August 29, 2024 • 34 mins
In this Stronger U Radio episode, Stronger U Registered Dietitians Dr. Jessica Bachman and Gianna Masi dive into the popular and thoroughly researched supplement creatine. During their discussion, they answer your burning questions and cover:
Tune in here for the full episode and then head to the Stronger U Community to share your takeaways.
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- The who, what, when, and why of supplementing with creatine
- Recommended dosage
- Special populations that benefit from creatine supplementation
- Menopause, fitness, and creatine
- Creatine’s impact on brain and bone health
- Effects on endurance and performance
- And, finally, how to choose a safe supplement
Tune in here for the full episode and then head to the Stronger U Community to share your takeaways.
Subscribe to Stronger U Radio
Follow us on Instagram
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome back to another episode of Stronger You Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
This is your host Gianna Massey.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
I'm a registered dietitian and manager of nutrition education at
Stronger You. On the show today, we're welcoming back doctor
Jessica Bachman, who also works with me here at Stronger
You Nutrition.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Welcome to the Stronger You Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Stronger You Radio brings insightful conversations with top nutrition, health
and fitness experts, hosted by Stronger You dietitians and nationally
certified coaches skilled at simplifying nutrition science into actionable advice.
Get inspired with evidence based practical tips to optimize your
(00:46):
potential and crush your body composition, health and performance goals.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
This is your time to level up and become a
Stronger You.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Doctor Bachman has a PhD in Nutrition science with a
folks on exercise science, and she is also a registered dietitian,
which is a big deal to have both of those
credentials of.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
PhD and RD.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
So today we sat down to talk about all things creatine.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
We really treated.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
This as a Q and A on creatine because we
both receive a lot of questions on this topic. So
we cover the who, what, when and why of supplementing
with creatine. We talk about the special populations that may
benefit from creatine and finally how to choose a safe supplement,
and so much more so thanks for listening in.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Let's get into.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
It, doctor Bachman, Doctor Jess, thank you so much for
being on the Stronger You Radio today. We always love
to chat together on all things nutrition, science and application
and at Stronger You, as you know, we take a
practical approach and an effective approach, so we're not going
to have you do some random things that just don't
(01:59):
make sense in terms of nutrition. And we're also the
same way in terms of supplementation. And so when this
topic of creating came up, I know you and I
were like, well, this makes so much sense because if
our members do want to supplement, this is a very
well researched and well backed supplement that they may be
interested in.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
A lot of our members are already already taking.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
It, some are interested in it, and there's lots of
different life phases and special populations that can definitely benefit
from this. And so I thought today we could just
dive in, do a little Q and a go over
all of the common questions we get from people and
just cover all that is creatine today.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
So thanks for being here, You're welcome, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
All right, And so it's my favorite time every four years,
the Olympics, many people's favorite.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
And one of the things as I was.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Pulling research for creatine today is I thought it was
really fun that the nineteen ninety two Barcelona Games is
where we started to see athletes, actually gold medal athletes
talking about taking creatine for the first time. So the
actual supplement creating has been discovered in the eighteen hundreds.
It was eighteen thirty two when it was discovered. So
(03:13):
in nutrition science, Jess and I know that there's a
lot of things that are new and emerging, but clearly
this one has been around for a very long time,
which is also why it is so well researched.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
So I do want to.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Just set the scene with that that's very important and
it has a very high bioavailability.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
And for those who are like, what does that mean,
that means your body can actually use it.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
We're actually able to absorb it and benefit from it.
So it is very efficacious. And so Jess, can you
just tell us what is creating? What is the general
statement of what is creating in the supplement.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Yeah, I'd be happy too.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
And you know this, who knows this podcast will go live?
But watching some sprinting last night in the Olympics, they
definitely reblined on creating a lot to get there. Those
people are incredible, incredible athletes.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
So creating is a non essential nutrient.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
That means that we do not have to consume it
because our body actually does make some of it ourselves,
but we do also consume it in food. It's survived
in the meinolacids, methyamine, glyciine, urgenine. It is primarily stored
in our muscles, both as creatine or creatine phosphate, and
again advice do make some on our own, about one
to two maybe three grams per day, really a little
(04:24):
bit of individual variability there. But we also consume it
primarily in meat, so red meat, seafood. There's some in poultry,
a little bit less than red meat and seafood, but
we consume about one to two grams per day as well.
It plays a really key role in energy production, and
so it's our body's primary way of getting atp which
(04:44):
is our energy source. In our muscles resynthesize and so
creatine again in the form of creating phosphate. It donates
the phosphate over to the in release of energy when
it donates the phosphate group, which that energy is then
created used to create more ATP, which is that energy
currency for our body. And so it's used primarily in
events that take you know, up to about ten seconds,
(05:06):
maybe a tiny bit longer than that, but it's used
as a really.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Quick source of energy.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
So high intensity, short duration activities is where most of
the creating research has been in the past. And we'll
talk about some of the more common research we're seeing
now as well in other areas, but really these high intensity,
short duration activities is where most of the creating supplement
and creating research has come from.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah, thank you, Jessin.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
I think it's important for people to hear that even
if you're not somebody that's like sprinting on a track
or doing something maybe traditional or maybe not traditional for
you outside like that, it can still benefit you. If
you're doing resistance training and lifting in the gym, anything
like that, it is very advantageous. So for all of
our listeners, you know, no matter your skill level, if
(05:51):
you're an Olympic sprinter, or if you're somebody who's just
trying to get in shape at the gym, this can
absolutely benefit you in terms of the duration of your
power or output and how long you can go.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
So that is very important.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
So I like to tee that up and I think of,
you know, I just said, we can go longer, and
you can go more powerfully. And as we think about
our maybe like potential of hypertrophy or our muscle building,
creating can also support us in that. So in terms
of how much muscle you're able to build, that will
(06:26):
obviously depend on are you eating enough protein first? Are
you on a periodized program? Are you actually following a
lifting program, You're not bouncing around and doing random programs
every different day, and really stick to something where you're
getting overload and progressive overload going there.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
So that is very important to pair with enough protein.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
And so for our vegetarian and vegan friends listening, absolutely
you can get your creatin stores up through supplementing, but
it may just take you a little bit longer to
get that saturation point as someone who maybe eats more
poultry or meat, like Jess was saying in the beginning,
And I think.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
About follop and that, like, what is the benefit of
supplementing creating?
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Like, if we're making already, you're getting it in your food.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
What we do know that the amounts that we have
and create in our body and the amounts we didn't
get from food, they are not going to maximize the
total amount that we can store in our muscles. And
so yes, we do get some and those are great sources.
