Creatine's Lasting Effects


Creatine In Your Golden Years
Recent research featured in Food Ingredients First says that taking creatine past the age of 50 may help with age-related ailments of the muscles, brain and heart. Here is an excerpt from the article:

“Starting at about 50 years of age, people begin to lose 12 percent of the muscle strength and 6 percent of the muscle mass every 10 years. Proper nutrition, the use of creatine supplements and exercise/weight training can reverse this.

Not only sports performance, but also aging and physical fitness during the ‘Golden Years’, has prompted much interest lately. It has been hypothesised that people who increase creatine levels by ingesting creatine supplements have a greater energy reserve available to support brief and intense efforts of physical fitness.

Creatine monohydrate is over 90 percent absorbable and besides sports science studies the more interesting and promising creatine research focuses on the following fields:

• Creatine and neuromuscular diseases.
• Creatine and neurological protection (brain injury).
• Creatine and heart disease.”

RESEARCH BONUS

Creatine helps with Huntington’s Disease

New research out of University Hospital in Bern Switzerland shows that patients with Huntington’s Disease—a neurodegenerative disorder—may be helped with regular doses of creatine. The study found, among other things, that “Chronic creatine treatment resulted in significant increased densities of GABA -immunoreactive (-ir) neurons.” Furthermore, the researchers discovered that “[c]reatine exhibited significant neuroprotection against toxicity instigated either by glucose- and serum deprivation or addition of 3-nitropropionic acid.

In sum, the neuroprotective properties in combination with promotion of neuronal differentiation suggest that creatine has potential as a therapeutic drug in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, like [Huntington’s Disease].”