The REAL Effects of Creatine You NEED To Know

0:00 Sticking on supplements for a second. Omega 3? Yes. >> Um, I've got some Omega 3 here. I've only got two of them here. But when I brought both of them out, you said that I've got to be quite careful about what brand I buy, but also something about temperature. So, by far out of all of the supplements, Omega 3 is probably the only one that you have to make sure that you look at the supplement label for. They There was this study that was done that showed that around 95% of the most popular Omega 3 supplements in the US, and there was about 85 of them that were tested, exceeded the normal oxidation level. Meaning that

0:47 these pills, because they're Omega 3 fatty acids, they come from fish oil, they're oil, they can become rancid and oxidized. And they usually do this when they're in an heated environment. They're the Here are the rules of thumbs. One, you want to look for a manufacturer that is highly credible and that is certified. Certified? Yeah. So, NSF certified. So, it's an external governing uh board that certifies them on, you know, everything. Heavy metals, they make sure that the um oxidation levels are met, and they make sure that, you know, what's in the capsule is actually in the capsule. That's another thing that is scary. The supplement industry is highly unregulated. And I treat my Omega 3s the same way I treat my olive

1:33 oil. You want to get oil that is sourced in the area that you are. We're in California right now, so you might want to find an Omega 3 that is sourced in California. Do I want to put it in the fridge? >> You want to put it in the fridge the moment that you get it. Really? >> Yeah. >> Why does nobody talk about that? I'm not sure, but um it's just the same as olive oil. You don't want the olive oil to become rancid, so you don't leave it near the near the stove. You want to put it in a cupboard away from the stove. And these are good for the brain? Omega-3s by far uh one of the most potent stimulus that you could have for the brain. They help with cell membrane fluidity. So, where your cells meet, neuron to neuron, they create something called a synapse. And in order for that to occur, we have a

2:19 massive influx of all of these neurotransmitters. Dopamine, serotonin, also got calcium and potassium. And these help our brain cells communicate, okay? We want to make sure that our membranes, the cell membranes, are fluid. And they glide in order to help with that synaptic transmission. Another thing that they do is they are comparable to an NSAID, an anti-inflammatory medication. These have massive anti-inflammatory effects. In fact, I think that these have the safety profile of an FDA-approved drug. And there's only benefits from it.

3:04 There's no side effects from it. Uh not just that, 60% of our brain is made of fat. 70% of that is made of DHA. And DHA comes from omega-3 fatty acids. So, why do I not want to replace my brain or the fat in my brain with what it's made of? And that's what you do when you have omega-3 fatty acids. In fact, there's been several trials um to show that omega-3 fatty acids are most beneficial and most effective for mild cognitive impairment patients, people who have the APOE4 gene, and people who have got Alzheimer's

3:50 disease. Because when I told you that our we get the breakdown of the blood-brain barrier, those parasites on the blood-brain barrier require DHA. In fact, there's a transporter on the outside of our brain that allows the that allows the DHA to come in and get into the brain. And I know you're a big fan of vitamin D as well because there's been some very encouraging studies done there. Vitamin D is phenomenal. We have vitamin D receptors all over our brain, brainstem, and and they're abundantly found in the hippocampus and the memory centers of our brain. And there was this there was actually a study done on centenarians in China. Centenarians?

4:37 Yeah, those who live to 100, but it was done in women. And they showed that the women who preserved their cognitive functions and who didn't get Alzheimer's disease had high levels of vitamin D. So, they weren't vitamin D deficient. In fact, being vitamin D deficient can increase your risk of all-cause dementia by 40%. Likely, being having a high level of vitamin D, which is around 60 ng/dL, can lower your risk of getting Alzheimer's disease by around 80%. And then we have this white powder in front of me. You've got a big smile on your face. I do because there is just so much benefit to this.