But even for those of us who are meat eaters,
there are benefits of adding a creating supplement as well.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
So how can creating benefit athletes or just the active
population we talked about a little bit already.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
But yeah, so again like traditionally, where you see most
of the research it started with was looking at and
it's primary what makes the most sense for what.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
It typically is used for is for short duration.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
High intensity and aerobic So when you need an energy source,
you don't have oxygen available because we know we create
a lot of the ATP and energy in our body
by the systems that require oxygen or that's actually breaking
down carbohydrates and creating ATP in that way. That takes
some time. It's not immediate, and so sports that you
don't have enough time for the auction to actually get
(08:10):
to yourselves and create new ATP and so really high
intensey like a sprint, really pulling up a deadlift, you know,
things that require a really quick response and really quick
energy needs. That's where that quick mouval of the phosphate
group to produce the energy to create more ATP. That's
where creating phosphate really comes in. However, there is quite
(08:30):
a bit of newer research too. You know, you think
about endurance exercise and well we'll talk about that a
little bit more later on, but endurance exercise, you're not
running at the same pace the whole time. So whenever
there's a time period where you do a little bit
more of a surge, or if you really want to
run at the end of the mile, you want to
do like a sprint towards those last smile there to
beat the other people. And these people, these Olympians running
(08:50):
a mile and under like four minutes is not like
seeing them do that is crazy. But they even even
though they're basically sprinting the whole time, they sprint even
more towards that last fifty meters one hundred meters or so.
And so when you're picking up the pace from endurance
activities and you have.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
That surge of energy you're requiring.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
You can also rely to you on your creating boss
Phaed stores for that too.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Yeah, and I think that's exciting because not only is
it helping you acutely in that actual race or in
that specific movement, it's also the muscle potential. So if
someone's gaining muscle and able to maintain that muscle with creatine,
then you're seeing that response.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Help you in that event.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
So if we have listeners who are triathletes, are just
you know, doing endurance sports for fun, doing those fun
spartan races or things like that, you kind of get
a two fold benefit there. It's like from your training
and then on the day of the event, which is exciting.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
I think I'm pretty pumped about it.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
All right, So now everyone knows, okay, I want to
take creatine, what is the recommended dosage? And so this
is something I will be online like constantly seeing people
argue about and there's really two answers, but I want
to summarize it for people that there's a loading phase
and this is commonly said.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Oh you need to load, or no, you don't need
to load.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
You can do a loading phase, and what that means
is you take a high dosage, so that's twenty grams
per day, divide it into four doses throughout the day
for about a week, So that's a loading phase. And
the thought behind that is you'll saturate your muscles, you'll
get the creatine up quicker. But what we know now
is that you can just take a consistent amount three
(10:33):
to five grams per day for you know, an extended time,
and you'll get there. So both slow and SETI gets
you to the same place. So why would I not
want to creatine load? Maybe some GI distress. I actually
had an athlete I was working with who did not
listen to my recommendations of five grams a day, and
(10:53):
they came back and they were like, oh, yeah, I
had diarrhea.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
That was not fun.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
So it's not super common, Like people don't get GI
upset from creating.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
So if you're listening and you're.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Worried about that, no, that does not happen at three
to five gram dosage. It's just when you're at a
very high dose at one time, it's very concentrated. Your
GI system can't really tolerate that. Well, so, yeah, I
just want to start with that dosage.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Any comments on that, just yeah, no, definitely, I've had
people do both.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
I personally, I do take five grams and creatine per day.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
I just to me, it's also.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Easier to mix some water like the more like powder
you're adding to something to it, maybe a little chalk
here and doesn't have a flavor, but it's just the
five grams makes it in so easy with like a
protein shake.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
I have no issue there whatsoever with it.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Never had someone have a problem with five grams per day,
So I agree, like, just sticking with that and you'll
get to your max load.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Yeah, And I think for while we're on the subject
of how much, usually the next question is well when
should I take it? And the when is there's there's
definitely research to show like, oh, you could benefit pre
workout or post workout. Our consensus here at Stronger You
is do it at the time that you can be
the most consistent with it. So if doctor Jess prefers
(12:03):
to take it before her workout and I prefer to
take it after my workout.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
That is just fine.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
If it's away from your workout and the morning smoothie
or at night in your water. We just want you
to get it in consistently, so you'll get that amount over.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Time, consistently every day. That's the most important thing. Mine's
first thing in the morning, because I remember, that's just
the easiest thing. That's when I get like the essentials
in is okay?
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Yeah, exactly like your habit stacking. When are you going
to do the thing? So you make sure it gets done.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
I think something else, you know, whenever we're working with
people on body composition, this comes up and it's, oh,
creating will make me gain weight or I'll gain fat
from creatine, and so can we talk about what creatine
does with the water retention or this potential weight that
people are concerned about.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Yeah, we can definitely.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
See that for quite a few people. Nothing's ever all
or none, right, so it's required you people, you do
see some initial water retention, and so creating just tends
also full water into your muscles when you first start
taking it, and so it's not uncommon to see two
to four pounds up on the scale if there's someone
who's weighing yourself regularly. You start taking creatine, that goes
away after a few days. Of not a few weeks
(13:13):
at the very very most. And so it is this
initial rush of water. It's not backain. It's unfortunately not
muscle gain right away. Although creating does help you put
on muscle, that's over time, right that's nothing that There
is no easy way to put on a ton of
muscle really really fast, or at least no.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Legal easy way to do that.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
And so it is just water weight. So it's really
nothing to worry about. Again, who cares about the scale weight.
It's about what you're doing to help your body support,
change your body comp towards what you wanted to move towards,
and so nothing at all to be concerned about. Is
just a short term water weight gain. If you are
an athlete that's competing on a stage, or you are
in a weight based sport and you need to weigh
(13:51):
a certain amount, it's to hit into certain criteria. Just
be careful and consider about when you start taking creating.
If you're taking all the time, that will stabilize, I
don't have to worry about that, you'll be at your
regular weight, like there'd be no ships after that initial
time here first start taking it, So definitely start earlier
on in the process.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
It's not something you'd want.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
To do a day or two before, or even a
week before, not knowing what that's going to do to
your weight or even the look. I mean for some
people it does make your muscles look a little bit
more full because you're adding more water to them, But
you wouldn't want to manipulate that without knowing exactly how
your body responds. So definitely take it early in your training,
you know, well before you're weighing in.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Or getting on the stage. That way, you know how
your body.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Responds, and you get to that stabilized level of taking
the same amount every single day plenty of time in advanced.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Yeah, that's great advice.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
I remember when I've worked with wrestlers before, like in
their off season, We'll get them used to taking creating,
get them accustomed to their weight and where they're at,
and then if they needed to, then they could, you know,
they could do like a pause for a couple of
months if they're weighing in. But yeah, I would definitely
not have them start it right before their weigh into
the start of the season. That would be a little
(14:56):
a little dicey for their control that they need on
their weight. So I think that's great to explain that
to people. Is it time for you to level up?
Speaker 2 (15:05):
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Speaker 2 (15:52):
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Let's do this.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
So one of the questions that comes up is is
creating safe for long term use? And you know, we
mentioned that this is one of the or if not
the most research supplement that is out there, which is
kind of amazing in the nutrition science world, and so
long term use of.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Creating at these dosages that like Jess and I.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Are talking about these three to five grams per day,
maybe even a little bit more than that is safe
for healthy individuals, and that doesn't affect the kidney or
liver function. Where there's pause, and I've talked to different
nephrologists on this too, where there's pause or maybe you
want to reconsider, is if you have a pre existing
kidney disease. That's where your kidney function maybe is already
(16:42):
a little compromise.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
That's where you'd want to talk to your provider.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
But we can confidently say that creatine is safe and
it's not going to all of a sudden hurt your
kidney overnight.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Again, so in their body is produced, we consume it
in food, so you're just kind of having a little
bit more. And we're only barely going to touch on
some of the benefits we see is like brain helps
potentially they're coming out right now, and some of that
research is using up to ten grams per day because
five grams will maximize your muscle storage and so if
you want to have extra creating available to help supply
your brain with energy, and some of the research again
(17:14):
that's there they even go up to ten grams and
they are taking that longer term amounts and so definitely
safe the levels that are typically recommended.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Love that, Yeah, thank you, Jess.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
So how quickly can athletes expect to see results from
creating supplementation?
