Pros & Cons Of Creatine: Is Creatine Safe? |
Pros and cons of creatine: Is creatine safe? (Part 1)
Creatine monohydrate is the one of the best selling supplements of all time and for good reason; it can increase workout performance. However there is a lot of misinformation about creatine so this article will dispel some myths about creatine supplementation. The pros and cons of creatine monohydrate will be considered including creatine side effects and the benefits of creatine.
What is creatine?
Creatine is a natural compound that occurs in vertebrates (basically anything with bones) to help supply energy to muscles and nerve cells. It is made up from three amino acids: arginine, glycine and methionine (learn more about amino acids). Creatine is simply then a combination of three amino acids and cannot be classed as a steroid, so all of the side effects associated with steroids cannot be transferred to the usage of creatine.
Creatine is completely natural and can be found in high protein sources such as meat, poultry and fish. About 95% of creatine in the human body can be found in skeletal muscle tissue; this is also the reason why animal meat sources contain the highest amounts of creatine.
As creatine itself is a natural substance that is consumed regularly by meat eaters the chances of any harmful side effects of creatine consumed from your normal diet are fundamentally non-existent.
Creatine Supplements
Why Do People Supplement With Creatine?
As stated previously creatine can be found in natural meat sources, however the human body has a greater ability to store creatine than the amount we can consume found in meat sources. As an example, red meat contains about 1g of creatine per lb (the meat source with the most abundance of creatine) but the body has the ability to consume about 10g of creatine daily that can be stored. Therefore 10lb of red meat must be consumed daily to fully saturate the body’s creatine stores. Apart from being completely impractical, expensive and highly calorific it is basically impossible to consume this amount of fresh red meat every single day.
Creatine monohydrate supplements provide pure creatine monohydrate in a simple powdered form and as creatine does not contain calories there is no problem with fat gain. Supplementation is therefore the only practical way to saturate the body and gain the most benefit from creatine.
How Creatine Supplements Work
When creatine enters the body it binds with a phosphate molecule to form creatine phosphate (phosphocreatine) – this is important to provide energy to muscle cells and its use will be explained further below.
Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP) is the energy source that your body uses to perform almost every function including muscle contraction. ATP provides energy by hydrolysing a phosphate group and when this happens energy is given off to power whatever process needs that energy.
Once that phosphate group has been lost from the ATP it turns into Adenosine Diphosphate (ADP) made as a by-product of the hydrolysis of ATP. ADP is a waste product of the production of energy and is therefore useless, unless a phosphate molecule can be found to transform it back into ATP.
The phosphocreatine now can donate its phosphate molecule to the ADP and transform it back into ATP, a useable energy source that can be used to power muscle contractions.
Consuming a creatine supplement will allow for more creatine phosphate to be made, in turn allowing for greater ATP stores and the transformation of ADP, a waste product back into ATP, an energy source that can power muscle contractions. In essence the consumption of creatine monohydrate allows you to train for longer periods at higher intensity increasing your performance.
Other Benefits Of Creatine Supplements
Creatine also has other benefits for anyone looking to gain muscle mass. When performing anaerobic exercise such as weight lifting creatine phosphate stores are the primary source of energy so increasing these stores with supplementation is of great importance.
Secondly, creatine has the ability to super hydrate muscle cells. This benefit of creatine cannot be overlooked as a hydrated muscle cell creates many positive effects on anabolism (muscle building). Amongst the benefits is an increase in protein synthesis and nitrogen retention; due the fact that the cell holds more water it literally sucks in nutrients including nitrogen and amino acids. The reason why this is anabolic is for another article but an increase in protein synthesis and higher nitrogen retention allows for greater muscle building capacity.
Is Creatine Safe? Purported Creatine Side Effects
In short, creatine has been widely used for nearly 30 years, with actual scientific studies being compiled well before this. After this period of creatine supplementation in the public domain and with an abundance of scientific studies being performed no adverse side-effects (that impair the body’s function in any way) have been found. Below is a list of some of the supposed side-effects of creatine supplementation.
Kidney Problems
Any claims that creatine supplementation in the short, medium or long term damages the kidneys or impairs renal function is not backed by one single scientific study
Creatine Causes Dehydration Or Muscle Cramps
Again there is no scientific evidence to show that creatine causes muscle dehydration or muscle cramps. In fact creatine does the opposite, hydrating muscle cells.
Long Term Side Effects
If you haven’t guessed from reading this article so far, creatine is a completely natural substance that we consume on a daily basis. The notion that by supplementing with a pure extracted form of creatine somehow makes creatine unsafe is completely unfounded with not one peer reviewed, unbiased scientific study to prove any claims. Other claims such as by consuming higher doses of creatine than would usually be ingested from a normal diet may place excess strain on the body (in particular the kidneys) seem to, upon first inspection have merit. However, again there is no evidence to support this.
Conclusion
Creatine is a completely natural substance that is scientifically proven to increase power and strength output, increase anaerobic energy and help build lean muscle mass. Whilst the purported unwanted side effects of creatine that seem to flood the marketplace are completely unfounded. The fact is, if you want to build a toned body then creatine can help you reach you goal faster than if you didn’t take it. Creatine isn’t completely necessary but it will make the pursuit of your goals a lot easier.
For more information about taking creatine such as the best time to consume creatine and creatine loading and maintenance phases you can read Part 2 of this article... Coming Soon!
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