August 19, 2025 • 10 mins
In this week's Wisdom Wednesday podcast episode, I discuss an exciting new pilot study that looked at the effects of creatine supplementation on cognitive function in Alzheimer's disease patients.
Timestamps:
00:45 - How creatine provides energy for neurons
02:30 - Overview of animal research on creatine for Alzheimer's
04:15 - Details on the new human pilot study
06:00 - Cognitive improvements found with creatine supplementation
07:30 - Next steps for research
Key Takeaways:
- Creatine supplementation increased brain creatine levels and improved cognition in Alzheimer's patients
- Effects were seen in working memory, attention, problem solving - areas typically impaired
- More research is needed but this provides promising preliminary evidence for creatine in Alzheimer's
- Creatine is safe, cheap, and readily available making it an appealing potential treatment
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hi everybody, Welcome to another edition of Wisdom Wednesdays. And
before we start, a couple of quick announcements and one request.
First announcement is, I'm delighted to say that my new book,
The Hardiness Effect, How to Grow from Stress, Optimize your
health and Live Longer, is now on cl for pre
(00:28):
order at Amazon and book Toopia as well if you
are in Australia. And the other announcement is that the
podcast is going to soon change its name to The
Hardiness Podcast, so just reach out our lookout for that
in the coming weeks. And then the third request is
if you haven't already, and please go in and hit
(00:51):
subscribe on the podcast because it actually helps massively to
grow the podcast and helps me be able to continue
to deliver content that is useful. So now let's get
on with the podcast. If you've been listening to this
podcast for a while, you'll know that I am a
fan of creating supplementation. I talked a few years ago
(01:14):
about the benefits of creating for muscle performance and for recovery,
and there's a ridiculous amount of research in that area.
But I've also talked more recently about the brain benefits
of creating, and it turns out that creating can actually
be very helpful for our brains, can help provide energy
for neurons, and is even being used as an effective antidepressant. Well,
(01:40):
there's another research study that's just been released seeing if
creating can help to reduce the rate of cognitive decline
in Alzheimer's patients, which we put it on another level
now if we think about why that may be possible.
(02:00):
ATP is really important for all of our sales. So
that is the energy currency of our seals and it
plays a critical role in maintaining the health of our neurons.
And neurons, like other cells, can use different ways to
get energy. You've all heard of aerobic metabolism, which is
(02:21):
using oxygen to produce energy. You've probably heard of the
lactic acid energy system, and then there's the third energy
system ATPPC. So think of ATPPC that's sort of purely
around sprinters, whereas the lactic acid energy system four hundred
(02:41):
meter runners very classically, and then the aerobic energy system
more marathon runners. But the reality is all of our
sales are using all of these three systems all of
the time, and so there's been an increasing focus on
creating supplementation for set energy so ATPPC system, the PC
(03:03):
stands for fosphol creating. And then there's been this LUCA
or this area of research looking at the potential for
bring and mental health applications. Now, animal research on creating
for Alzheimer's disease has shown mixed results. A study in
the mouse model of disease found that creating supplementation improves
(03:25):
spatial learning and memory in female mice, whereas male mice
performed worse on spatial tasks, which clearly wasn't that impressive.
And a study in rats injected with amyloid beta peptides,
which there's a lot of line of signs of thinking
that it's the amyloid beta accumulation that causes it. Now
(03:46):
I'm going to talk in a few weeks about a
lot of researchers now questioning that. But anyway to get
back to this study in rats, they found that creating
supplementation worsened learning and memory in permits rather than providing protection.
And then other treatments or other studies and animals have
actually shown some benefits. Now, current treatments in humans for
(04:10):
Alzheimer's disease can provide some modest symptom relief, but really
don't slow the disease progression or the cognitive decline progression. Now,
if Creating supplementation could prove to be effective for Alzheimer's
disease or even cognitive decline, even with a small effect,
it could offer several practical advantages in that it's readily
(04:34):
available as an over the counter supplement, its cheapest chips,
it's a lot cheaper than prescription medications, and it has
a very well established safety profile from years and years
of research for its applications in muscle gain and exercise.
And this study that I wanted to talk about was
(04:55):
conducted at Kansas University Medical Center. Author was a guy
called Smith, and it was just released very very recently.
So they did an eight week It was a non
blinded clinical trial and there was no control group. So
this is what we call a pilot study just to
see to test whether there's any feasibility. And what they
(05:19):
did was they looked at creating supplementation to see if
it can improve cognitive function and increase bring creating levels
in nineteen participants with Alzheimer's disease. So the two four.
One was does it increase the creating levels in the brain,
and secondly, does that have an impact on cognitive function.
(05:40):
So each participant took twenty grams of creating daily, divided
into two doses in the day over an eight week period.
