Creatine’s Safety and Benefits

Creatine’s Safety and Benefits
For decades athletes have looked for the competitive edge in their respective sports. Some athletes have looked for that edge with the use of legal supplements such as protein, phosphagen, and nitric oxide.

While other athletes have found that edge in the use of illegal performance enhancing drugs such as anabolic-androgenic steroids. In the past decade one supplement, creatine, has become the most popular supplement for athletes. Many myths have led people to believe that creatine is detrimental to an athlete’s health.

Despite people’s perceptions that creatine use is harmful to the body, creatine supplementation is not only safe, but is excellent for the enhancement of athletic performance and overall health.

Background on Creatine
Contrary to popular belief that creatine is a man made supplement, creatine is actually a natural compound found in the muscles, brain, heart, and testes of people and animals.

Creatine is a protein made from three amino acids: arginine, glycine, and methionine, which are synthesized in the liver, pancreas, and kidneys. Creatine is also ingested by eating meats such as steak, pork, and fish.

In 1926, the Journal of Biological Chemistry noted that ninety-five percent of all creatine is stored in the muscle and also noted a few of creatine’s effects on the human body.

After the release of the journal, scientists realized that supplementing creatine into people’s diet could possibly cause protein synthesis in the body which would increase strength and power.

Creatine’s wide spread use began after the 1992 Olympic when athletes, competing in their respective events, benefited from the use of creatine. It is thought that creatine use by countries in Eastern Europe was the reason that they defeated Western countries for so many years.

Myths About Creatine Supplementation
There are many myths that have been created about creatine. One such myth is that creatine is a banned product in sports, but in reality, creatine is not a banned substance.

Sports

Creatine has not been banned by the National Hockey League, National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, National Football League, National Collegiate Athletic Association, nor Olympics. However, misconceptions and misinformation by some people have caused creatine’s banning.

Volumization

It is also wrongly believed that the weight gained from creatine is only water weight and not muscle mass. People believe that creatine pulls water from the body and causes muscles to appear smooth and bloated. Creatine actually doesn’t retain water, it causes cell volumization.

Volumization is the pulling of water in the cells, not holding water out of the muscle. Volumization allows the muscle cells to receive more water further stimulating muscle growth. The weight gained from the volumization is proportional to the growth of muscle, which contains seventy percent water.

Muscle Cramps

Along with this myth it is also believed that muscle cramps occur, especially in the stomach, because creatine pulls water from the organs to muscles. Cramps do occur only when the body isn’t hydrated, which happens even if one isn’t supplementing with creatine. This latter myth has caused many athletes to not take creatine in consternation of cramping while competing in their sports.

Kidney Damage

Another myth surrounding creatine use is that it causes kidney damage. This myth arose because excess creatine not used in the muscles is excreted through the excretory system.

In order for a substance to be excreted from the body it must pass through the kidney. Many people believe that too much creatine will over work the kidney, causing it to stop working.

Prevention from kidney problems is simple: take the recommended amount of creatine, not any more, and always keep the body well hydrated. Many studies have been conducted to disprove this myth.

Studies

One recent study compared kidney health in creatine users and nonusers. The creatine group consisted of competitive athletes that had been using between one and twenty grams of creatine for a time period of ten months all the way to five years. The nonuser group consisted of men and women from the universities graduate program.

Blood and urine tests were performed on each subject from both groups to determine the effect of creatine on kidney health and function. Results from the study indicated that creatine supplementation did not have any negative affects on kidney function or health in any of the subjects in the creatine user group.

Creatine as a Steroid?

One thing that should not be mistaken about creatine is that it is not an anabolic-androgenic steroid. Anabolic-androgenic steroids are man-made substances that are related to the male sex hormones, such as testosterone.

Steroids add testosterone to the body causing increased strength and athletic performance that would otherwise be near impossible to achieve.

Steroids are also the cause of many health problems such as liver tumors and cancer, jaundice, fluid retention, high blood pressure, increases in LDL cholesterol, and decreases in HDL cholesterol.

On the contrary, creatine is a natural nutrient found in meats. In addition, creatine does not add testosterone or affect hormones in the body. The misconception that creatine is a steroid was created because people associate anything that improves performance with steroids.

Creatine Helps Reduce Brain Injuries
Creatine is widely used to increase muscle mass and athletic performance, but a recent study proves that creatine may protect the brain from damage due to injury.

In the study, rats and mice were put on a high creatine diet and were given a concussion. Rats on a four week high creatine diet had a fifty percent reduction in brain damage compared to rats on a normal diet.