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Yeah, so, you know, it varies by the person, but
you see in general that many athletes start to feel
and see benefits and improvements and performance within a week
of starting creating supplementation, and so there's definitely a pretty
fast turnaround. Again, you also might see your muscles looking
a little bit more full too from that water retention,
which you know, that's a lot of how you're feeling.
(17:52):
And if you're trying to put on muscle mass and
you're seeing yourself a look a little bigger, that's motivating
to keep going and.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Lift stronger too. And so there's a lot of.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Benefits there that goes great into this next question, which
is does creating benefit weight loss? And we can expand
that even to fat loss and body composition in general.
I'd love to hear more from you about that subject.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Most of what we see with creating it's impact on
weight loss and we'll talk about the different components of
body composition two is that it mostly has an impact
by allowing you to work harder, do more at the gym. Right,
you have more energy to do more, you're lifting have
your weights, and so you're burning more calories overall. There
is some interesting research about body composition changes with creatine
(18:35):
where they can see that people tend to maintain and
build more muscle. And so if you're on a track
we're trying to lose weight, you know, combining creating with
that kind of benefits of losing more body fat versus
losing muscle mass because you're also doing things to protect
and build muscle while you're losing weight. So definitely some
benefits more and body composition change. But creating itself is
(18:56):
not a weight loss supplementation to take you though it
does had that direct impackage through its impact on performance
and then potentially changing body composition.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
So I still have to show up to the gym,
still have to do the work to get the benefit
your protein.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Yes, but that's really important because I think with any
coloric deficit or any type of diet someone is following,
if you're listening, that you will unfortunately lose a little
bit of our muscle mass.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
That's just one of the side effects.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
And actually Jess can probably give me some better stats
on the amounts I'm blinking right now. But if we
can attenuate that and hold on to that, I mean
that's a win. So I think any any way I
can hold onto my muscle while I'm losing fat, that's
what I want to do.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Long term, long term benefits there are best.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
So we just talked about the benefits of the body
composition and preserving all of that muscle mass. So how
does creatin support muscle building itself?
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Talked about that a little bit about a little bit,
I think just in general.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
So it's that you have more energy to lift more,
and so it gives you the ability to not do
three reps, maybe you can do five reps instead, And
so it encourages enhances your ability to do things in
the gym that induce muscle hypertrophy rate. It allows you
to work harder, to lift more to build more muscle.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
From that, got it? That makes sense?
Speaker 1 (20:19):
And so you already mentioned a little bit more on
the endurance performance, but anything if I'm an endurance athlete listening,
that might be good to call out here.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Yeah, think in general, just to raise awareness because creating
has been for so long thought of a benefit for
those short, high intensity, short duration performance improvements, it really
doesn't a lot of benef It's an endurance performance, and
we're seeing more and more research come out about that. Again,
there's typically not any endurance activity where you're just going
steady state the whole time, right. Think about when you're running,
(20:51):
when you're swimming, when you're rowing. There's individual time periods
where you're putting in higher amounts of effort. And so
if you're burning a steady amount of energy and YOURQI
firing that amount energy to stay at your current pace,
anytime you're working a little bit harder, it's going to
be that increase of energy required. And so those spurts
of effort that all out towards the end, having your
(21:12):
maximize levels of creating phosphate available to produce more and
resynthesize atp are very beneficial for that.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
There's also some even newer.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Research that's examining how you can enhance anaerobic work capacity
by coadjusting ingesting creatine with carbohydrates. So it seems to
heighten glycogen resynthesis as well, and so it's beyond just
the impact on creating phosphate levels, but also potentially something
with glycogen being recentthesized at a greater rate when you're
(21:42):
taking creatine, the more glecogen stores you have, right that
your longer term source of energy. Is a lot of
research on how much glecogen you store and your time
to exhaustion, so how long you can perform and exercise
about for and so anything we can do to increase
glycogen stores and resynthesis can all also benefit endurance activities.
So lots of new research coming out in that area too.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Yeah, I'm just seeing my friend who just finished her
second iron man. I'm like, yeah, that sounds very advantageous
for her to do that. So that's great, thank you, Jess.
And then I think we'll go into a couple of
i'll call them complimentary benefits. Some people will be like, oh, yes,
this is why I might be interested in it other
than what we've already covered. And some of those topics
(22:26):
are bone health, menopause, cognition.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
So we'll go through a couple of those.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Right now at a pretty high level. But so in
terms of impact on bone health that creatine has, can
you tell us a little bit about that?
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Yeah, I think if you haven't.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
You know, the audience that's listening to this podcast is
maybe focused a lot on like body composition and muscle
and that, and so you may not remember, being from
a high school biology class that bone is very similar
to muscle, where it's constantly breaking down and being rebuilt. Right,
there's this turnover that's happening with our bones all the time,
just like there are with muscles. And so you have
the little guys inside your bones called osteoblasts, and I
(23:03):
always remembered from high school biology that blast is build
so osteoblasts, those are the cell that helped to build
new bone, osteoclass break it down.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
And so what we're finding with creatine is that creating.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Actually has a role in increasing osteoblasts, so bone building
activity inside of our bones, and so it encouraged bone building,
bone maintenance, and so preserving bone health, especially as we're aging,
you know, is.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Very very important.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
So this is a newer area again, more and more
research coming out about that that there is a role
for creatine in maintaining bone health as well.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Yeah, sign me up. That sounds great, yes.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
And then that also segues really nicely into another population,
which is our menopause population, and you know, creatine is
beneficial for all the reasons we already spoke about, particularly
to counteract some of those common concerns that arise during
the menopause transition. As our body composition, our muscle mass.
(24:03):
We know that as we age, unfortunately, we are more
susceptible to losing muscle mass, and it's harder to build
muscle mass. Not impossible, but it is just more challenging
as we age.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Any comments on that topic.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Yeah, there's a lot of things that happen during menopause
where estrogen is one hormone that's very protective of our
bone health, of our muscle mass, and going through the
menopause transition, we're producing less and less estrogen over time,
and so anything we can do to counteract the impacts
of that, reduce estrogen levels, to maintain bone health, to
(24:38):
maintain and build more muscle is extremely helpful.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
And so creating again.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Has the impact on allowing us to work harder, to
build more muscle, to maintain our strength over time.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
It has an impact now we know, to maintaining.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Bone health overall, and so lots of benefits of the
major things, the major concerns. We see while people are
going through the menopause transition that creating can have a
pretty the impact.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
On Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
And again if you just you know, fast forwarded to
this part, it's like creating in addition to eating enough
dietary protein with that resistance training, I mean, then you'll
have a trifecta which is really powerful for all of
these populations, no matter how you know, young or older
we are.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
Let's add in sleep plenty and reduce stress to gie
and then we'll.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Be we need the real uh what is that? Five?
Like all the things.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
And so when we talk about an aging population, and
you know, I'll put even doctor Jess and I in this,
we're all aging.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
As we get older, we lose some of.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Our power production. Jess is laughing at me. Are you
laughing because I said you we're old?