Now twenty grams anybody who's ever taken creating nose, that's
a hefty dose. That is what you used to take
many many years ago in the old loading cycle. We
take twenty grams a day for five days to saturate
(06:02):
your body. But it can cause a bit of gas
rowe test and upset and stuff like that. So that's
why they divided it into two doses. Now why twenty grams, Well,
some research is indicating that your muscle will hoover up
the first five grams or so, but excess amounts can
cross the blood brain barrier and potentially provide energy for
(06:24):
your neurons. So they did prey and post assessments of
the following. The first was total cognition, which is overall
cognitive ability. Then they looked at fluid cognition, which is
mental flexibility and problem solving. Then they did tests of
working memory that's mentally holding and manipulating information. Then they
(06:46):
did oral reading recognition that ability to recognize and pronounce
written words, and then the thirst was in the last sorry,
was inhibitory control and attention. That's the ability to focus
while ignoring the traction. And this study is particularly interesting
for me because I just I'm about to publish some
of my PhD research where we looked at an intervention
(07:09):
to improve working memory and inhibitory control and attention, amongst
other things. Now, what they actually found was there were
cognitive improvements noted in several areas with medium to large
effects sizes, which I can tell you as a researcher
is really bloody impressive now, and they did have some
(07:32):
side effects. The most common side effects were mild and
it was really cramping and muscle pain, bit of diarrhea
and constipution, and that tended to resolve after the first
few weeks. Now, And this is a pretty impressive as
a pilot study, particularly given that it showed improvements statistically
(07:54):
significant and not just statistically significant, but with medium to
large effec efect sizes, which basically means that it likely
had a real world impact on the people. And it
is the first human trial of creating in the context
of Alzheimer's disease, and as I said, those improvements are
(08:16):
pretty encouraging given that Alzheimer's disease typically involves progressive cognitive decline. Now,
before everybody gets super super excited, it was a single
arm study. There was no control group, and that means
that they can't rule out what's called practice effects. And
(08:38):
also there was a small sample size, and so it's
a kind of a pilot study. But these pilot studies
are used to test hypothesis, and then the next critical
step will be a larger randomized control trial that has
a bunch of people who are taken Creating and a
(08:58):
bunch of people who are taking a place Ebo, and
then they will be able to see whether those effects
are real and across large amounts of people, and then
they can probably then talk about our investigate optimal dosing,
the treatment duration, individual response patterns, and whether these benefits
(09:21):
actually persist in a long term or whether they're just accute.
And until this is available, this I think we would
call this or put this in the basket of preliminary
promising preliminary evidence that Creating may well be worth considering
in this context. And as I have said, before and
(09:44):
in my new book the Hardiness Effect. Creating is right
up there in my list of supplements because it is
very very cheap, it's safe, and it is effective in
numerous different systems and processes in the body, from improving
recovery from workouts, improving explosive power, but also improving mental
(10:08):
health and not potentially reducing the rate of cognitive decline.
So if you're not already on the creating train, reckon,
it's probably time. That's it for this week, folks, catch
you next time.
Hi everybody, Welcome to another edition of Wisdom Wednesdays. And
before we start, a couple of quick announcements and one request.
First announcement is, I'm delighted to say that my new book,
The Hardiness Effect, How to Grow from Stress, Optimize your
health and Live Longer, is now on cl for pre
(00:28):
order at Amazon and book Toopia as well if you
are in Australia. And the other announcement is that the
podcast is going to soon change its name to The
Hardiness Podcast, so just reach out our lookout for that
in the coming weeks. And then the third request is
if you haven't already, and please go in and hit
(00:51):
subscribe on the podcast because it actually helps massively to
grow the podcast and helps me be able to continue
to deliver content that is useful. So now let's get
on with the podcast. If you've been listening to this
podcast for a while, you'll know that I am a
fan of creating supplementation. I talked a few years ago
(01:14):
about the benefits of creating for muscle performance and for recovery,
and there's a ridiculous amount of research in that area.
But I've also talked more recently about the brain benefits
of creating, and it turns out that creating can actually
be very helpful for our brains, can help provide energy
for neurons, and is even being used as an effective antidepressant. Well,
(01:40):
there's another research study that's just been released seeing if
creating can help to reduce the rate of cognitive decline
in Alzheimer's patients, which we put it on another level
now if we think about why that may be possible.
(02:00):
ATP is really important for all of our sales. So
that is the energy currency of our seals and it
plays a critical role in maintaining the health of our neurons.
And neurons, like other cells, can use different ways to
get energy. You've all heard of aerobic metabolism, which is
(02:21):
using oxygen to produce energy. You've probably heard of the
lactic acid energy system, and then there's the third energy
system ATPPC. So think of ATPPC that's sort of purely
around sprinters, whereas the lactic acid energy system four hundred
(02:41):
meter runners very classically, and then the aerobic energy system
more marathon runners. But the reality is all of our
sales are using all of these three systems all of
the time, and so there's been an increasing focus on
creating supplementation for set energy so ATPPC system, the PC
(03:03):
stands for fosphol creating. And then there's been this LUCA
or this area of research looking at the potential for
bring and mental health applications. Now, animal research on creating
for Alzheimer's disease has shown mixed results. A study in
the mouse model of disease found that creating supplementation improves
(03:25):
spatial learning and memory in female mice, whereas male mice
performed worse on spatial tasks, which clearly wasn't that impressive.
