June 10, 2026 • 21 mins
Your brain is an energy hog running on an ATP battery that lasts only seconds, and that one fact changes how you should think about “brain supplements.” We dig into why creatine is more than a weightlifting staple, how phosphocreatine works like a built-in power bank, and why the blood brain barrier makes brain saturation slow, picky, and easy to study the wrong way. If you’ve ever tried to boost focus and felt buried under wellness noise, this is the signal.
We walk through the groups most likely to feel a real cognitive effect: vegans and vegetarians with lower dietary creatine exposure, older adults facing slower creatine synthesis and mitochondrial decline, and anyone under acute metabolic stress. The sleep deprivation trials are especially wild, showing that a high single dose during severe sleep loss can preserve ATP and reduce the cognitive crash, while still not replacing the deeper restorative work that sleep does.
We also get honest about the clinical landscape: a small Alzheimer’s pilot shows a measurable brain-creatine increase and improved scores, while massive Parkinson’s and Huntington’s trials show no slowing of progression, pointing to the difference between metabolic failure and structural damage. Then we bring it back to practical guidance: why “creatinine” on a standard blood panel can mislead, why serum levels do not equal brain uptake, what dosing looks like in studies, how to pick creatine monohydrate with third-party testing, and which internet myths don’t hold up. If this helped you, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s running on fumes, and leave a review with your biggest creatine question.
This podcast is created by Ai for educational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute professional medical or health advice. Please talk to your healthcare team for medical advice.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
So to get the actual brain boosting benefits of the
supplement we're talking abouttoday, you would basically have
to eat two and a half pounds ofraw beef before your morning
meeting.
SPEAKER_00 (00:10):
Yeah.
Which sounds uh less than ideal.
SPEAKER_01 (00:13):
Right.
Or I mean, if you preferseafood, you could go with about
a pound and a half of rawherring.
SPEAKER_00 (00:18):
Also raw.
SPEAKER_01 (00:19):
Also raw, exactly.
Because apparently cooking it athigh heat destroys like up to
half of the active compound.
SPEAKER_00 (00:26):
It does, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (00:27):
And since literally nobody wants to eat a mountain
of raw herring at eight in themorning, we are looking at the
shortcut.
SPEAKER_00 (00:33):
Thank goodness for shortcuts.
SPEAKER_01 (00:35):
You might know it is.
Well, the undisputed king of thegym.
The white powder in basicallyevery weightlifter's shaker
bottle, right?
Creatine.
SPEAKER_00 (00:42):
That's the one.
SPEAKER_01 (00:43):
But over the last couple of years, the
conversation has completelyshifted away from the biceps and
uh toward the brain.
So we are welcoming you, thelearner, to today's deep dive.
SPEAKER_00 (00:55):
Glad to have you with us.
SPEAKER_01 (00:56):
You might be prepping for a massive project
at work, maybe navigating theabsolute chaos of raising a
newborn, or you're just insanelycurious about optimizing your
focus without gettingoverwhelmed by, you know,
another wellness fad.
SPEAKER_00 (01:09):
Because there are plenty of those out there.
SPEAKER_01 (01:11):
So many.
Our mission today is to cutthrough that noise and give you
the signal.
We're looking at the actualclinical biology.
SPEAKER_00 (01:18):
Yeah, and we are pulling from a really
comprehensive 2026 report by Dr.
Kristen Glorioso.
She's an MD and PhD.
Plus, we've got some brilliantinsights from community
comments, neurophysiologists,patient advocates, and
researchers who are currentlydebating this exact topic.
SPEAKER_01 (01:35):
It's a huge discussion right now.
SPEAKER_00 (01:37):
It really is.
It's just a fascinating look athow this classic muscle
supplement interacts with themost complex organ in the body.
SPEAKER_01 (01:44):
Okay, let's unpack this.
Before we talk about whobenefits or whether you should
even be taking it, we have tounderstand why the brain would
even want a muscle supplement inthe first place.
Right.
The brain obviously doesn't liftweights.
So what is this energy crisisinside our heads?
SPEAKER_00 (01:58):
Well, the brain is just an absolute metabolic hog.
I mean, it makes up only about2% of your total body weight,
right?
But it burns through roughly 20%of your body's entire energy
supply.
SPEAKER_01 (02:09):
Wait, 20%?
Just sitting there?
SPEAKER_00 (02:11):
Just sitting there.
You could just be staring at awall and your brain is burning
20% of your energy.
The cells in your brain, muchlike your muscle cells, they run
on this microscopic moleculecalled ATP.
SPEAKER_01 (02:24):
ATP.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (02:25):
Think of ATP as the uh fundamental currency of
cellular energy.
The catch is that a neuron onlyholds a few seconds worth of ATP
at any given moment.
SPEAKER_01 (02:36):
Oh wow.
Took a few seconds.
SPEAKER_00 (02:37):
Literally seconds.
So it has to constantlymanufacture it from scratch just
to keep the lights on.
SPEAKER_01 (02:42):
So it's like if ATP is like the battery on your
smartphone, it's a terriblebattery.
SPEAKER_00 (02:47):
Worst battery ever.
SPEAKER_01 (02:48):
It drains to zero in three seconds the moment you
open a heavy app.
SPEAKER_00 (02:51):
Exactly.
SPEAKER_01 (02:52):
So creatine acts as the backup system.
From what I understand, insidethe cell, it gets stored in this
highly charged form calledphosphocreatine.
Right.
And when that ATP battery drainsto zero, phosphocreatine
operates like a heavy-dutyportable power bank.
It just plugs in and instantlyhands over its stored energy to
(03:12):
recharge the ATP right on thespot.
SPEAKER_00 (03:15):
Right on the spot.
So your brain doesn't stutterduring a demanding task.
SPEAKER_01 (03:19):
That is wild.
SPEAKER_00 (03:19):
But what's fascinating here is that this
portable power bank dynamic, itruns into a massive biological
roadblock.
SPEAKER_01 (03:26):
The blood brain barrier.
SPEAKER_00 (03:27):
Yes.
The brain does make a smallamount of its own creatine and
it pulls some from thebloodstream, but the blood brain
barrier is notoriouslyrestrictive.
SPEAKER_01 (03:36):
It doesn't just let anything in.
SPEAKER_00 (03:37):
No, it is designed to keep the brain's environment
incredibly stable.
It protects it from neurotoxins,wild swings, and blood
chemistry.
So it doesn't just let creatineflood in, it relies on a very
specific, slow-moving transportprotein to literally ferry the
molecules across.
SPEAKER_01 (03:53):
Which is so different from muscles.
SPEAKER_00 (03:55):
Exactly.
If you take a supplement, yourmuscles soak it right up.
They reach maximum saturation inlike a few days.
SPEAKER_01 (04:00):
But the brain.
SPEAKER_00 (04:01):
The brain can take weeks or even months of daily
dosing to show any meaningfulincrease on an MRI.
SPEAKER_01 (04:07):
Which completely explains why so many historical
studies on creatine andcognition either failed or
showed mixed results.
SPEAKER_00 (04:13):
Oh, totally.