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Yeah, I am close to turning forty one, So I
guess we're over the hill at this cinking.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
But I just read something the other day. I was like, oh,
we're thirty five.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
I'm like, yep, okay, here we are. So I don't
know if everyone knows this, So I do want to
ground as like, as we get older we do lose
some of our force production, our power production, and that
is also why it's important to keep power in your
exercise and lifting routine. So if you're working with the
trainer or you're going to classes, you're likely doing some
(26:15):
form of power but you can ask, you know, hey,
what am I doing? That is a power movement, right,
So if you're someone that can do box jumps, great,
If that's not in your library of exercises, there's other
lower body power that you can do that's still accessible
to you in a variety of different abilities. So I
do just want to first say that, so you definitely
(26:35):
want to have that in tandem with your creatine intake.
So creating stores do decline with aging, and so that's
also why it might be wise for older adults to
supplement with creatine along their protein intake. And as we're
talking about aging and healthy aging, we have to talk
about cognitive function and this.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
One comes up for a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
And I don't think that this is something just valued
in an aging population anymore. Maybe it was in the past,
but I think younger adults are even more interested in this,
and it's exciting because we are seeing more research across
the board on this and specifically with creating, we've seen
some more research to suggest improvements and cognitive function. So
(27:19):
could you educate us a little on that.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Jess makes me laugh because I do feel like my
short term memory is getting members.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
At the rifled age of almost forty.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
One, So we're just talking about my age and how
old I am. But yeah, so this is an area
that again if you try and look at like the
details and exact mechanisms for why, like definitely new in discovery,
but there does seem to be a benefit for creating
and improving memory, particularly older adults and also specifically with
like short term memory quick thinking, But definitely a lot
(27:51):
more research to understand the impact. There might be a
thing where your brain can use more phosphic creating and
produce energy than even other muscles, even more than muscle,
and so there's definitely an air of interest there. Of course,
it's a big area that people want to know a
lot more information about at this time.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Yeah, definitely, And so I think that if you're considering creating,
if that's a big draw for you, I mean, you
have so many other benefits that are proven and showing
effective that this could be like the cherry on top.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
If we do get more and more studies that come out.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
So I do think it's worthwhile to look into that
for yourself. One area being an athletic population in my
background is like for anyone with you know, a TBI
or concussions, if you're playing sports that.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Has a concussion risk.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
I always tell my athletes, I will not have you
take creating to avoid a concussion, because unfortunately concussions aren't
really avoidable sometimes.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
And but what creating.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Can help you do is start in a better place
than had you not been supplementing. So that is something
if you know you have kids, or you yourself are
in maybe a high impact sport, that's something to consider
as an their benefit as well. So we're kind of
giving you a sampling of all these benefits here today.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
And there are there are a couple of myths.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Around creatine and we kind of debunk them throughout this
education today. But one of my favorites that I hear
online is or from parents.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Sometimes they'll be like, is creatine a steroid?
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Like I don't want my athlete taking a steroid, And no,
it is not a steroid. Because doctor Jess just went
through where it's derived from, and it's actually we produce.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
It in our bodies, so not to worry on that.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
No legal dietary supplements. So definitely not a steroid. I
would be taking steroids, and I take creatine every single day.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Yes, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
And then in terms of all right, I'm hooked, I'm ready,
doctor Jess, and I sold you on taking creatine. So
how do I know which supplement to pick? And I
think there's two things we have to talk about. Which
is the form creating monohydrate is the form that we recommend.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
You don't need to.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Take any other type of creatine. This is the most
effective and recommended and researched form. And so if you're
looking at supplements, please be aware of proprietary mixes. You
do not need to take creatine mixed in with something else.
It is often mixed with pre workout sometimes or in
certain like energy drinks. That's fine, but I wouldn't rely
(30:19):
on that to be your sole source of creatine. Meaning
if you need to take creatine every single day, I
don't want you to have to rely on an energy
drink in order to get your creatine. So make sure
that you have a supplement that is just your creatine monohydrate,
and then Jess can tell us a little bit more
about the symbols or emblems on certain supplements that we
(30:40):
might want you to look for.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
Yeah, particularly right, so how can you decide which which
one to take? You're going to see there's a lot
of creatine monohydrate options that are out there, many great
options out there too. I mean there's different things that
you need to look forward depending on what your level
of that lot like performance is. And so definitely look
at if you're an athlete, look at the specific requirements
for your sport and whatever league your sport is governed
(31:03):
by currently, because there are going to be specific things
out there in general, the two that you'll see most
often recommended across most of especially in the US, most
of the sports and the leagues that will you'll be
an athlete within. You want to look for NSF certified
for sport and so that is one company that certifies
and make sure there's no banned substances in there, again,
(31:25):
depending on your sports, and make sure you confirm that.
The other one that's very common is informed and choice,
and there is informed choice for sports specifically, and so
you want to look specifically for that one.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
If you're not an athlete, you know, looking for those
is great. There's no reason for you not to take those.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Those are great ways of knowing that you know the
supplement doesn't have banded substances, right, it's going to be
a much clean your supplement for you. But also USP
is another label you can look for. We have some
pictures here we're going to try and attach in the
podcast notes so you guys.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Can see what those look like.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
But those are some ways to kind of get a
visual check that you know this is something that would
likely be safe for me. There's no game and tees ever,
but these things have been tested and you can feel
much much more comfortable taking supplements with those certifications associated
with them.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Yeah, definitely, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Yeah, and so I think for NCAA definitely need to
have sport, so NSF started y for sport or informed
choice for sport. But like just said, if you are
competing at any sort of league or elite level, definitely
check with your governing body or you know a sports
dietician that is skilled and that you can really get
some good help with that. Like some common companies like
(32:30):
thorn is a big one, Clean with a K, Momentous.
Those are all brands that are NSF started by for sport,
but just make sure the one that you're.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Purchasing does say that. So yeah, I think that's really important.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
And if you have more questions on creating, We're around
social media all the time, so you can you can
tag us on Stronger You or drop in questions that
you have and doctor Justin I will be there any
closing thoughts for us on creating today.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
You know the one thing I want to add and
I hope not I hope, but I feel many of
you may bee leading here convinced that creating is important
to take and I would agree. It is something that
I definitely recommend. Seems to have so many benefits, again
beyond just for the athletic population we're seeing more and more.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
One thing we didn't.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
Talk about is that it is inexpensive. It is not
one of those supplements that's going to break the bank.
I mean, it is cheap, It's been around forever. You
just need playing creating mine hydrate. You don't have think
anything that Again, like Jianna was talking about, with a
bunch of other supplements and ingredients in there that can
drive up the expense of it, and so it's cheap,
it's effective, it's been well researched, it's safe, and so
(33:38):
it is something I really think that most adults should
consider taking.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Yeah, I agree, you're here, doctor Jess. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
We will listen to all of our members and listeners
on what supplement we should chat about next, because I
think these are really informative and hopefully we have given
some people more things to consider in their programming for nutrition.
