Brief Summary
This video explores creatine supplements, covering their benefits, usage, and safety. It highlights creatine's role in enhancing athletic performance, increasing muscle mass, and improving strength, especially in high-intensity exercise. The video also discusses the optimal form (creatine monohydrate), dosage, timing, and potential kidney concerns, emphasizing the importance of sourcing supplements from reputable brands and checking for purity through informed Sport and NSF certified for sport.
- Creatine enhances athletic performance and muscle mass.
- Creatine monohydrate is the best form.
- Dosage: 3-5 grams daily, with a possible loading phase.
- Safe for kidneys at recommended doses with normal kidney function.
- Buy from reputable brands and check for purity.
Dr. Christy Risinger introduces the topic of creatine supplements, driven by her personal interest due to her husband and son taking them. Creatine is a naturally occurring substance found in muscles and foods like red meat and fish. It supports ATP production, which is crucial for energy, especially during high-intensity exercise. Creatine is promoted for enhancing athletic performance and aiding muscle recovery, with a recommended dosage of 3 to 5 grams per day. Some data suggests a loading dose of 20 grams per day for five days can be beneficial, but this may cause water retention.
To get 5 grams of creatine from the gummy form, one would need to consume four gummies, which could become excessive and expensive. Taking 3 to 5 grams daily over an extended period can yield similar benefits to loading. Creatine absorption is enhanced when taken with protein and carbohydrates, ideally post-workout. Creatine monohydrate is identified as the most effective form due to its superior absorption and data support, despite claims of better absorption from other forms. While typically sold as a powder, creatine is also available in other forms like gummies.
Research supports creatine's claims, showing benefits in repeated high-intensity exercises with short rest intervals, benefiting sports like football, soccer, tennis, weightlifting, and sprinting. Studies on young men (under 36) demonstrated increased weightlifting ability, specifically in bench press and squat, but these results were not consistent in women or older men. However, other studies have shown benefits in females, including increased strength, power, and exercise tolerance. In older adults (over 65), creatine, combined with resistance training, increased muscle mass and upper body strength, but did not improve bone mineral density in women.
The doctor addresses concerns about kidney health, noting that while creatinine, a byproduct of creatine breakdown, is measured to assess kidney function, creatine use at recommended doses does not harm kidneys with normal function. Kidney damage in studies typically occurred in individuals with pre-existing kidney issues or those taking excessive amounts of creatine. It's advisable to inform your doctor about creatine use, as it may slightly elevate creatinine levels. Due to the lack of regulation in the supplement industry, contamination is a concern. It's crucial to source creatine from reliable vendors and verify product purity through informed Sport and NSF certified for sport websites.
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Transcript
Full transcript of “Creatine Supplements - Who benefits most? Does it work? Is it safe? Everything you need to know!”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 [Music] hi and welcome to another edition of your health with Dr Christie my name is Dr Christy ringer and today I'm going to talk about creatine supplements you know my husband and my 17-year-old son have been taking creatine supplements for a couple of months but as a doctor I'm always skeptical about supplements and so I wanted to do some research well what is creatine creatine is a naturally occurring substance that's found in our muscles and also in other Foods like red meat and fish it supports ATP production which is the main source of energy that cells use especially in high intensity exercise and the way that it's promoted is that it's supposed to enhance athletic performance and support Muscle
0:46 Recovery the dosage that's recommended is 3 to 5 gram per day although some data suggest that doing a loading dose of 20 Gams per day over 5 days is also beneficial but in order to get 5 grams with this particular product you need to eat four gummies so that would mean eating 16 gummies a day which I think is a lot and is expensive some data shows that just taking 3 to 5 gram per day over an extended period of time gets just as much benefit also the loading dose of that 20 gram per day can lead to some water retention and make people feel like they're gaining weight when it's just the muscle holding on to extra water the best way to take creatine is with protein and a carb because the absorption into the muscle occurs better and some data shows the best time to take it is after a workout another thing that the data really suggests is that
1:33 creatine monohydrate is the best form it's absorbed the best and has the best data there are other forms out there that may claim to have better absorption but I don't know that the data really supports that or suggests that usually creatine is sold as a powder but there are other forms available like those gummies that I showed you okay so what does the data show surprisingly there's actually some good data to show that some of those claims are backed up but let me get into the nuances of that once study showed benefits and repeated exercise of 6 to 30 second intervals at maximal force and then with some rest in between so things like American football soccer tennis weightlifting and sprinting are some some sports that retine may be beneficial another study with young men less than 36 years old
2:19 showed some benefits in weightlifting ability and the supplement increased their Max lifting weight for both bench press and squat but those results were not seen in women or in older men however other Studies have shown benefits in females including increased strength and power and exercise tolerance in Endurance Sports the results just aren't as consistent as these high-intensity short burst exercises what about an older adults greater than 65 you know as people age we really want to retain the muscle that they have and some data did show that along with resistance training older adults benefited from a creatine supplement and increased muscle mass and upper body strength but it needed to be
3:05 along with resistance straining and it needed to be used for a sustained period of time and unfortunately adding creatine didn't help bone mineral density in women one thing that I always have carried with me and when my husband and son said that they were going to be taking creatine supplements I was worried about harm to the kidney that is something that I learned along the way and it makes sense because the byproduct of breakdown from creatine is creatinine and we measure creatinine in the blood to see how healthy the kidney is it's one of the many ways you can do that and so when I see an increase in creatinine I worry about the kidney but I was happy to find the data showed that people that use creatine at the doses recommended
3:50 and if they have normal kidney function no harm to the kidney is done there have been studies that have shown harm to the kidney but these patients usually had an underlying kidney defect or kidney problem or they took massive amounts of creatine however it may be something that you mention to your doctor because when your doctor does routine blood studies and your creatinine is a little bit elevated that is going to freak them out in order to make sure that your kidneys is truly normal some other studies may need to be done I also want to pause and say you know anytime someone takes a supplement I'm always worried about contamination within the supplement supplements are are not regulated they can pretty much say whatever they want and so there's just a lot of variability so make sure that
4:36 you're getting your creatine supplement from a reliable source you know if you're getting it from a small business that operates only online I would caution you there are also two really great websites that you can go and check the creatine supplement to make sure that it's pure and doesn't have any contamination in it those two websites are informed Sport and n SF certified for sport I'll put those links in the description below you know unfortunately these two supplements were not approved by informed sport or NSF so that was kind of disappointing I think when and if my husband and Sun decide to continue creatine I'm going to encourage them to find a supplement that's been vetted by one of those two
5:22 organizations at the end of the day I was surprised I feel like there is some good data behind creatine's claims to enhance athletic performance increase lean muscle mass and increase strength especially in high intensity exercise creatine monohydrate is the best form to use you can consider doing the loading dose of 20 gram per day for 5 days and then it is important to just use 3 to 5 gram per day and then also buy a reputable brand I hope this was helpful if you like the content of this video please like And subscribe to my videos and put a comment below if you have any other suggestions thoughts or concerns thanks for joining me