5:24 Depending on which brand you've bought, of course, but I can't say enough about creatine. I have my parents on creatine. They're 71 years old. I've got my dad on high-dose creatine. I've got my mother on low-dose creatine. It's the most widely studied supplement on the market. I've never seen you this excited. I'm so excited because I think that this is a really cheap and effective way to get everything you want from both your physiology and upgrade on your physiology and your neurophysiology. So, let's actually talk about creatine because I know it gets a lot of airtime, but women and men are still scared of it. And they're scared of it for two reasons. One, they're scared it's going to cause kidney damage. And two, it's

6:12 they're scared their hair is going to fall out. And I'm going to address both of those fears. But first, let's talk about what it is. So, creatine is a naturally occurring molecule. We it's we get we produce around 2 to 3 g of creatine per day. Gets secreted from a bit from the brain, but a lot from the liver. And 2 to 3 g a day is great, but it's not enough. So, we have to supplement with it. And all through the '90s and all through the 2000s, people were supplementing with 5 g a day. That is the scoop here. 5 g of creatine per day. Now that we're getting more rigorous with our brain health studies, we have found that creatine has enormous benefits for the brain. But here's the problem.

6:57 When you have 5 g of creatine, you're saturating the muscles. Okay, remember, the muscles are so hungry, so they get first dibs and they take up all of that creatine. So, then there's none left for the brain. We also lose a bit of the bioavailability when the creatine goes into the brain. It crosses the blood-brain barrier, but when it goes into the brain, we lose some of it. So, we have to supplement with more than 5 g. And one of the studies that changed my thinking came out last year. It was the first ever pilot study done on Alzheimer's disease patients. You're talking about patients whose brains are under attack. They're in an energetic crisis. They cannot produce energy effectively. ATP is all skewed, brain

7:44 glucose metabolism is skewed, they don't remember left from right, cognitive functions are declined. They put them on a 20 g of creatine per day. Which is how much? I mean That Well, actually, that is four of this. So, you want to go one And I don't know if they did this all at once, that's two, or if they did it like me over four separate intervals throughout the day. There we go. That's a lot of creatine. >> which is why you probably want to have this skewed throughout the day, which is what I did. I had 20 g today. I had 5 g in the morning, five mid-morning, and then I think I had 10 all at once before I got here. So, that is a lot for all at once. And what they found was that these patients

8:31 not only preserved their cognitive functions, but they had more energy, and they were able to exercise more. And it blew my mind that it does not matter how old you are. It doesn't discriminate based on gender, creatine doesn't discriminate based on age, it doesn't discriminate based on weight, it doesn't discriminate based on pathology or disease states or ethnicity. It is just there, it is there to support you. It's the most widely studied supplement on the market. What does it do? >> all risk. What is >> It is all reward. There is no risk. It's helping with cell energy metabolism. So, basically, it's helping

9:17 ATP create energy. So, if you're someone that is low energy, you should definitely be having creatine. I don't care who you are, you should definitely be having creatine. >> People with brain fog and >> Yeah, people with brain fog, you know, I think one of the greatest benefits are men who are in football, football players. You can actually It's actually a protective molecule. So, what studies has shown is that at high doses of creatine, around 30 g a day, it can protect you against insults. Insults meaning you take a hit to the head, like a concussion. Hm. It can protect your brain against a concussion. It can protect your brain brain against a stroke. It can protect

10:03 your brain from stress. The best thing about creatine is that it works in the background of stress. I think that's where most That's where you'll get most of the benefits from. After hearing so much about creatine on this podcast, I started recommending it to all the people in my life. There's one particular person actually that's probably out out out there in my house at the moment who had gone through uh uh cancer treatments. Yeah. >> And had survived cancer treatments and in their words wasn't the same on the other side of cancer treatments. And I talked to her about um creatine. And she said to me the other day, she I think the exact quote was "I feel like I've got my life back." Because it's She's been taking creatine every single day for the last, I'd say, 5 months or so.

10:48 It's funny you said that because just recently, in the last 2 weeks, uh this study was done to show the anti-cancer effects of creatine. And if my memory serves clear, they uh they dosed it at uh They dosed it at 0.36 g per kilogram of body weight. So, if you are a 70-kilo person, if my mathematics is correct, you're looking at around 25 g of creatine per day that can have the effects, the anti-cancer effects. So, the the study you're referring to I'll put up on the screen as well for anyone that wants to see it. It's um the NHANES 2025 study, which is a major study involving over 25,000 adults, found a linear negative association between dietary creatine and cancer prevalence.