SPEAKER_01 (04:14):
Because researchers were designing clinical trials
using muscle dosing timelines.
They were giving people thesupplement for a week or two,
testing their memory, and seeingnothing.
SPEAKER_00 (04:25):
Right.
They completely missed the factthat the brain's transport
proteins hadn't had enough timeto ferry the power banks across
the barrier.
SPEAKER_01 (04:32):
That makes so much sense.
Now that we know how it works,let's look at who actually gets
a brain boost from this.
Because it's not everybody,right?
SPEAKER_00 (04:39):
Definitely not everybody.
SPEAKER_01 (04:40):
It seems like your diet and your age really dictate
your results.
Let's look at vegetarians andvegans first.
SPEAKER_00 (04:47):
Yeah, this is a big one.
Since creatine is found almostentirely in meat and fish,
vegetarians and vegans arewalking around with roughly 10
to 30% lower baseline stores intheir muscles.
SPEAKER_01 (04:58):
That's a huge deficit.
SPEAKER_00 (05:00):
It is.
And there was this foundationaltrial back in 2003 by Dr.
Caroline Ray.
She took 45 young vegetarians,gave them five grams of creatine
a day for six weeks, anddocumented these massive
improvements in their workingmemory and reasoning tasks.
SPEAKER_01 (05:15):
Massive improvements.
But I mean we have to look atthe whole picture here.
SPEAKER_00 (05:19):
Right.
The scientific nuance isimportant.
SPEAKER_01 (05:20):
Aaron Ross Powell Because a larger 2023
replication of that trial by aresearcher named Adrian
Sandcooler found a much weakereffect.
SPEAKER_00 (05:27):
Trevor Burrus Yeah.
The working memory improvementsin vegetarians only barely
bordered on statisticalsignificance in that one.
SPEAKER_01 (05:33):
Aaron Powell But when you zoom out to the broader
meta-analyses, like the 2018 AvChurinos paper, the signal is
still consistently stronger forpeople who don't eat meat.
SPEAKER_00 (05:42):
It is.
But I know you have a questionabout this.
SPEAKER_01 (05:45):
I do.
I have to challenge the premisehere.
Wait, so if you eat a steak, areyou automatically walking around
with a maximized brain?
SPEAKER_00 (05:51):
You'd think so, right.
SPEAKER_01 (05:52):
Right.
Because Dr.
Glorioso's article points outthis really strange paradox.
When researchers put vegetarianbrains and meat eater brains
into an MRI, their actual braincreatine levels often look
pretty identical.
SPEAKER_00 (06:06):
Yes.
The blood brain barrier is doingits job maintaining homeostasis.
SPEAKER_01 (06:11):
So why are vegetarian brains reacting so
dramatically to the supplementif their baseline brain levels
aren't visibly deficient?
SPEAKER_00 (06:19):
That paradox is exactly why researchers are
realizing this isn't just abouttopping up a visibly empty tank
in the head.
It is about global energymanagement.
SPEAKER_01 (06:29):
Global energy.
SPEAKER_00 (06:30):
Yeah.
If your muscles are starved forcreatine, your body might be
allocating systemic energyresources differently.
Louisa Nicola, she's aneurophysiologist who weighed in
on the community discussion.
She described the effect ashighly context dependent.
SPEAKER_01 (06:44):
Context dependent.
I like that.
SPEAKER_00 (06:45):
It's a great phrase.
It's not a standaloneintelligence booster that
magically makes you smarter.
It acts as an adjunct to energyresilience.
SPEAKER_01 (06:53):
So when a vegetarian takes the supplement, they're
suddenly introducing thismassive systemic energy buffer
that their body just isn't usedto having.
SPEAKER_00 (07:00):
Exactly.
And that frees up metabolicbandwidth everywhere else.
SPEAKER_01 (07:04):
Energy resilience.
Yeah.
That perfectly frames the secondgroup that sees a massive
benefit, which is older adults.
SPEAKER_00 (07:10):
Yes, older adults.
SPEAKER_01 (07:11):
A 2023 meta-analysis by Dr.
Constantinos Procopitus foundthat in general memory trials,
the cognitive benefits weredriven almost entirely by the 66
to 76-year-old demographic.
SPEAKER_00 (07:23):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (07:23):
Young, healthy people saw almost nothing.
SPEAKER_00 (07:25):
Trevor Burrus, Because the aging brain faces a
perfect storm of energydepletion.
First, the body's naturalsynthesis of creatine just slows
down as we age.
Second, older adults generallyconsume less dietary meat.
But most importantly, the agingbrain suffers from mitochondrial
dysfunction.
SPEAKER_01 (07:43):
The actual factories producing the ATP.
SPEAKER_00 (07:45):
Exactly.
The mitochondria become lessefficient.
So an older brain that isstruggling to maintain its
baseline energy metabolism, thatis a prime candidate to benefit
from an external power bank.
SPEAKER_01 (07:56):
So if the slow grinding metabolic stress of
aging creates a window forcreatine to help, what happens
during acute severe metabolicstress?
Like what happens if you push ayoung, healthy brain to absolute
failure by pulling itall-nighter?
SPEAKER_00 (08:09):
Oh, this brings us to some of the most compelling
recent clinical data we have.
SPEAKER_01 (08:13):
Sleep deprivation stuff.
SPEAKER_00 (08:14):
Yes.
Dr.
Ali Gorji Najad ran trials in2024 and 2025 where they
subjected healthy adults to 21hours of sleep deprivation.
Brutal.
Very brutal.
And during this exhaustivestate, they didn't just give
them a standard daily dose.
They hit them with a massivesingle dose, 0.35 grams per
kilogram of body weight.
SPEAKER_01 (08:36):
Okay, so for the average adult, you're looking at
what, 25 to 30 grams of creatineall at once?
SPEAKER_00 (08:40):
All at once.
SPEAKER_01 (08:41):
But wait, we just established that the brain's
transport proteins areincredibly restrictive.
SPEAKER_00 (08:45):
We did.
SPEAKER_01 (08:46):
It takes weeks of consistent dosing to slowly
ferry that much across thebarrier.
How did an all-nighter suddenlybypass this biological rule?
SPEAKER_00 (08:54):
Extreme metabolic starvation literally overrides
the gatekeepers.
The researchers suspect thatcombining an unusually high
concentration of creatine in theblood with the severe energy
deficit of sleep deprivation, itliterally forces the transport
proteins to upregulate.
Wow.
The brain senses a critical ATPshortage and just throws the
window wide open for rapiduptake.
SPEAKER_01 (09:14):
So within hours, not weeks.
SPEAKER_00 (09:16):
Exactly.
Within hours, the subjects inthe creatine arm showed
preserved ATP levels, and theysignificantly outperformed the
placebo group on processingspeed and working memory.
SPEAKER_01 (09:28):
Here's work it's really interesting for the
learner listening to this.
If you are a shift worker, a newparent, or someone pulling
crunch time at a startup, thisis a biological mechanism
directly relevant to yourTuesday morning.
SPEAKER_00 (09:41):
It really is.
You're essentially force-feedingenergy into a starving brain.