Mice on a three day diet had a twenty-one percent decline in damaged cells and mice on a five day diet had a thirty-six percent decline in damaged cells.

Stephen W. Scheff, professor of anatomy and neurobiology at the University of Kentucky School of Medicine and associate director of basic research at the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging said, “Professional quarterbacks in the NFL sustain many concussions, with less damage than we might expect. That could be because they’re taking creatine.”

Creatine can not only help athletes prepare for their sport before a game but it can also help athletes bear concussions without serious repercussions.

More Brain Power
Along with preventing concussions by maintaining high energy levels in the brain, creatine also boosts brain power by increasing memory and intelligence.

Researchers from the Sydney and Macquarie University used forty-five young adults, putting half on creatine and the others on a placebo for six weeks. The volunteer’s ability to repeat back long sequences of numbers and IQ were tested.

The results showed that those on creatine remembered an average of seven more digits in the long number sequence test and their IQ increased by an average of eight and one half. One of the researchers, Dr. Caroline Rae said, “Creatine supplementation gave a significant measurable boost to brain power.

Creatine Helps With Several Diseases
Just as important, creatine may also help in several diseases in which there is a dysfunction in the mitochondria, the part in the cell that produces energy. Creatine helps in diseases involving nerves and muscles, such as Lou Gehrig’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and multiple sclerosis.

Although creatine is not a cure, it does slow the disease process by protecting the nerves. When mice infected with Lou Gehrig’s disease were fed creatine in a study they lived longer than mice with the same disease that were fed no creatine.

Another study shows that creatine can also help reduce the chances of heart disease and adult onset diabetes. In the study it was found that after fifty-one days of taking creatine that the study group had a twenty-two percent decrease in VLDL-cholesterol levels and a twenty-three percent decrease in blood triglyceride levels.

Creatine’s Affects on Recovery Time
Creatine also increases recovery time of the muscles by buffering the buildup of lactic acid in the muscles. Lactic acid is the product of anaerobic metabolism in the muscles.

During exercise the build up of lactic acid increases the difficulty to lift for more repetitions and also causes temporary muscle failure. The reduction of lactic acid allows the person exercising to be able to lift for more repetitions, allowing one’s strength to be increased.

Creatine is able to lessen lactic acid buildup in muscles by bonding with a hydrogen ion, which delays the creation of lactic acid. In one study, concentrations of lactic acid in the muscle tissues dropped by forty-one percent. In the same study creatine supplementation improved work performance by five percent and lowered muscle lactate levels by eighteen percent.

More Energy While Working Out
Creatine can also provide muscles additional energy during exercise. When one is doing quick burst activities, such as weight lifting or sprinting, the muscles of the body must contract quickly and need an extremely fast source of energy.

This energy most readily comes from adenosine tri-phosphate or ATP. When the muscles use ATP, it is chemically broken into two simpler chemicals, adenosine di-phosphate or ADP and inorganic phosphate.

When the ATP turns into ADP the muscle is able to contract. However, the body doesn’t have an endless supply of ATP. Creatine is used by the muscles to turn useless ADP into beneficent ATP. The more creatine there is in muscles, the more ATP can be produced allowing one to exercise longer and harder than usual.

How to Take Creatine
Supplementation of creatine is extremely important for an athlete to increase his or her performance. Supplementation begins with a loading phase, in which creatine levels in the muscles are raised higher than normal.

The loading phase lasts for five days only, because muscles can only hold three and one half grams to five grams of creatine. Any excess creatine is excreted from the body. In the five day phase approximately three tenths of a gram of creatine per kilogram of body weight is loaded daily.

A one hundred fifty pound person would take forty-five grams a day. But the forty-five grams a day should be divided up equally and taken at different times of the day so that the muscles can absorb the creatine.

After the loading phase there is the maintenance phase in which three hundredths of a gram of creatine per kilogram of body weight should be taken. A one hundred pound person would take about five grams of creatine per day for exactly one month.

During the maintenance phase all dosages of creatine should be taken with a meal. With both supplementation phases plenty of water should be drank in order to allow more water to be pulled into the muscles.

After the maintenance phase is completed, supplementation of creatine should cease for one month. This phase is called the “wash out phase”.

Conclusion
Former myths, such as creatine being an anabolic-androgenic steroid, have caused many people to become misinformed and misguided on creatine's safety and effectiveness.

Creatine has many beneficial effects, including buffering of lactic acid in the muscles and increased energy in the muscles. Creatine supplementation is a great way to improve overall strength and athletic performance in athletes. When one is taking creatine in a safe and consistent manner, not only is supplementation safe but it is beneficial for athletes and everyone.