11:35 For every standard deviation increase in dietary creatine intake, the risk of having cancer decreased by roughly 5% to 18% depending on the demographic. That is wild. This protective association was strongest in adults over the age of 50, suggesting that as we age, maintaining higher creatine levels might be more critical for cellular health and immune surveillance. Mhm. If you think about life and think about energy, um we need energy to survive. We need energy to fight off infections. We need energy to fight off stress, preserve our our normal normal bodily functions. So, when we are at the mercy of a low energy crisis, we can't fight off

12:21 tumor cells. We we can't fight off these uh debilitating diseases. So, it actually makes sense that with more energy and with more functional energy, meaning that if our cells can function better, it makes sense that you can see a reduction in cancer incidence. Likely, you can see a reduction in Alzheimer's disease incidence. When I said that creatine works in the background of stress, also, there was uh there's been phenomenal research to show that you can basically creatine your way out of sleep deprivation. So, if you've had a uh if you've had a a long night and you've you're sleep deprived, maybe you slept four, five, six hours, you're sleep deprived, you can take uh you can take high-dose creatine in the

13:07 form of around 15 to 20 g a day, and you can reverse the negative effects associated with that sleep deprivation. Does it matter what time you take the creatine? It doesn't matter what time you take the creatine. It doesn't degrade in hot water. It uh you can take it anytime throughout the day, and it doesn't matter whether you're taking it right before exercise, during exercise, after exercise, it works phenomenally. Some people our researchers are now wondering if taking it at night before bed helps with sleep performance and I think that that's a really exciting area. But the one thing that I want to tell everybody because a lot of people are scared of this biomarker called creatinine. Meaning

13:52 that Oh my doctor said that to me. Yeah, so meaning that you've got a a high creatinine level. And this is a marker of it's one marker of kidney function. But this is where I find it really invaluable and this is where a lot of the nonsense comes around on Instagram and social media. A lot of people say, "Well, I had so much creatine that my doctor told me to get off it because my creatinine levels were high." But creatinine levels are high during times of stress, during times of intense physical activity. Uh and also people who have a lot of muscle mass higher muscle mass, that's you >> That must be have higher creatinine levels. What you want to test, a greater marker of kidney function and GFR is cystatin C. So all you have to ask,

14:40 it's really easy, ask your doctor could I please get cystatin C in my blood work. And if that is elevated and without with not within normal range, then maybe get off creatine. But right now I cannot see any reason as to not have creatine every single day. I think every single person, no matter what age you are, everybody should be supplementing with creatine. Now, there was this recent study that came out on menopausal women and it was a really small study. It was a randomized control trial and they split women into four groups. And these were perimenopausal women. They split

15:27 them into low-dose creatine where I think they were having 750 mg a day. Medium dose, which was around 1.5 g a day. Then they had them supplement with a range of both creatine monohydrate and creatine hydrochloride. This was a hydrochloride creatine study. And then there was a placebo group. What they found was a very small study, very small group. What they found was that those in the medium range having the 1.5 had substantial increases in their mood and their cognitive functions. So, creatine is now being explored in females across the lifespan as it relates to perimenopause, pregnancy,

16:15 menopause, and dementia. So, there's just there it's it's it's phenomenal. The only thing I want to point out, what you want to look for when it comes to creatine are two things. When it comes to manufacturing standards. You want to look A, has it been NSF certified? And B, you want to look for is it Creapure? And that's the gold standard of creatine. And it comes from Germany. And a lot So, the one that you've got there, I can tell it's not Creapure. Excuse me. >> I know my creatine. How can you tell what it is by looking at it? I can just tell. I can I I I bet you a million dollars that it is the brand that I think it is because it's got this powdered icing sugar substance. If it

17:02 was pure gold standard Creapure, it would be gritty. The reason why it's like this is because a lot of manufacturers want to add these different agents in there in order for it to mix well. This probably mix mixes really well. A lot of uh people also complain of feeling GI distress when they take it. And all I have to say is that's not a reason to stop taking it. Maybe take 2 g at a time. Maybe take 3 g at a time, but don't stop taking it. If you love the Driven CEO brand and you watch this channel, please do me a huge favor. Become part of the 15% of the viewers on this channel that have hit the subscribe button. It helps us tremendously and the bigger the channel gets, the bigger the guests.