So if you need help on understanding your personal nutrition
needs through food and through supplements, all of our coaches
(34:08):
are ready to help you. So find us at stronger
you dot com and their special offers for you as
listeners to the podcast. So reach out to us and
we'll tell you more about that. Thank you so much, guys,
Thank you for listening to Stronger You Radio. For more
information about how you can get started with a stronger
You coach, visit stronger.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
You dot com or click the link in the episode description.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
As a special thank you for listening, we have a
Stronger You discount code just.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
For our listeners.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Use the code Radio fifty at checkout for fifty percent
off your first month of coaching with Stronger You. Tune
in next time for more health and nutrition conversations.
Welcome back to another episode of Stronger You Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
This is your host Gianna Massey.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
I'm a registered dietitian and manager of nutrition education at
Stronger You. On the show today, we're welcoming back doctor
Jessica Bachman, who also works with me here at Stronger
You Nutrition.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Welcome to the Stronger You Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Stronger You Radio brings insightful conversations with top nutrition, health
and fitness experts, hosted by Stronger You dietitians and nationally
certified coaches skilled at simplifying nutrition science into actionable advice.
Get inspired with evidence based practical tips to optimize your
(00:46):
potential and crush your body composition, health and performance goals.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
This is your time to level up and become a
Stronger You.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Doctor Bachman has a PhD in Nutrition science with a
folks on exercise science, and she is also a registered dietitian,
which is a big deal to have both of those
credentials of.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
PhD and RD.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
So today we sat down to talk about all things creatine.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
We really treated.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
This as a Q and A on creatine because we
both receive a lot of questions on this topic. So
we cover the who, what, when and why of supplementing
with creatine. We talk about the special populations that may
benefit from creatine and finally how to choose a safe supplement,
and so much more so thanks for listening in.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Let's get into.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
It, doctor Bachman, Doctor Jess, thank you so much for
being on the Stronger You Radio today. We always love
to chat together on all things nutrition, science and application
and at Stronger You, as you know, we take a
practical approach and an effective approach, so we're not going
to have you do some random things that just don't
(01:59):
make sense in terms of nutrition. And we're also the
same way in terms of supplementation. And so when this
topic of creating came up, I know you and I
were like, well, this makes so much sense because if
our members do want to supplement, this is a very
well researched and well backed supplement that they may be
interested in.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
A lot of our members are already already taking.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
It, some are interested in it, and there's lots of
different life phases and special populations that can definitely benefit
from this. And so I thought today we could just
dive in, do a little Q and a go over
all of the common questions we get from people and
just cover all that is creatine today.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
So thanks for being here, You're welcome, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
All right, And so it's my favorite time every four years,
the Olympics, many people's favorite.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
And one of the things as I was.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Pulling research for creatine today is I thought it was
really fun that the nineteen ninety two Barcelona Games is
where we started to see athletes, actually gold medal athletes
talking about taking creatine for the first time. So the
actual supplement creating has been discovered in the eighteen hundreds.
It was eighteen thirty two when it was discovered. So
(03:13):
in nutrition science, Jess and I know that there's a
lot of things that are new and emerging, but clearly
this one has been around for a very long time,
which is also why it is so well researched.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
So I do want to.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Just set the scene with that that's very important and
it has a very high bioavailability.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
And for those who are like, what does that mean,
that means your body can actually use it.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
We're actually able to absorb it and benefit from it.
So it is very efficacious. And so Jess, can you
just tell us what is creating? What is the general
statement of what is creating in the supplement.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Yeah, I'd be happy too.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
And you know this, who knows this podcast will go live?
But watching some sprinting last night in the Olympics, they
definitely reblined on creating a lot to get there. Those
people are incredible, incredible athletes.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
So creating is a non essential nutrient.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
That means that we do not have to consume it
because our body actually does make some of it ourselves,
but we do also consume it in food. It's survived
in the meinolacids, methyamine, glyciine, urgenine. It is primarily stored
in our muscles, both as creatine or creatine phosphate, and
again advice do make some on our own, about one
to two maybe three grams per day, really a little
(04:24):
bit of individual variability there. But we also consume it
primarily in meat, so red meat, seafood. There's some in poultry,
a little bit less than red meat and seafood, but
we consume about one to two grams per day as well.
It plays a really key role in energy production, and
so it's our body's primary way of getting atp which
(04:44):
is our energy source. In our muscles resynthesize and so
creatine again in the form of creating phosphate. It donates
the phosphate over to the in release of energy when
it donates the phosphate group, which that energy is then
created used to create more ATP, which is that energy
currency for our body. And so it's used primarily in
events that take you know, up to about ten seconds,
(05:06):
maybe a tiny bit longer than that, but it's used
as a really.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Quick source of energy.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
So high intensity, short duration activities is where most of
the creating research has been in the past. And we'll
talk about some of the more common research we're seeing
now as well in other areas, but really these high intensity,
short duration activities is where most of the creating supplement
and creating research has come from.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah, thank you, Jessin.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
I think it's important for people to hear that even
if you're not somebody that's like sprinting on a track
or doing something maybe traditional or maybe not traditional for
you outside like that, it can still benefit you. If
you're doing resistance training and lifting in the gym, anything
like that, it is very advantageous. So for all of
our listeners, you know, no matter your skill level, if
(05:51):
you're an Olympic sprinter, or if you're somebody who's just
trying to get in shape at the gym, this can
absolutely benefit you in terms of the duration of your
power or output and how long you can go.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
So that is very important.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
So I like to tee that up and I think of,
you know, I just said, we can go longer, and
you can go more powerfully. And as we think about
our maybe like potential of hypertrophy or our muscle building,
creating can also support us in that. So in terms
of how much muscle you're able to build, that will
(06:26):
obviously depend on are you eating enough protein first? Are
you on a periodized program? Are you actually following a
lifting program, You're not bouncing around and doing random programs
every different day, and really stick to something where you're
getting overload and progressive overload going there.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
So that is very important to pair with enough protein.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
And so for our vegetarian and vegan friends listening, absolutely
you can get your creatin stores up through supplementing, but
it may just take you a little bit longer to
get that saturation point as someone who maybe eats more
poultry or meat, like Jess was saying in the beginning,
And I think.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
About follop and that, like, what is the benefit of
supplementing creating?
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Like, if we're making already, you're getting it in your food.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
What we do know that the amounts that we have
and create in our body and the amounts we didn't
get from food, they are not going to maximize the
total amount that we can store in our muscles. And
so yes, we do get some and those are great sources.
But even for those of us who are meat eaters,
there are benefits of adding a creating supplement as well.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
So how can creating benefit athletes or just the active
population we talked about a little bit already.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
But yeah, so again like traditionally, where you see most
of the research it started with was looking at and
it's primary what makes the most sense for what.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
It typically is used for is for short duration.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
High intensity and aerobic So when you need an energy source,
you don't have oxygen available because we know we create
a lot of the ATP and energy in our body
by the systems that require oxygen or that's actually breaking
down carbohydrates and creating ATP in that way. That takes
some time. It's not immediate, and so sports that you
don't have enough time for the auction to actually get
(08:10):
to yourselves and create new ATP and so really high
intensey like a sprint, really pulling up a deadlift, you know,
things that require a really quick response and really quick
energy needs. That's where that quick mouval of the phosphate
group to produce the energy to create more ATP. That's
where creating phosphate really comes in. However, there is quite
(08:30):
a bit of newer research too. You know, you think
about endurance exercise and well we'll talk about that a
little bit more later on, but endurance exercise, you're not
running at the same pace the whole time. So whenever
there's a time period where you do a little bit
more of a surge, or if you really want to
run at the end of the mile, you want to
do like a sprint towards those last smile there to
beat the other people. And these people, these Olympians running
(08:50):
a mile and under like four minutes is not like
seeing them do that is crazy. But they even even
though they're basically sprinting the whole time, they sprint even
more towards that last fifty meters one hundred meters or so.
