Why everyone should consider supplementing with 'Creatine'.
When it comes to exercise performance, you may have heard of the supplement ‘creatine’.
If you have heard of it, it’s rightfully earned the attention it has received due to its numerous performance-enhancing benefits!
But its benefits go beyond this, to the extent that I think everyone could benefit from supplementing with it, even if you don’t strength train (it would be even better if you did though).
Creatine is a substance that is essentially an energy source for your cells. You create some inside your body and you also get it from different food sources such as seafood and various meats such as beef and pork.
So if we already create some, and we get it through our diet, why do we need to supplement?
In a ‘normal diet’ (providing you do eat meat and seafood), you probably only get about 1-2 grams of creatine which isn’t enough to have ‘full stores’ of creatine (creatine is found mostly in your muscle, but also in your brain, kidneys and liver). Supplementing with creatine can increase these stores by around 20% which, as you’re about to see, can have a significant benefit! (1)
Its performance-enhancing effects have been studied extensively, which should give you some comfort in that it’s really safe to use, and its benefits have been repeatedly shown among thousands of studies (so it’s got some strong data behind it to back up these claims).
Considering that your muscles are where the majority of your creatine stores are found, it should make sense that increasing these stores through supplementation (and thus providing more energy for these tissues) can do a lot of good.
Here’s a good concise summary of the benefits (taken from the paper titled “International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: Safety and efficacy of creatine supplementation in exercise, sport, and medicine” (Kreider et al., 2017))
In other words, It helps you with the following:
- The amount of exercise you can perform and handle (think running a little longer, lifting the barbell a few extra times, adding an extra round into your exercise routine and so on).
- How well you can recover (think a little less soreness, being able to turn-around for another session quicker, quicker muscle damage recovery, and being able to rapidly recover your ‘energy stores’).
- And the results you get (more muscle, better body composition, more strength, improved performance measures).
These benefits have been shown among many different populations, so it doesn’t matter how old you are, how often you train, your gender etc. You’re bound to see some performance-enhancing benefits.
These performance-enhancing benefits alone are impressive!
But there’s more, and it goes beyond your physical performance and how you look ...
Remember how creatine stores are also found in your brain?
By a similar mechanism, saturating the creatine stores in your brain through supplementation results in a number of benefits in this region.
Most of the research that has been done, shows improvements in cognitive functioning when the brain’s energy processes are challenged. (3)(4)
What does that mean?
People who are sleep deprived, stressed, ageing, and/or are experiencing chronic issues such as depression/low-mood, traumatic brain injury/ Alzheimers etc. have been shown to have altered energy processes occurring in the brain (eg. low creatine levels in certain areas of the brain) (3)
This is where supplementing with creatine can come in handy be useful, as it can increase the low creatine levels associated with these brain challenges.
How does that help?
Here’s what they’ve shown:
- Aging adults (aged 68-85) had improved measures of memory (3).
- Other studies showed improvements in a few other measures of memory (4).
- Two studies showed improvements in areas of intelligence (4).
- If you’re sleep deprived, creatine supplementation resulted in less of a negative effect (from the sleep deprivation) on movement generation, reaction time, balance and mood (3).
- Mental health disorders such as depression and general anxiety disorder may be improved through supplementation (3).
- If you’ve had a concussion, or traumatic brain injury, creatine supplementation could be beneficial here also (3)!
If you’re experiencing some kind of cognitive challenge, supplementing with creatine looks very promising!
So creatine serves as a great energy source for cells in your brain and muscles. But it may also be acting in another way, and that’s as an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory.
You’ve probably heard the benefits of consuming antioxidants through your diet – they help clean up a lot of the excessive ‘bad stuff’ that circulates your body that can contribute to disease/illness.
There are studies that show creatine may be able to reduce and control this ‘bad stuff’ (such as inflammation and reactive oxygen species) that, if left circulating, can have detrimental effects on your health. (5)
An example of a detrimental effect on your health is cardiovascular disease – a huge public health issue.
Poor vascular health and body-wide inflammation often underlies cardiovascular disease.
A paper by Clarke et al., titled “The Evolving Applications of Creatine Supplementation: Could Creatine Improve Vascular Health?.” (2020) discusses the evidence that creatine may have both direct and indirect antioxidant properties that would reduce harmful levels of oxidate stress/inflammation and potentially improve one’s vascular health. (5)
Additionally, by controlling oxidate stress and inflammation, this would lead to a net positive on your overall health.
This still needs to be studied further, but it looks promising!
If that all sounds too confusing ... there’s the possibility that creatine is doing a lot more than helping you perform better, look better and feel better; it may also be contributing to system-wide health in other ways (such as taking care of damaging free radicals and inflammation).
Want a supplement that will most likely benefit all areas of your health and fitness pursuits? Creatine is the one.
It’s been extensively studied, has shown to have numerous benefits among various population groups, and has proven to be safe.
There aren’t many supplements that have been studied to the extent that creatine has.
There also aren’t many that can match its proven benefits!
**A few notes
- A lot of the studies show enhanced effects from combining with strength training, so don’t leave out that part!
- Don’t worry about fancy types, brand names, etc, just stick with ‘creatine monohydrate’ and one that is substance tested. From there, pick the cheapest!
- How much to take? You can’t go wrong with 5g every day. If you really want to optimise how you take it, there may be a slight advantage to taking it after your workout with some carbohydrates. Or, just take it throughout the day whenever you remember.
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