're called cytokines, they were elevated, but they weren't nearly as elevated compared to placebo. So it was the first lines of evidence to suggest that long-duration aerobic can actually decrease
25:37
incidences of inflammation or improvements in recovery there as well. So that's why now the emergence for pretty much all sporting events, if it's done correctly, can have applications. We're currently running a paper on combat and martial arts. So it's all these different types of sports, but the endurance athletes are there. We put out a big paper two years ago looking just like at endurance athletes. And again, we're starting to see a lot of beneficial effects for those populations for sure.
26:05
So it's mostly reducing muscle damage.
26:08
Muscle damage or inflammation allowing that muscle because aerobic exercise is very catabolic. We don't think resistance training is continuous enough, but if you're going out for a 40K run, you're running hours and hours of very catabolic to your body and therefore creatine can help in the recovery phase. Yeah, and for the aging endurance athlete, creatine might be more important for the bone density benefits than maintaining the muscle mass. Way more important, especially to reduce…
26:35
muscle breakdown as well. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I did notice a meta-analysis from 2023 that found that creatine supplementation
26:45
resulted in a smaller increase in vo2 max than not taking creatine yes so is there anything like related to water retention or increased muscle mass that might hinder some of the vo2 max it was only like a two to four percent yeah decrease or lower than the placebo group so it's not like a significant amount but uh you know maybe for some sports it might be interesting yeah yeah you hit the nail on the head some show a benefit some show nada and those decreases it might
27:11
The theory was that the mass of the person either went up and or a little bit of the water retention might have helped, but the mass of the person might have slowed them down. So that's why I'm a little cautious when we're doing with long duration aerobic individuals that you can titrate the dose up. Maybe the loading phase might be a little bit too acute. Yeah, it's really a good analogy. Yeah, the way I do it is like, you know, my yearly workout plan is, you know, divided into…
27:35
more lifting focus, more muscle and strength focus, and then more cardio focus. So on the cardio focus sections, I'm not taking a creatine or I'm taking just a maintenance dose of three, four grams, maybe something like that. And if I'm focusing on the strength and muscle mass, I take the optimal dose, which for me is this 100 milligrams per kilogram, which for me is eight grams. That's a very good dose. Very good. Yeah. So if you take a smaller dose, you could probably avoid some of the
28:04
Yeah. Or if you want to take the higher thing, we haven't talked about is our lab has six studies currently looking at the micro dosing idea. So I'm interested in now looking at like a higher dose, but
28:15
But sometimes to your issue, some people say it's very tough to take 10 grams at once or 15. What if you take smaller, more frequent dosages throughout the day? Could that accumulate? So we're starting to go, we're going to have data within this year to say maybe 2.5 grams in the morning and 2.5 grams later on. Is it equivalent to taking a five gram dose? And then also does it cause any adverse effects or so it'll be really interesting to see this micro dosing philosophy. Can it be beneficial? Yeah. Hmm.
28:43
Interesting. And would you do it like during the loading phase as well? If you take, let's say 20 grams, would you separate it into multiple doses?
28:51
Yeah. So if you were to do 20 grams, the idea is four by five grams spread throughout the day. I don't know if you could do 10 by two, because that would be very, very tough to do. I think everybody's so busy. The key is what's practical. What can you do to allow someone to do it? Um, but you know, I've taken 10 grams at once. I typically take two fives at least, uh, or a little bit more. Uh, but, uh, you know, in some of those studies, they took the 20, 25 grams all at once and
29:17
uh no adverse effects so it's up to the person subjective that way yeah gotcha um we can move on with the brain then so that's yeah very interesting uh area of research and what i've noticed is that that what is made creating so popular again like this research about uh brain and cognition so uh the brain obviously uses a lot of energy and has a lot of mitochondria and needs a lot of atp so i guess the same uh
29:43
you know, reason that supports energy production in the brain primarily. Yeah, it's so interesting. You know, our bicep gets sore, we rest it and then train other muscle groups. Unfortunately, the brain is working 24 hours a day, even when you don't want it to. So the brain's only about, you know,
29:58
two kilograms, but it occupies about 20% of our daily energy. And that's on a good day. When we're metabolically stressed, which is likely everybody in the world, it's working 24-7. And the interesting thing is when you look at the brain biology, it's similar to muscle with one big difference. Muscle does not make its own creatine.