SPEAKER_01 (09:46):
But we have to frame the limits of that.
SPEAKER_00 (09:47):
Well, absolutely.
The study explicitly notes thatthis massive dose attenuates the
decrement.
SPEAKER_01 (09:53):
Attenuates the decrement.
Science speaks for making youless terrible.
SPEAKER_00 (09:57):
Pretty much.
It makes the cognitive drop-offless severe, but it does not
restore you to a fully restedstate.
Right.
Sleep facilitates essentialcellular cleaning and waste
removal that simply having moreATP cannot replicate.
So it's a biological safety net.
It is not a replacement forsleep.
SPEAKER_01 (10:13):
Still, if extreme stress forces the brain to
absorb creatine, does that logichold up against the ultimate
metabolic stress?
Like neurodegenerative disease?
SPEAKER_00 (10:22):
Yeah, historically, this is where the supplement has
shown incredible promise in apetri dish, but heartbreaking
failure in humans.
SPEAKER_01 (10:29):
The landscape is super divided here.
Let's start with the wins, or atleast the glimmer of hope.
SPEAKER_00 (10:34):
Right.
The 2025 CABBA pilot trial forAlzheimer's disease.
They gave patients with probableAlzheimer's 20 grams of creatine
a day for eight weeks.
SPEAKER_01 (10:45):
That's a solid dose.
SPEAKER_00 (10:46):
It is.
And despite the blood-brainbarrier, they recorded an 11%
increase in brain creatine onMRI scans.
Plus, they saw improvedcognitive scores in memory and
attention.
SPEAKER_01 (10:57):
Which is amazing.
We should acknowledge thelimits, though.
It was only 20 people, and therewas no placebo group.
SPEAKER_00 (11:02):
True.
But it proved the protocol couldbiologically alter the brain
state in humans.
SPEAKER_01 (11:07):
But then we look at the other side, the losses.
Huge well-funded trialscompletely failed to slow
disease progression.
SPEAKER_00 (11:13):
Huge failures, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_01 (11:14):
The Creste trial threw 40 grams a day at
Huntington's disease patientsand had to completely halt the
study, and the net PD LS1 trialfor Parkinson's disease
published in JAMA was evenlarger.
SPEAKER_00 (11:26):
Over 1700 patients taking 10 grams a day for five
years.
SPEAKER_01 (11:30):
Five years.
And zero slowing of clinicalprogression.
How can a supplement show abiological signal in
Alzheimer's, but completelystrike out in Parkinson's and
Huntingdons?
SPEAKER_00 (11:42):
If we connect this to the bigger picture, it really
comes down to the specificmechanics of how the cellular
machinery fails in each disease.
Alzheimer's disease isincreasingly viewed as a
metabolic disorder.
Right.
Decades before the severe memoryloss occurs, Alzheimer's
patients show significantglucose hypometabolism in the
brain.
SPEAKER_01 (12:01):
Meaning their neurons lose the ability to
efficiently extract energy fromblood sugar.
SPEAKER_00 (12:05):
Exactly.
They are starving.
Providing an alternative energybuffer, like phosphocreatine,
early in that cascade mightactually protect the neurons
from dying.
SPEAKER_01 (12:14):
Whereas Parkinson's and Huntingtons are driven by
entirely different mechanics.
SPEAKER_00 (12:17):
Yes.
Parkinson's is driven by theaggregation of misfolded
alpha-sinuclain proteins andHuntingtons by mutant Huntington
proteins.
Highly structural.
By the time the massivestructural damage and protein
aggregation are occurring inthose diseases, throwing extra
ATP at the cells doesn't stopthe physical destruction of the
tissue.
SPEAKER_01 (12:37):
A power bank doesn't fix a phone if the motherboard
is literally snapping in half.
SPEAKER_00 (12:42):
That's a perfect way to put it.
The Alzheimer's trial suggestswe might be catching the disease
at the energy failure stagebefore that irreversible
structural loss happens.
It's still an open empiricalquestion, but it's a fascinating
hypothesis.
SPEAKER_01 (12:56):
Okay, stepping away from disease, I want to move
back to the broader picture ofhealthy aging, because Dr.
Glorioso's article dives intosome wild animal data.
SPEAKER_00 (13:04):
The mice studies.
SPEAKER_01 (13:05):
The mice.
In 2008, researchers put agedmice on a diet containing 1%
creatine, and they lived 9%longer in good health.
SPEAKER_00 (13:14):
And their memory improved.
SPEAKER_01 (13:16):
And they show less accumulation of a substance
called lipofusin.
What is that?
SPEAKER_00 (13:20):
Lipofusin is fascinating.
It's often referred to ascellular rust.
SPEAKER_01 (13:25):
Rust.
SPEAKER_00 (13:25):
Yeah.
Mechanically, it's a clump ofoxidized lipids and misfolded
proteins that your cells justcan't break down.
Over time, this garbagephysically accumulates inside
the neuron and smothers themitochondria.
SPEAKER_01 (13:37):
Which prevents them from producing energy.
SPEAKER_00 (13:39):
Exactly.
So the mice on creatine weresomehow protecting their
cellular machinery from thisbuildup.
SPEAKER_01 (13:44):
Aaron Powell Okay, I have to be the skeptic here.
I'm always highly skeptical ofmouse studies.
They live in sterile boxes.
And I mean, we've cured mice ofa thousand diseases that never
translate to humans.
SPEAKER_00 (13:55):
Fair point.
SPEAKER_01 (13:56):
A 9% lifespan extension in a mouse doesn't
mean I'm going to live to 110.
SPEAKER_00 (14:01):
A very fair pushback.
And you're right, we don't havedecades-long randomized lifespan
trials in humans for creatine.
Right.
What we do have areobservational studies using
epigenetic aging clocks.
A 2025 analysis used a clockcalled Grimmagemort.
Epigenetic clocks don't look athow many years you've been
alive.
SPEAKER_01 (14:20):
They look at the wear and tear.
SPEAKER_00 (14:21):
Yes, the chemical modifications, the methyl groups
attached to your DNA.
And this analysis found a smallbut statistically significant
correlation between higherdietary creatine and a younger
biological age.
Plus, a 15% lower risk oflong-term mortality.
SPEAKER_01 (14:37):
Which brings us back to the evolutionary angle.
And the herring math.
SPEAKER_00 (14:40):
Ah, the herring math.
SPEAKER_01 (14:41):
Evolutionary anthropologists have analyzed
Paleolithic diets and modernhunter-gatherer populations,
like the Inuit.
They consume drastically morecreatine than we do today.
Way more.
The average modern American getsabout 0.7 grams of dietary
creatine a day.
SPEAKER_00 (14:56):
And the standard dose used in these cognitive
trials is 5 grams.
SPEAKER_01 (15:00):
So to get the 5 gram trial dose from food today,
you'd have to eat 2.5 pounds ofraw beef or 1.5 pounds of raw
herring daily.
SPEAKER_00 (15:09):
Which nobody is doing.
SPEAKER_01 (15:10):
Nobody.
So what does this all mean?