And so when you're picking up the pace from endurance
activities and you have.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
That surge of energy you're requiring.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
You can also rely to you on your creating boss
Phaed stores for that too.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Yeah, and I think that's exciting because not only is
it helping you acutely in that actual race or in
that specific movement, it's also the muscle potential. So if
someone's gaining muscle and able to maintain that muscle with creatine,
then you're seeing that response.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Help you in that event.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
So if we have listeners who are triathletes, are just
you know, doing endurance sports for fun, doing those fun
spartan races or things like that, you kind of get
a two fold benefit there. It's like from your training
and then on the day of the event, which is exciting.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
I think I'm pretty pumped about it.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
All right, So now everyone knows, okay, I want to
take creatine, what is the recommended dosage? And so this
is something I will be online like constantly seeing people
argue about and there's really two answers, but I want
to summarize it for people that there's a loading phase
and this is commonly said.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Oh you need to load, or no, you don't need
to load.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
You can do a loading phase, and what that means
is you take a high dosage, so that's twenty grams
per day, divide it into four doses throughout the day
for about a week, So that's a loading phase. And
the thought behind that is you'll saturate your muscles, you'll
get the creatine up quicker. But what we know now
is that you can just take a consistent amount three
(10:33):
to five grams per day for you know, an extended time,
and you'll get there. So both slow and SETI gets
you to the same place. So why would I not
want to creatine load? Maybe some GI distress. I actually
had an athlete I was working with who did not
listen to my recommendations of five grams a day, and
(10:53):
they came back and they were like, oh, yeah, I
had diarrhea.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
That was not fun.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
So it's not super common, Like people don't get GI
upset from creating.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
So if you're listening and you're.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Worried about that, no, that does not happen at three
to five gram dosage. It's just when you're at a
very high dose at one time, it's very concentrated. Your
GI system can't really tolerate that. Well, so, yeah, I
just want to start with that dosage.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Any comments on that, just yeah, no, definitely, I've had
people do both.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
I personally, I do take five grams and creatine per day.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
I just to me, it's also.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Easier to mix some water like the more like powder
you're adding to something to it, maybe a little chalk
here and doesn't have a flavor, but it's just the
five grams makes it in so easy with like a
protein shake.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
I have no issue there whatsoever with it.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Never had someone have a problem with five grams per day,
So I agree, like, just sticking with that and you'll
get to your max load.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Yeah, And I think for while we're on the subject
of how much, usually the next question is well when
should I take it? And the when is there's there's
definitely research to show like, oh, you could benefit pre
workout or post workout. Our consensus here at Stronger You
is do it at the time that you can be
the most consistent with it. So if doctor Jess prefers
(12:03):
to take it before her workout and I prefer to
take it after my workout.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
That is just fine.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
If it's away from your workout and the morning smoothie
or at night in your water. We just want you
to get it in consistently, so you'll get that amount over.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Time, consistently every day. That's the most important thing. Mine's
first thing in the morning, because I remember, that's just
the easiest thing. That's when I get like the essentials
in is okay?
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Yeah, exactly like your habit stacking. When are you going
to do the thing? So you make sure it gets done.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
I think something else, you know, whenever we're working with
people on body composition, this comes up and it's, oh,
creating will make me gain weight or I'll gain fat
from creatine, and so can we talk about what creatine
does with the water retention or this potential weight that
people are concerned about.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Yeah, we can definitely.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
See that for quite a few people. Nothing's ever all
or none, right, so it's required you people, you do
see some initial water retention, and so creating just tends
also full water into your muscles when you first start
taking it, and so it's not uncommon to see two
to four pounds up on the scale if there's someone
who's weighing yourself regularly. You start taking creatine, that goes
away after a few days. Of not a few weeks
(13:13):
at the very very most. And so it is this
initial rush of water. It's not backain. It's unfortunately not
muscle gain right away. Although creating does help you put
on muscle, that's over time, right that's nothing that There
is no easy way to put on a ton of
muscle really really fast, or at least no.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Legal easy way to do that.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
And so it is just water weight. So it's really
nothing to worry about. Again, who cares about the scale weight.
It's about what you're doing to help your body support,
change your body comp towards what you wanted to move towards,
and so nothing at all to be concerned about. Is
just a short term water weight gain. If you are
an athlete that's competing on a stage, or you are
in a weight based sport and you need to weigh
(13:51):
a certain amount, it's to hit into certain criteria. Just
be careful and consider about when you start taking creating.
If you're taking all the time, that will stabilize, I
don't have to worry about that, you'll be at your
regular weight, like there'd be no ships after that initial
time here first start taking it, So definitely start earlier
on in the process.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
It's not something you'd want.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
To do a day or two before, or even a
week before, not knowing what that's going to do to
your weight or even the look. I mean for some
people it does make your muscles look a little bit
more full because you're adding more water to them, But
you wouldn't want to manipulate that without knowing exactly how
your body responds. So definitely take it early in your training,
you know, well before you're weighing in.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Or getting on the stage. That way, you know how
your body.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Responds, and you get to that stabilized level of taking
the same amount every single day plenty of time in advanced.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Yeah, that's great advice.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
I remember when I've worked with wrestlers before, like in
their off season, We'll get them used to taking creating,
get them accustomed to their weight and where they're at,
and then if they needed to, then they could, you know,
they could do like a pause for a couple of
months if they're weighing in. But yeah, I would definitely
not have them start it right before their weigh into
the start of the season. That would be a little
(14:56):
a little dicey for their control that they need on
their weight. So I think that's great to explain that
to people. Is it time for you to level up?
Speaker 2 (15:05):
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Speaker 2 (15:52):
That's SU Radio fifty. This is where a Stronger You begins.
Let's do this.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
So one of the questions that comes up is is
creating safe for long term use? And you know, we
mentioned that this is one of the or if not
the most research supplement that is out there, which is
kind of amazing in the nutrition science world, and so
long term use of.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Creating at these dosages that like Jess and I.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Are talking about these three to five grams per day,
maybe even a little bit more than that is safe
for healthy individuals, and that doesn't affect the kidney or
liver function. Where there's pause, and I've talked to different
nephrologists on this too, where there's pause or maybe you
want to reconsider, is if you have a pre existing
kidney disease. That's where your kidney function maybe is already
(16:42):
a little compromise.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
That's where you'd want to talk to your provider.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
But we can confidently say that creatine is safe and
it's not going to all of a sudden hurt your
kidney overnight.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Again, so in their body is produced, we consume it
in food, so you're just kind of having a little
bit more. And we're only barely going to touch on
some of the benefits we see is like brain helps
potentially they're coming out right now, and some of that
research is using up to ten grams per day because
five grams will maximize your muscle storage and so if
you want to have extra creating available to help supply
your brain with energy, and some of the research again
(17:14):
that's there they even go up to ten grams and
they are taking that longer term amounts and so definitely
safe the levels that are typically recommended.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Love that, Yeah, thank you, Jess.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
So how quickly can athletes expect to see results from
creating supplementation?