30:19
So it likes to act as a vacuum and take in as much as possible. The brain is very unique. It has the blood-brain barrier for a very important reason. And the brain actually does synthesize creatine.
30:31
So only until recently have we discovered that, yes, if you take in more dietary creatine or supplementation, it can actually get in through the blood-brain barrier. It's very slow compared to muscle. The blood-brain barrier only has a certain amount of doorways that allow it in. But when you do take supplementation, creatine can accumulate or raise your brain creatine levels.
30:55
And that has massive implications for those with depression, anxiety, head trauma. A common denominator with all these conditions is that their brain creatine levels are reduced. So at the beginning of the podcast, we talked about how important maintaining creatine is to maintain energy. And of course, all our brain cells are
31:11
Our brain bioenergetics rely on that as well. So the idea is the more creatine in the brain, the brain can actually function at a higher level and or during times of sleep deprivation, hypoxia, jet lag, depression, clinical anxiety, maybe it's coming to the rescue. So the whole push here is that maybe in times of metabolic stressors, creatine may come to the rescue of your normal brain
31:37
add to what's already in the brain and sort of have the benefits. And some of the best studies show that creatine really works during mental fatiguing tasks or sleep deprivation. But that five gram dose for your muscle, we think is not nearly as much because if you're taking five grams, most will go to your muscle. You're going to have a little bit left trickling to the brain and
31:57
For me as an academic, I take at least 10 grams a day and I've certainly noticed an improvement in cognition. I was recently in Germany for the Creatine Conference and I took 20 grams a day leading up to it and I certainly noticed a decrease in jet lag. So, you know, a lot of people are starting to say that. And the other big one is we're starting to see the emergence on sleep.
32:19
And a great study we put out last year showing that five grams a day in biological females that were working out, they actually got an increase in additional hour of sleep on the days they worked out. And I think that is really important. I think everybody is sleep deprived or most people I know and most people would do anything to get more sleep and creatine seems to decrease inflammation in the brain, you
32:41
It improves some of the mitochondrial health parameters and therefore maybe the brain can recover quicker. And therefore that might help improve or explain why cognition and memory and tasks of daily living seem to be maintained, even if you've been up for 21 hours of sleep deprivation in some of these studies. So it's very fascinating. Yeah.
33:01
Yeah, in that study where they took the creatine after 21 hours of sleep deprivation, the creatine had similar effects as caffeine. And that was one bowl of Stolz. It was the first one to look and not titrating it up over time. Absolutely. Yeah. But with the brain and cognition, so there's the aspect of neurodegeneration that there's a few studies looking at creatine's effect on cognitive impairment in elderly people, you
33:28
So, and it showed some improvements and benefits. So is it, you know, useful only in the situations where your brain is under more cognitive deficits or under steep deprivation or some trauma, or would the person be expected to gain like, even like a upscale in their cognition, even if they're like even normal with their cognition?
33:50
Yeah, of the 18 studies, about 14 have shown benefits and some were in healthy individuals. So at the end of the day, I think creatine can cause some small beneficial effects to cognition. It seems to really work again if those are metabolically stressed. But I think of the aging population, we put out a meta-analysis and it did improve memory there. So I think that has huge applications.
34:10
Could that translate into Alzheimer's and dementia? We need big studies coming up, but I'm really encouraged with some of the pilot data that is showing there. There needs to be more research in Parkinson's and Huntington's and multiple sclerosis. So those areas are coming. But
34:26
when you add creatine to traditional treatment programs with clinical depression and anxiety, it has very favorable effects there. And there's been one study in Scotland and children with concussion and head trauma, and it seemed to improve the rates of recovery there as well. And a common denominator is that the idea is that it decreases inflammation, allowing the brain to repair itself a little bit quicker. Uh,
34:50
And the reason we know that is when we look at the rodent model in mice and rats, when they were forced to have a concussion, creatine before or after head trauma really seemed to decrease inflammation and improve cortical stability. Obviously, we can't do that to humans, so we use the animal model.