It basically proves whysupplementation is practically
necessary if you want to reachtrial doses.
SPEAKER_00 (15:17):
And this is where we really have to reevaluate the
whole concept of a supplement.
When you look at the historicalrange of human creatine intake,
modern Western diets are sittingat the absolute lowest end of
the range.
SPEAKER_01 (15:28):
So taking five grams a day isn't some futuristic
biohack.
SPEAKER_00 (15:31):
No, it's not pushing your brain beyond its natural
limits.
It's highly likely we are justreplacing the baseline
physiological fuel that we lostwhen we stopped eating like our
ancestors.
SPEAKER_01 (15:40):
Okay, so if the learner's listening to this and
they're convinced to try it, howdo they actually navigate the
confusing world of blood tests,dosing, and supplement aisles?
SPEAKER_00 (15:50):
It can be a minefield.
SPEAKER_01 (15:52):
Hold on.
If I want to see where mybaseline levels are at, can I
just ask my doctor to run astandard blood test?
I know a lot of people try totrack it that way.
SPEAKER_00 (15:59):
This raises an important question, and it is
honestly the most common pointof confusion in this entire
space.
SPEAKER_01 (16:06):
The creatinine trap.
SPEAKER_00 (16:08):
Yes.
When you get a standardmetabolic panel, your doctor is
testing for a molecule calledcreatinine with an INE at the
end.
SPEAKER_01 (16:17):
It sounds identical.
SPEAKER_00 (16:18):
It sounds identical, but it is a metabolic waste
product.
Your muscles constantly breakdown a little bit of creatine,
turn it into creatinine, andyour kidneys filter it out into
your urine.
SPEAKER_01 (16:28):
So doctors measure it specifically to see if your
kidneys are failing.
SPEAKER_00 (16:32):
Precisely.
And if you start taking a heavydose of a creatine supplement,
your body naturally producesmore of that waste product.
SPEAKER_01 (16:39):
So your blood creatinine levels will rise.
SPEAKER_00 (16:42):
They will.
It's a completely harmlessbyproduct of the supplement, but
it frequently triggers panickedphone calls from doctors who see
the high number and assume youare in acute renal failure.
SPEAKER_01 (16:52):
Oh man, that's a mess.
SPEAKER_00 (16:54):
Furthermore, even if you order a highly specific
direct serum creatine test froman independent lab-like walk-in
lab, the science shows that thelevel in your blood doesn't
reliably predict how much isactually making it across the
blood-brain barrier anyway.
SPEAKER_01 (17:10):
So Dr.
Glorioso's recommendation is toskip the blood test entirely.
SPEAKER_00 (17:15):
Skip it.
Focus on functional results.
SPEAKER_01 (17:17):
She suggests using cognitive tracking tools, right?
Like NeuroAge.
Measure your actual processingspeed and working memory before
you start, and then again aftera couple of months of
supplementing.
SPEAKER_00 (17:28):
Functional outcomes are the only metric that matters
here.
As for the protocol itself, thestandard maintenance dose is
five grams a day, takencontinuously.
SPEAKER_01 (17:36):
And if you're an older adult, the trials
comfortably support pushing thatup to 10 grams a day to account
for the slower metabolism.
SPEAKER_00 (17:43):
Exactly.
SPEAKER_01 (17:43):
And a very practical pro tip from the community
comments (17:46):
mix it into a warm or room temperature liquid.
Creatine does not dissolve wellin cold water.
SPEAKER_00 (17:52):
Not at all.
SPEAKER_01 (17:52):
If you dump it into ice water, it's just going to
sink to the bottom, and you'llend up swallowing a mouthful of
gritty sludge.
SPEAKER_00 (17:58):
Nobody wants that.
SPEAKER_01 (17:59):
What about safety?
SPEAKER_00 (18:00):
The data is overwhelmingly reassuring.
A 2025 review authored by Dr.
Richard Kreider analyzed over12,000 individuals taking the
supplement.
The rate of adverse side effectswas virtually indistinguishable
from the placebo groups.
SPEAKER_01 (18:15):
Which means we get to definitively bust two massive
internet myths right here.
Myth one.
SPEAKER_00 (18:20):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (18:21):
It damages healthy kidneys.
SPEAKER_00 (18:22):
False.
We just explained the creatininewaste product confusion.
SPEAKER_01 (18:26):
Myth two.
It makes your hair fall out.
SPEAKER_00 (18:28):
Also false.
A highly specific 2025 studydirectly measured DHT, the
hormone primarily responsiblefor male pattern baldness, and
found zero difference in DHTlevels after 12 weeks of daily
creatine supplementation.
SPEAKER_01 (18:43):
So no hair loss.
The only mathematicallysignificant side effect is a
weight gain of one to twokilograms in the first few
weeks.
SPEAKER_00 (18:50):
Which is purely intracellular water retention in
the muscles, not fat.
SPEAKER_01 (18:53):
Good to know.
So when you go to buy it, whatare we looking for?
SPEAKER_00 (18:56):
You want creatine monohydrate.
It's the cheapest, most widelyavailable form, and it is the
exact compound used in almostall the clinical literature.
SPEAKER_01 (19:04):
Don't fall for the marketing hype.
SPEAKER_00 (19:05):
Right.
There's no biological evidencethat the expensive variants like
creatine ethylester or creatinenitrate are absorbed any better.
Look for a third-party testingseal, like NSF certified for
sport or informed sport.
SPEAKER_01 (19:19):
To make sure you aren't consuming heavy metals.
SPEAKER_00 (19:21):
Exactly.
Or simply look for the creepierlabel, which indicates the
German manufactured raw materialthat serves as the gold standard
in research.
SPEAKER_01 (19:29):
Oh, and I have to give a quick comment or
shout-out here.
Lance Pelletier brought up abrand called SLC Essentials.
Their profits actually fundresearch into creatine
transporter deficiency, thatultra-rare genetic disorder
where the blood-brain barriertransport protein is broken.
SPEAKER_00 (19:45):
Yeah, it's a great cause.
Lance mentioned learning aboutit from Jeff Allen, who's on the
show Beast Games.
Jeff's son Lucas has thedisorder, and they have really
been raising awareness.
SPEAKER_01 (19:53):
It's an awesome real-world application of the
science.
All right, let's bring theentire picture into focus.
Creatine is not a magiclimitless pill.
SPEAKER_00 (20:02):
Sadly, no.
SPEAKER_01 (20:03):
If you are a young 25-year-old who sleeps eight
hours a night and eats a heavymeat diet, supplementing is
probably not going to turn youinto a genius.
SPEAKER_00 (20:11):
Unlikely.
SPEAKER_01 (20:12):
But if you are an older adult looking to fortify
your brain against mitochondrialdecline, a vegan missing out on
that dietary baseline, orsomeone navigating the absolute
crushing metabolic stress ofsleep deprivation, this is an
incredibly cheap, safe, andbiologically coherent tool to
have in your arsenal.
SPEAKER_00 (20:30):
It really is.
SPEAKER_01 (20:31):
Thank you, the learner, for joining us on this
deep dive.