And a study in rats injected with amyloid beta peptides,
which there's a lot of line of signs of thinking
that it's the amyloid beta accumulation that causes it. Now
(03:46):
I'm going to talk in a few weeks about a
lot of researchers now questioning that. But anyway to get
back to this study in rats, they found that creating
supplementation worsened learning and memory in permits rather than providing protection.
And then other treatments or other studies and animals have
actually shown some benefits. Now, current treatments in humans for
(04:10):
Alzheimer's disease can provide some modest symptom relief, but really
don't slow the disease progression or the cognitive decline progression. Now,
if Creating supplementation could prove to be effective for Alzheimer's
disease or even cognitive decline, even with a small effect,
it could offer several practical advantages in that it's readily
(04:34):
available as an over the counter supplement, its cheapest chips,
it's a lot cheaper than prescription medications, and it has
a very well established safety profile from years and years
of research for its applications in muscle gain and exercise.
And this study that I wanted to talk about was
(04:55):
conducted at Kansas University Medical Center. Author was a guy
called Smith, and it was just released very very recently.
So they did an eight week It was a non
blinded clinical trial and there was no control group. So
this is what we call a pilot study just to
see to test whether there's any feasibility. And what they
(05:19):
did was they looked at creating supplementation to see if
it can improve cognitive function and increase bring creating levels
in nineteen participants with Alzheimer's disease. So the two four.
One was does it increase the creating levels in the brain,
and secondly, does that have an impact on cognitive function.
(05:40):
So each participant took twenty grams of creating daily, divided
into two doses in the day over an eight week period.
Now twenty grams anybody who's ever taken creating nose, that's
a hefty dose. That is what you used to take
many many years ago in the old loading cycle. We
take twenty grams a day for five days to saturate
(06:02):
your body. But it can cause a bit of gas
rowe test and upset and stuff like that. So that's
why they divided it into two doses. Now why twenty grams, Well,
some research is indicating that your muscle will hoover up
the first five grams or so, but excess amounts can
cross the blood brain barrier and potentially provide energy for
(06:24):
your neurons. So they did prey and post assessments of
the following. The first was total cognition, which is overall
cognitive ability. Then they looked at fluid cognition, which is
mental flexibility and problem solving. Then they did tests of
working memory that's mentally holding and manipulating information. Then they
(06:46):
did oral reading recognition that ability to recognize and pronounce
written words, and then the thirst was in the last sorry,
was inhibitory control and attention. That's the ability to focus
while ignoring the traction. And this study is particularly interesting
for me because I just I'm about to publish some
of my PhD research where we looked at an intervention
(07:09):
to improve working memory and inhibitory control and attention, amongst
other things. Now, what they actually found was there were
cognitive improvements noted in several areas with medium to large
effects sizes, which I can tell you as a researcher
is really bloody impressive now, and they did have some
(07:32):
side effects. The most common side effects were mild and
it was really cramping and muscle pain, bit of diarrhea
and constipution, and that tended to resolve after the first
few weeks. Now, And this is a pretty impressive as
a pilot study, particularly given that it showed improvements statistically
(07:54):
significant and not just statistically significant, but with medium to
large effec efect sizes, which basically means that it likely
had a real world impact on the people. And it
is the first human trial of creating in the context
of Alzheimer's disease, and as I said, those improvements are
(08:16):
pretty encouraging given that Alzheimer's disease typically involves progressive cognitive decline. Now,
before everybody gets super super excited, it was a single
arm study. There was no control group, and that means
that they can't rule out what's called practice effects. And
(08:38):
also there was a small sample size, and so it's
a kind of a pilot study. But these pilot studies
are used to test hypothesis, and then the next critical
step will be a larger randomized control trial that has
a bunch of people who are taken Creating and a
(08:58):
bunch of people who are taking a place Ebo, and
then they will be able to see whether those effects
are real and across large amounts of people, and then
they can probably then talk about our investigate optimal dosing,
the treatment duration, individual response patterns, and whether these benefits
(09:21):
actually persist in a long term or whether they're just accute.
And until this is available, this I think we would
call this or put this in the basket of preliminary
promising preliminary evidence that Creating may well be worth considering
in this context. And as I have said, before and
(09:44):
in my new book the Hardiness Effect. Creating is right
up there in my list of supplements because it is
very very cheap, it's safe, and it is effective in
numerous different systems and processes in the body, from improving
recovery from workouts, improving explosive power, but also improving mental
(10:08):
health and not potentially reducing the rate of cognitive decline.
So if you're not already on the creating train, reckon,
it's probably time. That's it for this week, folks, catch
you next time.
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