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Yeah, so, you know, it varies by the person, but
you see in general that many athletes start to feel
and see benefits and improvements and performance within a week
of starting creating supplementation, and so there's definitely a pretty
fast turnaround. Again, you also might see your muscles looking
a little bit more full too from that water retention,
which you know, that's a lot of how you're feeling.
(17:52):
And if you're trying to put on muscle mass and
you're seeing yourself a look a little bigger, that's motivating
to keep going and.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Lift stronger too. And so there's a lot of.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Benefits there that goes great into this next question, which
is does creating benefit weight loss? And we can expand
that even to fat loss and body composition in general.
I'd love to hear more from you about that subject.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Most of what we see with creating it's impact on
weight loss and we'll talk about the different components of
body composition two is that it mostly has an impact
by allowing you to work harder, do more at the gym. Right,
you have more energy to do more, you're lifting have
your weights, and so you're burning more calories overall. There
is some interesting research about body composition changes with creatine
(18:35):
where they can see that people tend to maintain and
build more muscle. And so if you're on a track
we're trying to lose weight, you know, combining creating with
that kind of benefits of losing more body fat versus
losing muscle mass because you're also doing things to protect
and build muscle while you're losing weight. So definitely some
benefits more and body composition change. But creating itself is
(18:56):
not a weight loss supplementation to take you though it
does had that direct impackage through its impact on performance
and then potentially changing body composition.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
So I still have to show up to the gym,
still have to do the work to get the benefit
your protein.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Yes, but that's really important because I think with any
coloric deficit or any type of diet someone is following,
if you're listening, that you will unfortunately lose a little
bit of our muscle mass.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
That's just one of the side effects.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
And actually Jess can probably give me some better stats
on the amounts I'm blinking right now. But if we
can attenuate that and hold on to that, I mean
that's a win. So I think any any way I
can hold onto my muscle while I'm losing fat, that's
what I want to do.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Long term, long term benefits there are best.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
So we just talked about the benefits of the body
composition and preserving all of that muscle mass. So how
does creatin support muscle building itself?
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Talked about that a little bit about a little bit,
I think just in general.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
So it's that you have more energy to lift more,
and so it gives you the ability to not do
three reps, maybe you can do five reps instead, And
so it encourages enhances your ability to do things in
the gym that induce muscle hypertrophy rate. It allows you
to work harder, to lift more to build more muscle.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
From that, got it? That makes sense?
Speaker 1 (20:19):
And so you already mentioned a little bit more on
the endurance performance, but anything if I'm an endurance athlete listening,
that might be good to call out here.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Yeah, think in general, just to raise awareness because creating
has been for so long thought of a benefit for
those short, high intensity, short duration performance improvements, it really
doesn't a lot of benef It's an endurance performance, and
we're seeing more and more research come out about that. Again,
there's typically not any endurance activity where you're just going
steady state the whole time, right. Think about when you're running,
(20:51):
when you're swimming, when you're rowing. There's individual time periods
where you're putting in higher amounts of effort. And so
if you're burning a steady amount of energy and YOURQI
firing that amount energy to stay at your current pace,
anytime you're working a little bit harder, it's going to
be that increase of energy required. And so those spurts
of effort that all out towards the end, having your
(21:12):
maximize levels of creating phosphate available to produce more and
resynthesize atp are very beneficial for that.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
There's also some even newer.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Research that's examining how you can enhance anaerobic work capacity
by coadjusting ingesting creatine with carbohydrates. So it seems to
heighten glycogen resynthesis as well, and so it's beyond just
the impact on creating phosphate levels, but also potentially something
with glycogen being recentthesized at a greater rate when you're
(21:42):
taking creatine, the more glecogen stores you have, right that
your longer term source of energy. Is a lot of
research on how much glecogen you store and your time
to exhaustion, so how long you can perform and exercise
about for and so anything we can do to increase
glycogen stores and resynthesis can all also benefit endurance activities.
So lots of new research coming out in that area too.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Yeah, I'm just seeing my friend who just finished her
second iron man. I'm like, yeah, that sounds very advantageous
for her to do that. So that's great, thank you, Jess.
And then I think we'll go into a couple of
i'll call them complimentary benefits. Some people will be like, oh, yes,
this is why I might be interested in it other
than what we've already covered. And some of those topics
(22:26):
are bone health, menopause, cognition.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
So we'll go through a couple of those.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Right now at a pretty high level. But so in
terms of impact on bone health that creatine has, can
you tell us a little bit about that?
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Yeah, I think if you haven't.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
You know, the audience that's listening to this podcast is
maybe focused a lot on like body composition and muscle
and that, and so you may not remember, being from
a high school biology class that bone is very similar
to muscle, where it's constantly breaking down and being rebuilt. Right,
there's this turnover that's happening with our bones all the time,
just like there are with muscles. And so you have
the little guys inside your bones called osteoblasts, and I
(23:03):
always remembered from high school biology that blast is build
so osteoblasts, those are the cell that helped to build
new bone, osteoclass break it down.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
And so what we're finding with creatine is that creating.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Actually has a role in increasing osteoblasts, so bone building
activity inside of our bones, and so it encouraged bone building,
bone maintenance, and so preserving bone health, especially as we're aging,
you know, is.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Very very important.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
So this is a newer area again, more and more
research coming out about that that there is a role
for creatine in maintaining bone health as well.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Yeah, sign me up. That sounds great, yes.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
And then that also segues really nicely into another population,
which is our menopause population, and you know, creatine is
beneficial for all the reasons we already spoke about, particularly
to counteract some of those common concerns that arise during
the menopause transition. As our body composition, our muscle mass.
(24:03):
We know that as we age, unfortunately, we are more
susceptible to losing muscle mass, and it's harder to build
muscle mass. Not impossible, but it is just more challenging
as we age.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Any comments on that topic.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Yeah, there's a lot of things that happen during menopause
where estrogen is one hormone that's very protective of our
bone health, of our muscle mass, and going through the
menopause transition, we're producing less and less estrogen over time,
and so anything we can do to counteract the impacts
of that, reduce estrogen levels, to maintain bone health, to
(24:38):
maintain and build more muscle is extremely helpful.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
And so creating again.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Has the impact on allowing us to work harder, to
build more muscle, to maintain our strength over time.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
It has an impact now we know, to maintaining.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Bone health overall, and so lots of benefits of the
major things, the major concerns. We see while people are
going through the menopause transition that creating can have a
pretty the impact.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
On Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
And again if you just you know, fast forwarded to
this part, it's like creating in addition to eating enough
dietary protein with that resistance training, I mean, then you'll
have a trifecta which is really powerful for all of
these populations, no matter how you know, young or older
we are.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
Let's add in sleep plenty and reduce stress to gie
and then we'll.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Be we need the real uh what is that? Five?
Like all the things.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
And so when we talk about an aging population, and
you know, I'll put even doctor Jess and I in this,
we're all aging.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
As we get older, we lose some of.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Our power production. Jess is laughing at me. Are you
laughing because I said you we're old?