SPEAKER_00 (20:33):
Before we sign off, though, I want to leave you with
one final puzzle to mull over.
Oh, let's hear it.
We look back at Dr.
Gorgi Naja's sleep deprivationstudy, which demonstrated that
the brain only bypassed its slowtransport system and rapidly
sucked up creatine when it wassubjected to exhaustive, severe
metabolic stress.
Right.
It makes you wonder if humanbiology evolved to require
(20:55):
intense metabolic demand toliterally force open the window
for enhanced energy uptake.
Our modern, comfortable livesand constant snacking actually
starving our brains back upbatteries by never giving them a
reason to charge.
SPEAKER_01 (21:08):
Wow.
That is a wild thought to endon.
Keep questioning, keepexploring, and we will catch you
on the next deep dive.
So to get the actual brain boosting benefits of the
supplement we're talking abouttoday, you would basically have
to eat two and a half pounds ofraw beef before your morning
meeting.
SPEAKER_00 (00:10):
Yeah.
Which sounds uh less than ideal.
SPEAKER_01 (00:13):
Right.
Or I mean, if you preferseafood, you could go with about
a pound and a half of rawherring.
SPEAKER_00 (00:18):
Also raw.
SPEAKER_01 (00:19):
Also raw, exactly.
Because apparently cooking it athigh heat destroys like up to
half of the active compound.
SPEAKER_00 (00:26):
It does, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (00:27):
And since literally nobody wants to eat a mountain
of raw herring at eight in themorning, we are looking at the
shortcut.
SPEAKER_00 (00:33):
Thank goodness for shortcuts.
SPEAKER_01 (00:35):
You might know it is.
Well, the undisputed king of thegym.
The white powder in basicallyevery weightlifter's shaker
bottle, right?
Creatine.
SPEAKER_00 (00:42):
That's the one.
SPEAKER_01 (00:43):
But over the last couple of years, the
conversation has completelyshifted away from the biceps and
uh toward the brain.
So we are welcoming you, thelearner, to today's deep dive.
SPEAKER_00 (00:55):
Glad to have you with us.
SPEAKER_01 (00:56):
You might be prepping for a massive project
at work, maybe navigating theabsolute chaos of raising a
newborn, or you're just insanelycurious about optimizing your
focus without gettingoverwhelmed by, you know,
another wellness fad.
SPEAKER_00 (01:09):
Because there are plenty of those out there.
SPEAKER_01 (01:11):
So many.
Our mission today is to cutthrough that noise and give you
the signal.
We're looking at the actualclinical biology.
SPEAKER_00 (01:18):
Yeah, and we are pulling from a really
comprehensive 2026 report by Dr.
Kristen Glorioso.
She's an MD and PhD.
Plus, we've got some brilliantinsights from community
comments, neurophysiologists,patient advocates, and
researchers who are currentlydebating this exact topic.
SPEAKER_01 (01:35):
It's a huge discussion right now.
SPEAKER_00 (01:37):
It really is.
It's just a fascinating look athow this classic muscle
supplement interacts with themost complex organ in the body.
SPEAKER_01 (01:44):
Okay, let's unpack this.
Before we talk about whobenefits or whether you should
even be taking it, we have tounderstand why the brain would
even want a muscle supplement inthe first place.
Right.
The brain obviously doesn't liftweights.
So what is this energy crisisinside our heads?
SPEAKER_00 (01:58):
Well, the brain is just an absolute metabolic hog.
I mean, it makes up only about2% of your total body weight,
right?
But it burns through roughly 20%of your body's entire energy
supply.
SPEAKER_01 (02:09):
Wait, 20%?
Just sitting there?
SPEAKER_00 (02:11):
Just sitting there.
You could just be staring at awall and your brain is burning
20% of your energy.
The cells in your brain, muchlike your muscle cells, they run
on this microscopic moleculecalled ATP.
SPEAKER_01 (02:24):
ATP.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (02:25):
Think of ATP as the uh fundamental currency of
cellular energy.
The catch is that a neuron onlyholds a few seconds worth of ATP
at any given moment.
SPEAKER_01 (02:36):
Oh wow.
Took a few seconds.
SPEAKER_00 (02:37):
Literally seconds.
So it has to constantlymanufacture it from scratch just
to keep the lights on.
SPEAKER_01 (02:42):
So it's like if ATP is like the battery on your
smartphone, it's a terriblebattery.
SPEAKER_00 (02:47):
Worst battery ever.
SPEAKER_01 (02:48):
It drains to zero in three seconds the moment you
open a heavy app.
SPEAKER_00 (02:51):
Exactly.
SPEAKER_01 (02:52):
So creatine acts as the backup system.
From what I understand, insidethe cell, it gets stored in this
highly charged form calledphosphocreatine.
Right.
And when that ATP battery drainsto zero, phosphocreatine
operates like a heavy-dutyportable power bank.
It just plugs in and instantlyhands over its stored energy to
(03:12):
recharge the ATP right on thespot.
SPEAKER_00 (03:15):
Right on the spot.
So your brain doesn't stutterduring a demanding task.
SPEAKER_01 (03:19):
That is wild.
SPEAKER_00 (03:19):
But what's fascinating here is that this
portable power bank dynamic, itruns into a massive biological
roadblock.
SPEAKER_01 (03:26):
The blood brain barrier.
SPEAKER_00 (03:27):
Yes.
The brain does make a smallamount of its own creatine and
it pulls some from thebloodstream, but the blood brain
barrier is notoriouslyrestrictive.
SPEAKER_01 (03:36):
It doesn't just let anything in.
SPEAKER_00 (03:37):
No, it is designed to keep the brain's environment
incredibly stable.
It protects it from neurotoxins,wild swings, and blood
chemistry.
So it doesn't just let creatineflood in, it relies on a very
specific, slow-moving transportprotein to literally ferry the
molecules across.
SPEAKER_01 (03:53):
Which is so different from muscles.
SPEAKER_00 (03:55):
Exactly.
If you take a supplement, yourmuscles soak it right up.
They reach maximum saturation inlike a few days.
SPEAKER_01 (04:00):
But the brain.
SPEAKER_00 (04:01):
The brain can take weeks or even months of daily
dosing to show any meaningfulincrease on an MRI.
SPEAKER_01 (04:07):
Which completely explains why so many historical
studies on creatine andcognition either failed or
showed mixed results.
SPEAKER_00 (04:13):
Oh, totally.
SPEAKER_01 (04:14):
Because researchers were designing clinical trials
using muscle dosing timelines.
They were giving people thesupplement for a week or two,
testing their memory, and seeingnothing.
SPEAKER_00 (04:25):
Right.
They completely missed the factthat the brain's transport
proteins hadn't had enough timeto ferry the power banks across
the barrier.
SPEAKER_01 (04:32):
That makes so much sense.
Now that we know how it works,let's look at who actually gets
a brain boost from this.
Because it's not everybody,right?
SPEAKER_00 (04:39):
Definitely not everybody.
SPEAKER_01 (04:40):
It seems like your diet and your age really dictate
your results.
Let's look at vegetarians andvegans first.
SPEAKER_00 (04:47):
Yeah, this is a big one.