35:08
as a surrogate there, but at least it provided some mechanisms about what's happening. And that's why we think a bit higher dose for those that are playing contact sports or if you're really metabolically stressed. That's why we think creatine should be considered. It certainly has no detrimental effects. Keep in mind, everything we've talked about here, not a single study has ever taken creatine and went the opposite way. If at the end of the day, it's cost effective, it's extremely safe,
35:35
And I wonder why people won't consider it, especially if you're engaged in football, Australian rules, football, rugby, like, you know, you're going to be hitting your head. This might help. And I don't see why someone wouldn't consider it yet.
35:48
Yeah. Well, I think probably most rugby players are already taking creatine for the physical performance benefits. Yeah. Yeah. And they didn't know about the benefits to the brain. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You're getting auxiliary benefits for the brain, but would they need like a larger dose then because they're so physically active as well and burning it?
36:07
Yeah. So my thought is that if you're active, it doesn't actually require or increase the requirements. However, now, if you're looking at it from a whole body perspective and you're training more often, obviously the five grams would be the minimal amount. I, I, I target five grams of 0.8 grams of protein. I think that's way too low. I think that's enough that you're not going to get any impairments, but if you're an exercising individual or you're getting older or you're sleep deprived, I think a little bit higher. And I, that's why I
36:35
personally take a minimum of 10 grams a day. Mm-hmm. Gotcha.
36:39
And do you like cycle it or do you just take the same dose? Yeah, I've been taking it for a decade. So the idea with cycling is there from a muscle perspective. And we sort of talked about earlier, once your muscles get full, you can reduce that amount to really about two grams a day. But now weight, bone, your immune system, brain, and we're actually starting to see some benefits to the cardiovascular system. Why not take a bit more? And again, we're only talking about 10, 15 grams per
37:06
For those in protein research, we're talking hundreds of grams. This is like a tablespoon at the end of the day. It's very small. The safety profile is exceptional. There's been no adverse effects on the kidney, liver, blood cell count. So again, it's a very, very small amount. Yeah. And how fast would your creatine stores deteriorate if you stop taking it? Yeah.
37:28
Yeah. So if you've saturated your muscle, it takes about four weeks for them to come all the way back down to baseline. We think the brain preserves it a bit more. The estimate is about five weeks. So let's say, for example, you've saturated your muscle and you're going to go to Mexico and land a beach for a full month.
37:45
you can wait the whole month and those levels would come back to baseline. But for those that like the vacation and if you don't want to take your supplement, remember you can find creatine in red meat, white meat, and or seafood. So if you're out for dinner and you have salmon, you're probably getting two to three extra grams in addition to what you're synthesizing. So that's a great way to maintain some of those levels, even when you're on vacation, you know.
38:05
How much salmon? I think more than just a dish, right? Yeah. So one salmon steak would have about one to two grams. An eight ounce sirloin or tenderloin would have about three or four. But if you get a chance to eat more seafood and if you do consume that, it's an easy way to help maintain a little bit extra in your diet. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. I actually found that herring is very high. Yes. Very high. Yeah. Yeah.
38:35
You mentioned the safety data. So there's a lot of fear or worry about creatine that it's going to harm your kidneys or make your hair fall out or a lot of problems. So maybe we can talk about like the safety data with the kidneys specifically because…
38:53
That's one of the like biggest fears. Yeah. So last month, Rick Ryder led a big group and they looked at all the studies. It took an enormous amount of work and it's open access and it's published in the Journal of International Society of Sport Nutrition. And they looked at all the data and clearly showed that creatine did not lead to any greater increases on kidney, liver, blood cell count, GI tract. There was no adverse effects. And
39:15
And it makes sense. We naturally are already producing this compound. So our body recognizes it. And if we don't like it, we excrete it down the toilet in something called creatinine. And I recommend a dosage, even all the way up to higher dosages. Creatine has been exceptionally safe. And for those who can see me, I'm bald, but I was going bald before I took creatine. And just two days ago,
39:36
the great group finally came out with a study that looked at creatine and hair loss. And it went all the way back to the rugby study that looked at DHT, which is a hormone. But in this study, they gave five grams of creatine a day for several weeks. They looked at DHT. They looked at
39:52
bound and free testosterone, but they also looked at hair follicle size and number. And in these young, healthy individuals, creatine did not cause an increase in any hormone or hair follicle loss. So for those that is a myth, we busted two big ones. The safety profile is exceptional and we're not seeing any evidence whatsoever that creatine leads to or does cause hair thinning or follicle loss.