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Yeah, I am close to turning forty one, So I
guess we're over the hill at this cinking.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
But I just read something the other day. I was like, oh,
we're thirty five.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
I'm like, yep, okay, here we are. So I don't
know if everyone knows this, So I do want to
ground as like, as we get older we do lose
some of our force production, our power production, and that
is also why it's important to keep power in your
exercise and lifting routine. So if you're working with the
trainer or you're going to classes, you're likely doing some
(26:15):
form of power but you can ask, you know, hey,
what am I doing? That is a power movement, right,
So if you're someone that can do box jumps, great,
If that's not in your library of exercises, there's other
lower body power that you can do that's still accessible
to you in a variety of different abilities. So I
do just want to first say that, so you definitely
(26:35):
want to have that in tandem with your creatine intake.
So creating stores do decline with aging, and so that's
also why it might be wise for older adults to
supplement with creatine along their protein intake. And as we're
talking about aging and healthy aging, we have to talk
about cognitive function and this.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
One comes up for a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
And I don't think that this is something just valued
in an aging population anymore. Maybe it was in the past,
but I think younger adults are even more interested in this,
and it's exciting because we are seeing more research across
the board on this and specifically with creating, we've seen
some more research to suggest improvements and cognitive function. So
(27:19):
could you educate us a little on that.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Jess makes me laugh because I do feel like my
short term memory is getting members.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
At the rifled age of almost forty.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
One, So we're just talking about my age and how
old I am. But yeah, so this is an area
that again if you try and look at like the
details and exact mechanisms for why, like definitely new in discovery,
but there does seem to be a benefit for creating
and improving memory, particularly older adults and also specifically with
like short term memory quick thinking, But definitely a lot
(27:51):
more research to understand the impact. There might be a
thing where your brain can use more phosphic creating and
produce energy than even other muscles, even more than muscle,
and so there's definitely an air of interest there. Of course,
it's a big area that people want to know a
lot more information about at this time.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Yeah, definitely, And so I think that if you're considering creating,
if that's a big draw for you, I mean, you
have so many other benefits that are proven and showing
effective that this could be like the cherry on top.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
If we do get more and more studies that come out.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
So I do think it's worthwhile to look into that
for yourself. One area being an athletic population in my
background is like for anyone with you know, a TBI
or concussions, if you're playing sports that.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Has a concussion risk.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
I always tell my athletes, I will not have you
take creating to avoid a concussion, because unfortunately concussions aren't
really avoidable sometimes.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
And but what creating.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Can help you do is start in a better place
than had you not been supplementing. So that is something
if you know you have kids, or you yourself are
in maybe a high impact sport, that's something to consider
as an their benefit as well. So we're kind of
giving you a sampling of all these benefits here today.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
And there are there are a couple of myths.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Around creatine and we kind of debunk them throughout this
education today. But one of my favorites that I hear
online is or from parents.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Sometimes they'll be like, is creatine a steroid?
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Like I don't want my athlete taking a steroid, And no,
it is not a steroid. Because doctor Jess just went
through where it's derived from, and it's actually we produce.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
It in our bodies, so not to worry on that.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
No legal dietary supplements. So definitely not a steroid. I
would be taking steroids, and I take creatine every single day.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Yes, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
And then in terms of all right, I'm hooked, I'm ready,
doctor Jess, and I sold you on taking creatine. So
how do I know which supplement to pick? And I
think there's two things we have to talk about. Which
is the form creating monohydrate is the form that we recommend.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
You don't need to.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Take any other type of creatine. This is the most
effective and recommended and researched form. And so if you're
looking at supplements, please be aware of proprietary mixes. You
do not need to take creatine mixed in with something else.
It is often mixed with pre workout sometimes or in
certain like energy drinks. That's fine, but I wouldn't rely
(30:19):
on that to be your sole source of creatine. Meaning
if you need to take creatine every single day, I
don't want you to have to rely on an energy
drink in order to get your creatine. So make sure
that you have a supplement that is just your creatine monohydrate,
and then Jess can tell us a little bit more
about the symbols or emblems on certain supplements that we
(30:40):
might want you to look for.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
Yeah, particularly right, so how can you decide which which
one to take? You're going to see there's a lot
of creatine monohydrate options that are out there, many great
options out there too. I mean there's different things that
you need to look forward depending on what your level
of that lot like performance is. And so definitely look
at if you're an athlete, look at the specific requirements
for your sport and whatever league your sport is governed
(31:03):
by currently, because there are going to be specific things
out there in general, the two that you'll see most
often recommended across most of especially in the US, most
of the sports and the leagues that will you'll be
an athlete within. You want to look for NSF certified
for sport and so that is one company that certifies
and make sure there's no banned substances in there, again,
(31:25):
depending on your sports, and make sure you confirm that.
The other one that's very common is informed and choice,
and there is informed choice for sports specifically, and so
you want to look specifically for that one.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
If you're not an athlete, you know, looking for those
is great. There's no reason for you not to take those.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Those are great ways of knowing that you know the
supplement doesn't have banded substances, right, it's going to be
a much clean your supplement for you. But also USP
is another label you can look for. We have some
pictures here we're going to try and attach in the
podcast notes so you guys.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Can see what those look like.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
But those are some ways to kind of get a
visual check that you know this is something that would
likely be safe for me. There's no game and tees ever,
but these things have been tested and you can feel
much much more comfortable taking supplements with those certifications associated
with them.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Yeah, definitely, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Yeah, and so I think for NCAA definitely need to
have sport, so NSF started y for sport or informed
choice for sport. But like just said, if you are
competing at any sort of league or elite level, definitely
check with your governing body or you know a sports
dietician that is skilled and that you can really get
some good help with that. Like some common companies like
(32:30):
thorn is a big one, Clean with a K, Momentous.
Those are all brands that are NSF started by for sport,
but just make sure the one that you're.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Purchasing does say that. So yeah, I think that's really important.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
And if you have more questions on creating, We're around
social media all the time, so you can you can
tag us on Stronger You or drop in questions that
you have and doctor Justin I will be there any
closing thoughts for us on creating today.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
You know the one thing I want to add and
I hope not I hope, but I feel many of
you may bee leading here convinced that creating is important
to take and I would agree. It is something that
I definitely recommend. Seems to have so many benefits, again
beyond just for the athletic population we're seeing more and more.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
One thing we didn't.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
Talk about is that it is inexpensive. It is not
one of those supplements that's going to break the bank.
I mean, it is cheap, It's been around forever. You
just need playing creating mine hydrate. You don't have think
anything that Again, like Jianna was talking about, with a
bunch of other supplements and ingredients in there that can
drive up the expense of it, and so it's cheap,
it's effective, it's been well researched, it's safe, and so
(33:38):
it is something I really think that most adults should
consider taking.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Yeah, I agree, you're here, doctor Jess. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
We will listen to all of our members and listeners
on what supplement we should chat about next, because I
think these are really informative and hopefully we have given
some people more things to consider in their programming for nutrition.
So if you need help on understanding your personal nutrition
needs through food and through supplements, all of our coaches
(34:08):
are ready to help you. So find us at stronger
you dot com and their special offers for you as
listeners to the podcast. So reach out to us and
we'll tell you more about that. Thank you so much, guys,
Thank you for listening to Stronger You Radio. For more
information about how you can get started with a stronger
You coach, visit stronger.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
You dot com or click the link in the episode description.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
As a special thank you for listening, we have a
Stronger You discount code just.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
For our listeners.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Use the code Radio fifty at checkout for fifty percent
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in next time for more health and nutrition conversations.
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