Since creatine is found almostentirely in meat and fish,
vegetarians and vegans arewalking around with roughly 10
to 30% lower baseline stores intheir muscles.
SPEAKER_01 (04:58):
That's a huge deficit.
SPEAKER_00 (05:00):
It is.
And there was this foundationaltrial back in 2003 by Dr.
Caroline Ray.
She took 45 young vegetarians,gave them five grams of creatine
a day for six weeks, anddocumented these massive
improvements in their workingmemory and reasoning tasks.
SPEAKER_01 (05:15):
Massive improvements.
But I mean we have to look atthe whole picture here.
SPEAKER_00 (05:19):
Right.
The scientific nuance isimportant.
SPEAKER_01 (05:20):
Aaron Ross Powell Because a larger 2023
replication of that trial by aresearcher named Adrian
Sandcooler found a much weakereffect.
SPEAKER_00 (05:27):
Trevor Burrus Yeah.
The working memory improvementsin vegetarians only barely
bordered on statisticalsignificance in that one.
SPEAKER_01 (05:33):
Aaron Powell But when you zoom out to the broader
meta-analyses, like the 2018 AvChurinos paper, the signal is
still consistently stronger forpeople who don't eat meat.
SPEAKER_00 (05:42):
It is.
But I know you have a questionabout this.
SPEAKER_01 (05:45):
I do.
I have to challenge the premisehere.
Wait, so if you eat a steak, areyou automatically walking around
with a maximized brain?
SPEAKER_00 (05:51):
You'd think so, right.
SPEAKER_01 (05:52):
Right.
Because Dr.
Glorioso's article points outthis really strange paradox.
When researchers put vegetarianbrains and meat eater brains
into an MRI, their actual braincreatine levels often look
pretty identical.
SPEAKER_00 (06:06):
Yes.
The blood brain barrier is doingits job maintaining homeostasis.
SPEAKER_01 (06:11):
So why are vegetarian brains reacting so
dramatically to the supplementif their baseline brain levels
aren't visibly deficient?
SPEAKER_00 (06:19):
That paradox is exactly why researchers are
realizing this isn't just abouttopping up a visibly empty tank
in the head.
It is about global energymanagement.
SPEAKER_01 (06:29):
Global energy.
SPEAKER_00 (06:30):
Yeah.
If your muscles are starved forcreatine, your body might be
allocating systemic energyresources differently.
Louisa Nicola, she's aneurophysiologist who weighed in
on the community discussion.
She described the effect ashighly context dependent.
SPEAKER_01 (06:44):
Context dependent.
I like that.
SPEAKER_00 (06:45):
It's a great phrase.
It's not a standaloneintelligence booster that
magically makes you smarter.
It acts as an adjunct to energyresilience.
SPEAKER_01 (06:53):
So when a vegetarian takes the supplement, they're
suddenly introducing thismassive systemic energy buffer
that their body just isn't usedto having.
SPEAKER_00 (07:00):
Exactly.
And that frees up metabolicbandwidth everywhere else.
SPEAKER_01 (07:04):
Energy resilience.
Yeah.
That perfectly frames the secondgroup that sees a massive
benefit, which is older adults.
SPEAKER_00 (07:10):
Yes, older adults.
SPEAKER_01 (07:11):
A 2023 meta-analysis by Dr.
Constantinos Procopitus foundthat in general memory trials,
the cognitive benefits weredriven almost entirely by the 66
to 76-year-old demographic.
SPEAKER_00 (07:23):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (07:23):
Young, healthy people saw almost nothing.
SPEAKER_00 (07:25):
Trevor Burrus, Because the aging brain faces a
perfect storm of energydepletion.
First, the body's naturalsynthesis of creatine just slows
down as we age.
Second, older adults generallyconsume less dietary meat.
But most importantly, the agingbrain suffers from mitochondrial
dysfunction.
SPEAKER_01 (07:43):
The actual factories producing the ATP.
SPEAKER_00 (07:45):
Exactly.
The mitochondria become lessefficient.
So an older brain that isstruggling to maintain its
baseline energy metabolism, thatis a prime candidate to benefit
from an external power bank.
SPEAKER_01 (07:56):
So if the slow grinding metabolic stress of
aging creates a window forcreatine to help, what happens
during acute severe metabolicstress?
Like what happens if you push ayoung, healthy brain to absolute
failure by pulling itall-nighter?
SPEAKER_00 (08:09):
Oh, this brings us to some of the most compelling
recent clinical data we have.
SPEAKER_01 (08:13):
Sleep deprivation stuff.
SPEAKER_00 (08:14):
Yes.
Dr.
Ali Gorji Najad ran trials in2024 and 2025 where they
subjected healthy adults to 21hours of sleep deprivation.
Brutal.
Very brutal.
And during this exhaustivestate, they didn't just give
them a standard daily dose.
They hit them with a massivesingle dose, 0.35 grams per
kilogram of body weight.
SPEAKER_01 (08:36):
Okay, so for the average adult, you're looking at
what, 25 to 30 grams of creatineall at once?
SPEAKER_00 (08:40):
All at once.
SPEAKER_01 (08:41):
But wait, we just established that the brain's
transport proteins areincredibly restrictive.
SPEAKER_00 (08:45):
We did.
SPEAKER_01 (08:46):
It takes weeks of consistent dosing to slowly
ferry that much across thebarrier.
How did an all-nighter suddenlybypass this biological rule?
SPEAKER_00 (08:54):
Extreme metabolic starvation literally overrides
the gatekeepers.
The researchers suspect thatcombining an unusually high
concentration of creatine in theblood with the severe energy
deficit of sleep deprivation, itliterally forces the transport
proteins to upregulate.
Wow.
The brain senses a critical ATPshortage and just throws the
window wide open for rapiduptake.
SPEAKER_01 (09:14):
So within hours, not weeks.
SPEAKER_00 (09:16):
Exactly.
Within hours, the subjects inthe creatine arm showed
preserved ATP levels, and theysignificantly outperformed the
placebo group on processingspeed and working memory.
SPEAKER_01 (09:28):
Here's work it's really interesting for the
learner listening to this.
If you are a shift worker, a newparent, or someone pulling
crunch time at a startup, thisis a biological mechanism
directly relevant to yourTuesday morning.
SPEAKER_00 (09:41):
It really is.
You're essentially force-feedingenergy into a starving brain.
SPEAKER_01 (09:46):
But we have to frame the limits of that.
SPEAKER_00 (09:47):
Well, absolutely.
The study explicitly notes thatthis massive dose attenuates the
decrement.
SPEAKER_01 (09:53):
Attenuates the decrement.
Science speaks for making youless terrible.
SPEAKER_00 (09:57):
Pretty much.
It makes the cognitive drop-offless severe, but it does not
restore you to a fully restedstate.
Right.
Sleep facilitates essentialcellular cleaning and waste
removal that simply having moreATP cannot replicate.
So it's a biological safety net.
It is not a replacement forsleep.
SPEAKER_01 (10:13):
Still, if extreme stress forces the brain to
absorb creatine, does that logichold up against the ultimate
metabolic stress?