40:17
Yeah. Yeah. And that original study from, I think it was 2006 or something, they didn't even look at hair loss. They just saw that they took the creatine, they did a loading phase and then the maintenance phase stopped.
40:33
And then they saw increase in DHT, but they didn't actually look at hair loss. Yeah, exactly. And everybody found it did. Yep. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, this new study that actually, you know, looked at hair growth, didn't see any difference between the creatine and placebo.
40:49
And beyond 18 to 40 years of age, I'd have to look at it. I haven't read the totality, but again, it's just showing that, and I've assessed over a thousand people and not a single person has come to me and said, Hey, whatever you're giving me is causing my hair to thin out. But when they see me, they're like, Oh, you're bald. And then that other creature is bald. And I was like, there's a lot of genetics from mom's side that usually lead them way there. Yeah.
41:13
Yeah, I haven't noticed hair loss from creating either. But I do see a lot of people online saying that they did see some hair loss or hair thinning. So what could that be?
41:26
You know, we don't know. When people say that, I'm like, what other things are you consuming? Is it aging? Is it, you know, there's a lot of variables that play a role there. The DHT, is it cellular? Is it serum? There's so many factors, it's even hard to comment or extrapolate on what's causing it. But again, when you look at some of the prominent researchers, we're all bald. So people say, well, obviously you're bald and you're creating research, so it must be, but that's not how correlations work. Right.
41:55
Right. Yeah. Yeah. And with the kidneys, it's only harmful if you have kidney impairment or kidney damage.
42:03
Yeah, at higher dosages, it can cause the kidneys to work harder. So when you're taking creatine through the diet or supplementation, it gets stored in primarily our muscle. But when you metabolize it, it gets in the form of something called creatinine. And a lot of people say, oh, my doctor checked off that box on my requisition form. I forgot to tell him I was taking creatine and he got really worried that it was causing my kidneys to fail. And no, what it really means is that the metabolism of the supplement
42:29
cause this creatinine to go up a little bit. And if that's the case, it usually indicates that the filtration has gone down or your kidneys are not working properly. So for anybody listening, if you're on creatine supplementation, please let your doctor know that you're taking creatine because then they should expect the creatinine to be elevated and it just would not cause a false positive. Yeah. Hmm.
42:49
Yeah, and with creatinine, it's very responsive to exercise and muscle mass as well. So if you exercise and you have more muscle mass, then that makes your creatinine levels increase as well. Yeah, and dehydration and a high protein diet can also make your creatinine levels there. So again, make sure you tell your doctor, be honest, don't hide anything from them because you don't want to get anxiety with a false proselyt. Yeah, and I like the cistern more because of that. It's not affected by the muscle mass and exercise. Right.
43:18
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And I actually measured my kidney markers with, between this loading phase and taking eight grams for a few months. And I didn't notice any like significant differences in, in all these markers. Yeah. And I even measure my creatinine every few years. And even at the high dose, I'm still within normal range and
43:37
I might be the most saturated person on the planet. I've been taking so much of it. Yeah. So, but it may, I'm not saying it's not going to cause, but you know, if you do have dialysis or one kidney or any other issues there, make sure you always talk to your doctor to make sure creatine is right for you. Cause you could be on other types of pills, um, you know, hormones or water retention pills for a blood volume. So just make sure creatine is right for you. And we recommend that for any medical condition. Yeah. Hmm.
44:04
You mentioned the dehydration. Do you need to drink more water when you're taking creatine to retain more water in the muscles?