Like neurodegenerative disease?
SPEAKER_00 (10:22):
Yeah, historically, this is where the supplement has
shown incredible promise in apetri dish, but heartbreaking
failure in humans.
SPEAKER_01 (10:29):
The landscape is super divided here.
Let's start with the wins, or atleast the glimmer of hope.
SPEAKER_00 (10:34):
Right.
The 2025 CABBA pilot trial forAlzheimer's disease.
They gave patients with probableAlzheimer's 20 grams of creatine
a day for eight weeks.
SPEAKER_01 (10:45):
That's a solid dose.
SPEAKER_00 (10:46):
It is.
And despite the blood-brainbarrier, they recorded an 11%
increase in brain creatine onMRI scans.
Plus, they saw improvedcognitive scores in memory and
attention.
SPEAKER_01 (10:57):
Which is amazing.
We should acknowledge thelimits, though.
It was only 20 people, and therewas no placebo group.
SPEAKER_00 (11:02):
True.
But it proved the protocol couldbiologically alter the brain
state in humans.
SPEAKER_01 (11:07):
But then we look at the other side, the losses.
Huge well-funded trialscompletely failed to slow
disease progression.
SPEAKER_00 (11:13):
Huge failures, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_01 (11:14):
The Creste trial threw 40 grams a day at
Huntington's disease patientsand had to completely halt the
study, and the net PD LS1 trialfor Parkinson's disease
published in JAMA was evenlarger.
SPEAKER_00 (11:26):
Over 1700 patients taking 10 grams a day for five
years.
SPEAKER_01 (11:30):
Five years.
And zero slowing of clinicalprogression.
How can a supplement show abiological signal in
Alzheimer's, but completelystrike out in Parkinson's and
Huntingdons?
SPEAKER_00 (11:42):
If we connect this to the bigger picture, it really
comes down to the specificmechanics of how the cellular
machinery fails in each disease.
Alzheimer's disease isincreasingly viewed as a
metabolic disorder.
Right.
Decades before the severe memoryloss occurs, Alzheimer's
patients show significantglucose hypometabolism in the
brain.
SPEAKER_01 (12:01):
Meaning their neurons lose the ability to
efficiently extract energy fromblood sugar.
SPEAKER_00 (12:05):
Exactly.
They are starving.
Providing an alternative energybuffer, like phosphocreatine,
early in that cascade mightactually protect the neurons
from dying.
SPEAKER_01 (12:14):
Whereas Parkinson's and Huntingtons are driven by
entirely different mechanics.
SPEAKER_00 (12:17):
Yes.
Parkinson's is driven by theaggregation of misfolded
alpha-sinuclain proteins andHuntingtons by mutant Huntington
proteins.
Highly structural.
By the time the massivestructural damage and protein
aggregation are occurring inthose diseases, throwing extra
ATP at the cells doesn't stopthe physical destruction of the
tissue.
SPEAKER_01 (12:37):
A power bank doesn't fix a phone if the motherboard
is literally snapping in half.
SPEAKER_00 (12:42):
That's a perfect way to put it.
The Alzheimer's trial suggestswe might be catching the disease
at the energy failure stagebefore that irreversible
structural loss happens.
It's still an open empiricalquestion, but it's a fascinating
hypothesis.
SPEAKER_01 (12:56):
Okay, stepping away from disease, I want to move
back to the broader picture ofhealthy aging, because Dr.
Glorioso's article dives intosome wild animal data.
SPEAKER_00 (13:04):
The mice studies.
SPEAKER_01 (13:05):
The mice.
In 2008, researchers put agedmice on a diet containing 1%
creatine, and they lived 9%longer in good health.
SPEAKER_00 (13:14):
And their memory improved.
SPEAKER_01 (13:16):
And they show less accumulation of a substance
called lipofusin.
What is that?
SPEAKER_00 (13:20):
Lipofusin is fascinating.
It's often referred to ascellular rust.
SPEAKER_01 (13:25):
Rust.
SPEAKER_00 (13:25):
Yeah.
Mechanically, it's a clump ofoxidized lipids and misfolded
proteins that your cells justcan't break down.
Over time, this garbagephysically accumulates inside
the neuron and smothers themitochondria.
SPEAKER_01 (13:37):
Which prevents them from producing energy.
SPEAKER_00 (13:39):
Exactly.
So the mice on creatine weresomehow protecting their
cellular machinery from thisbuildup.
SPEAKER_01 (13:44):
Aaron Powell Okay, I have to be the skeptic here.
I'm always highly skeptical ofmouse studies.
They live in sterile boxes.
And I mean, we've cured mice ofa thousand diseases that never
translate to humans.
SPEAKER_00 (13:55):
Fair point.
SPEAKER_01 (13:56):
A 9% lifespan extension in a mouse doesn't
mean I'm going to live to 110.
SPEAKER_00 (14:01):
A very fair pushback.
And you're right, we don't havedecades-long randomized lifespan
trials in humans for creatine.
Right.
What we do have areobservational studies using
epigenetic aging clocks.
A 2025 analysis used a clockcalled Grimmagemort.
Epigenetic clocks don't look athow many years you've been
alive.
SPEAKER_01 (14:20):
They look at the wear and tear.
SPEAKER_00 (14:21):
Yes, the chemical modifications, the methyl groups
attached to your DNA.
And this analysis found a smallbut statistically significant
correlation between higherdietary creatine and a younger
biological age.
Plus, a 15% lower risk oflong-term mortality.
SPEAKER_01 (14:37):
Which brings us back to the evolutionary angle.
And the herring math.
SPEAKER_00 (14:40):
Ah, the herring math.
SPEAKER_01 (14:41):
Evolutionary anthropologists have analyzed
Paleolithic diets and modernhunter-gatherer populations,
like the Inuit.
They consume drastically morecreatine than we do today.
Way more.
The average modern American getsabout 0.7 grams of dietary
creatine a day.
SPEAKER_00 (14:56):
And the standard dose used in these cognitive
trials is 5 grams.
SPEAKER_01 (15:00):
So to get the 5 gram trial dose from food today,
you'd have to eat 2.5 pounds ofraw beef or 1.5 pounds of raw
herring daily.
SPEAKER_00 (15:09):
Which nobody is doing.
SPEAKER_01 (15:10):
Nobody.
So what does this all mean?
It basically proves whysupplementation is practically
necessary if you want to reachtrial doses.
SPEAKER_00 (15:17):
And this is where we really have to reevaluate the
whole concept of a supplement.
When you look at the historicalrange of human creatine intake,
modern Western diets are sittingat the absolute lowest end of
the range.
SPEAKER_01 (15:28):
So taking five grams a day isn't some futuristic
biohack.
SPEAKER_00 (15:31):
No, it's not pushing your brain beyond its natural
limits.
It's highly likely we are justreplacing the baseline
physiological fuel that we lostwhen we stopped eating like our
ancestors.
SPEAKER_01 (15:40):
Okay, so if the learner's listening to this and
they're convinced to try it, howdo they actually navigate the
confusing world of blood tests,dosing, and supplement aisles?
SPEAKER_00 (15:50):
It can be a minefield.
SPEAKER_01 (15:52):
Hold on.
If I want to see where mybaseline levels are at, can I
just ask my doctor to run astandard blood test?
I know a lot of people try totrack it that way.
SPEAKER_00 (15:59):
This raises an important question, and it is
honestly the most common pointof confusion in this entire
space.
SPEAKER_01 (16:06):
The creatinine trap.
SPEAKER_00 (16:08):
Yes.
When you get a standardmetabolic panel, your doctor is
testing for a molecule calledcreatinine with an INE at the
end.
SPEAKER_01 (16:17):
It sounds identical.
SPEAKER_00 (16:18):
It sounds identical, but it is a metabolic waste
product.
Your muscles constantly breakdown a little bit of creatine,
turn it into creatinine, andyour kidneys filter it out into
your urine.
SPEAKER_01 (16:28):
So doctors measure it specifically to see if your
kidneys are failing.
SPEAKER_00 (16:32):
Precisely.
And if you start taking a heavydose of a creatine supplement,
your body naturally producesmore of that waste product.
SPEAKER_01 (16:39):
So your blood creatinine levels will rise.
SPEAKER_00 (16:42):
They will.
It's a completely harmlessbyproduct of the supplement, but
it frequently triggers panickedphone calls from doctors who see
the high number and assume youare in acute renal failure.
SPEAKER_01 (16:52):
Oh man, that's a mess.
SPEAKER_00 (16:54):
Furthermore, even if you order a highly specific
direct serum creatine test froman independent lab-like walk-in
lab, the science shows that thelevel in your blood doesn't
reliably predict how much isactually making it across the
blood-brain barrier anyway.
SPEAKER_01 (17:10):
So Dr.
Glorioso's recommendation is toskip the blood test entirely.
SPEAKER_00 (17:15):
Skip it.
Focus on functional results.
SPEAKER_01 (17:17):
She suggests using cognitive tracking tools, right?
Like NeuroAge.
Measure your actual processingspeed and working memory before
you start, and then again aftera couple of months of
supplementing.
SPEAKER_00 (17:28):
Functional outcomes are the only metric that matters
here.
As for the protocol itself, thestandard maintenance dose is
five grams a day, takencontinuously.
SPEAKER_01 (17:36):
And if you're an older adult, the trials
comfortably support pushing thatup to 10 grams a day to account
for the slower metabolism.
SPEAKER_00 (17:43):
Exactly.
SPEAKER_01 (17:43):
And a very practical pro tip from the community
comments (17:46):
mix it into a warm or room temperature liquid.
Creatine does not dissolve wellin cold water.
SPEAKER_00 (17:52):
Not at all.
SPEAKER_01 (17:52):
If you dump it into ice water, it's just going to
sink to the bottom, and you'llend up swallowing a mouthful of
gritty sludge.
SPEAKER_00 (17:58):
Nobody wants that.
SPEAKER_01 (17:59):
What about safety?
SPEAKER_00 (18:00):
The data is overwhelmingly reassuring.
A 2025 review authored by Dr.
Richard Kreider analyzed over12,000 individuals taking the
supplement.
The rate of adverse side effectswas virtually indistinguishable
from the placebo groups.
SPEAKER_01 (18:15):
Which means we get to definitively bust two massive
internet myths right here.
Myth one.
SPEAKER_00 (18:20):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (18:21):
It damages healthy kidneys.
SPEAKER_00 (18:22):
False.
We just explained the creatininewaste product confusion.
SPEAKER_01 (18:26):
Myth two.
It makes your hair fall out.
SPEAKER_00 (18:28):
Also false.
A highly specific 2025 studydirectly measured DHT, the
hormone primarily responsiblefor male pattern baldness, and
found zero difference in DHTlevels after 12 weeks of daily
creatine supplementation.
SPEAKER_01 (18:43):
So no hair loss.
The only mathematicallysignificant side effect is a
weight gain of one to twokilograms in the first few
weeks.
SPEAKER_00 (18:50):
Which is purely intracellular water retention in
the muscles, not fat.
SPEAKER_01 (18:53):
Good to know.
So when you go to buy it, whatare we looking for?
SPEAKER_00 (18:56):
You want creatine monohydrate.
It's the cheapest, most widelyavailable form, and it is the
exact compound used in almostall the clinical literature.
SPEAKER_01 (19:04):
Don't fall for the marketing hype.
SPEAKER_00 (19:05):
Right.
There's no biological evidencethat the expensive variants like
creatine ethylester or creatinenitrate are absorbed any better.
Look for a third-party testingseal, like NSF certified for
sport or informed sport.
SPEAKER_01 (19:19):
To make sure you aren't consuming heavy metals.
SPEAKER_00 (19:21):
Exactly.
Or simply look for the creepierlabel, which indicates the
German manufactured raw materialthat serves as the gold standard
in research.
SPEAKER_01 (19:29):
Oh, and I have to give a quick comment or
shout-out here.
Lance Pelletier brought up abrand called SLC Essentials.
Their profits actually fundresearch into creatine
transporter deficiency, thatultra-rare genetic disorder
where the blood-brain barriertransport protein is broken.
SPEAKER_00 (19:45):
Yeah, it's a great cause.
Lance mentioned learning aboutit from Jeff Allen, who's on the
show Beast Games.
Jeff's son Lucas has thedisorder, and they have really
been raising awareness.
SPEAKER_01 (19:53):
It's an awesome real-world application of the
science.
All right, let's bring theentire picture into focus.
Creatine is not a magiclimitless pill.
SPEAKER_00 (20:02):
Sadly, no.
SPEAKER_01 (20:03):
If you are a young 25-year-old who sleeps eight
hours a night and eats a heavymeat diet, supplementing is
probably not going to turn youinto a genius.
SPEAKER_00 (20:11):
Unlikely.
SPEAKER_01 (20:12):
But if you are an older adult looking to fortify
your brain against mitochondrialdecline, a vegan missing out on
that dietary baseline, orsomeone navigating the absolute
crushing metabolic stress ofsleep deprivation, this is an
incredibly cheap, safe, andbiologically coherent tool to
have in your arsenal.
SPEAKER_00 (20:30):
It really is.
SPEAKER_01 (20:31):
Thank you, the learner, for joining us on this
deep dive.
SPEAKER_00 (20:33):
Before we sign off, though, I want to leave you with
one final puzzle to mull over.
Oh, let's hear it.
We look back at Dr.
Gorgi Naja's sleep deprivationstudy, which demonstrated that
the brain only bypassed its slowtransport system and rapidly
sucked up creatine when it wassubjected to exhaustive, severe
metabolic stress.
Right.
It makes you wonder if humanbiology evolved to require
(20:55):
intense metabolic demand toliterally force open the window
for enhanced energy uptake.
Our modern, comfortable livesand constant snacking actually
starving our brains back upbatteries by never giving them a
reason to charge.
SPEAKER_01 (21:08):
Wow.
That is a wild thought to endon.
Keep questioning, keepexploring, and we will catch you
on the next deep dive.
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