44:14
Yeah. It's a technical myth that you need to, but it's always recommended because ideally you're taking creatine with exercise. So obviously having a little bit more water, not a lot, maybe one or two glasses if you want. It's not necessary, but I usually recommend it to help maintain your plasma volume. And therefore it's a little bit easier to decrease any metabolic symptoms. But creatine is super hydrating. It does not cause muscle cramping. If anything, it super hydrates the muscle. But creatine
44:42
Consuming a little bit more water is fine. The reason some people might urinate on creatine is likely just to the volume. It has nothing to do with the molecule per se. It's usually people are drinking a little bit more water. Gotcha. I guess we can now talk about the different types of creatine. So there's a lot of different types of it, creatine monohydrate, hydrochloride and others. Which one is the better one?
45:07
Yeah, at the top of the mountain is always creatine monohydrate. That's simply creatine linked to water. And everything I've talked about today has been monohydrate based. And the interesting thing is there's a lot of marketed forms of creatine out there. But for the viewers, there's two things you need to really wrap your head around. If it's not a form of creatine, when it gets into the blood, it's not going to get into your cells. So make sure whatever you're taking, it is creatine.
45:33
And second, I would be really cautious against all these other market of forms that say it increases bioavailability or absorption. Monohydrate is near 100%. I know it's been around for so long. A lot of people are wanting something new. I don't think you need to spend your money on something new.
45:51
And also I worry that the safety profile of all these other market reforms and the efficacy are just not there. So why choose something that's not safe and or more effective than monohydrate? I would recommend only monohydrate. Make sure it's third party tested. The world's best is Creapure from Germany, has no impurities, has grass status. And I think if you're looking for a product that has Creapure in it, that's all you need to look for. Yeah. Yeah.
46:18
Yeah, I think it's most of the creatine comes from China and then there's Creapure. There's two creatines out there only. Yeah. And the one from China, we've had some issues with regulation. So Creapure is from Germany. They have plants around the world. It's third-party tested. It has grass status from the FDA. The purity is near 100%. Yeah. Okay. That's good. There's something called Creagenin, I think, as well that I've heard for
46:43
talked about recently. I don't know if you've heard about it, but yeah, supposedly some new form of creatine. Yeah, there's a lot of new ones. There's supposed to be a lipid soluble type of creatine, so it goes through your plasma membrane of the cell quicker, doesn't require the transporter. The only thing that
46:58
that's out there as a derivative that's needed to make creatine. It's called guanidinoacetate or citric acid, GAA. And there's some really good research on the brain there as well. But there's not a lot out there that can be added or replace creatine monohydrate. So for those listening, I would only back creatine monohydrate. I think that's something to consider, yeah. Yeah, it's the cheapest and the most researched one. Cheapest and most effective and safest. So that's important, yeah. Would there be any way to enhance creatine
47:25
its effects or is it already like, you know, perfect? Yeah, it's pretty much perfect. I think, you know, if you're combining it with protein, you get all those muscle potential benefits there. Exercise is great too. And the cool thing is if you want to put creatine in your water bottle and drink it, you shouldn't notice any adverse effects. So it's one of these things that's kind of works itself. You don't have to do a lot of help with it. And the timing is irrelevant. You can take it before you go to bed, whichever it is. Yeah, it's pretty good there.
47:54
What about creating gummies? Yeah, so there is an explosion right now. And the only thing about the gummies is a very viable source. But make sure that there's actually creatine in there. I saw a couple reports on Twitter lately that there's only a few out there. I think Create is one of the only few that actually had creatine in there. There was eight of 10 that were marketed on Amazon and it showed there was nothing in there. So make sure that the product that you're spending a lot of money on actually has creatine in there as well. Yeah.
48:21
Yeah. Yeah. They taste good. They're like candy and that's why kids are loving it and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, one thing we forgot to mention before was, um,
48:31
Kind of the mood and mental health benefits. So depression and mood disorders. Yes. Yeah. So for those with clinical depression or anxiety, some really good work out of Utah and United States psychiatrists have clearly showed that creatine added to their medication. It could be SSSRIs or methamphetamines or cognitive behavior therapy. Seemed to improve self-efficacy. Mood was one of the biggest ones. And again,
48:57
That was added to their treatment. No studies looked at creatine by itself, and I think those studies will come. But for those that are suffering from clinical depression or anxiety, make sure you talk to your psychiatrist and see if creatine is right for you. As it currently stands, we're seeing all benefits, and there's some really good review articles out there that people can go online to search for the benefits from the brain perspective, from a clinical perspective. Yeah. Hmm.
49:21
Does it interact with any other medications, any contraindications? Yeah, we don't see any contraindications to SSRIs or any other abnormalities. But again, the psychiatry medical doctor in the community would know that as well. There's been a couple of studies on PTSD that might have applications for veterans or first responders. So again, if it improves brain bioenergetics, start thinking of people who might respond. And it has applications for, I think, a lot of people to consider. Yeah.
49:49
Yeah, during the sleep deprivation experiment that I did, I did notice when I took the larger doses of creatine, there was some elevation in my mood as well. So like a bit of a more, not even like happier, but I guess more, you know, even like quirkier or like a bit more funnier, better mood.
50:11
Yeah. And I think even starting out, if you want to start with, you know, two to three, five grams a day, see how you feel and work your way up. And, you know, I'm probably at the point now I'm taking about 10 grams, if not a little bit more, especially when I'm metabolically stressed. And I think 10 grams is a great average viable dose for bone, brain, muscle, and the immune system. Gotcha. Yeah.
50:32
And you've, you've been taking creatine for, you know, several decades. So why did you start? I've been taking it for 25 years. Yeah. Yeah. No adverse effects. And yeah, I was going bald before. Why did you start taking it?
50:47
Yeah, I actually got involved with a great colleague of mine when I was doing my master's degree. And I noticed that a lot of people on Create Team were getting bigger, stronger, faster. And I fully admit that's the main reason. And I noticed in the gym, I was like, wow, my recovery is a lot quicker. I can actually increase weight that I'm lifting and more repetitions.
51:06
And I definitely respond well. And then you start to get in populations that really need it, like the elderly. That's been a big focal point of our research. So the goal is to try to get people to live longer, functional, free of disease. And I think creatine is one little area in a treatment program. Exercise has to be foundational. Protein is the next big thing. Make sure you're taking adequate protein and a little bit of creatine on top of that cake.
51:31
should go a long way. Are you going to increase your dose if you get older or something like that in your 60s, 70s? Yeah, I probably will be up to about 20 grams there and then we'll kind of have an idea about micro dosing or things like that. But hopefully a big expansion, you know, in the next 10 years on creatine and brain health or other areas. And if there is new forms of creatine out that you may not need that total amount, I'm
51:54
I'm all for evidence-based research. And again, if it's backed by science, it's safe, you know, that's where you want to hang your hat and look at peer referee publications. Yeah. Well, yeah, I'm looking forward to what's going to happen with the research, especially in the neurodegenerative realm for the brain health. That's more interesting right now.
52:15
Yeah, because yeah, there's already, already so many studies on the exercise performance and it's like undeniable that it has. You know, if you could have any benefit to Parkinson's or Alzheimer's, that is a global game changer. Uh, that would have enormous magnitude of effects. Yeah. Hmm.
52:31
Yeah. Well, yeah, it's been great talking with you before I ask my last question. Where can people learn more about you and your work? Yeah. I think at Instagram at Dr. Darren Candles is usually the easiest. It's the most popular nowadays. We try to promote creatine and or other health things. So at Dr. Darren Candle on Instagram and that's great. Yeah. Awesome. We'll put the links in the show notes. And my last question is, what's this one piece of advice or habit that you wish you'd adopted sooner?
52:58
uh exercise i think exercise is the foundation of youth um and now as i get older sleep would be a little bit better more sleep quality is good but i think exercise for those that are not please move your body's meant to move and no pill or powder will ever replace exercise for longevity yeah yeah that's definitely good and if you take creatine you get more results then yeah you get a little bit more hopefully yeah but exercise got to be there yeah yeah well uh yeah awesome it was great to talk with you and yeah i'll see you around
53:28
Great. Thank you so much. All right. That's it for this episode. Make sure you check out my new book, The Longevity Leap on Amazon. I'd also appreciate if you share this episode with a friend or family member. Other than that, my name is Seem. Stay tuned for the next episode. Stay empowered.
Edit:2025.05.05
