What is Creatine? If you ever searched for fitness supplements, there’s a good chance that you’ve stumbled upon the supplement Creatine. The science of creatine deals with energy production, specifically in replenishing used energy. As humans, we use the molecule ATP as our energy source. Unfortunately, your muscle cells want to keep ATP levels in the cell at a minimum. Reason being is that if we use too much energy at once, it will cause cells to be acidic and muck up all cellular functions.

The muscle cells require the assistance of creatine kinase to combat this. When ATP is used, creatine kinase helps keep the acid levels in check by taking out hydrogen ions.

On top of that, creatine kinase also takes another byproduct from used ATP called ADP and brings it to its buddy phosphocreatine to replenish ATP. This system of energy production, known as the Phosphagen system, is the system used to produce energy for the first 10 seconds of intense physical activity before other energy production from other sources, such as sugar glucose and fat, is even utilized.

Table of Contents

• What is Creatine ?
• How and how much you should take Creatine ?
• what about the dangerous side effects you’ve heard about creatine?

What is Creatine ?

Where creatine comes in is the production of phosphocreatine. Our body doesn’t like too many ATP molecules in cells, so whenever our body has excess ATP, ATP reacts with creatine to formulate phosphocreatine. The more creatine in your body, the more phosphocreatine produced, the more energy you can replenish. This is where creatine supplementation comes into play. Although your body can naturally synthesize creatine from the breakdown of the amino acids glycine and arginine, studies consistently show that taking creatine supplements can be beneficial, especially with increasing power output. According to a meta-analysis, after taking a creatine monohydrate supplement, individuals improved their power output by up to 26%. But one thing that creatine supplementation does not do which many people believes it does is increase muscle mass, well at least not directly.

The two ways that muscle mass might increase with creatine is by providing more energy for higher power output, which then provides a greater stimulus for muscle protein synthesis, and by retaining water, which might make muscles seem bigger without adding actual muscle mass. Creatine supplementation has also been linked to replenishing glycogen, which is also important for energy production, reducing depression symptoms, decreasing fatigue. There’s also even study that showed vast improvement on reducing headaches and dizziness from kids that suffered from traumatic brain injury.

How and how much you should take Creatine ?

Many manufacturers recommend a “loading” period, in which you take more creatine for the first week than you would for the following weeks, although research reveals that there is no significant benefit to doing so. The most typically recommended amount that has shown positive benefits is between 5 grams per day and you can decide to stop taking creatine whenever you want to.

what about the dangerous side effects you’ve heard about creatine?

There are legitimate concerns about the effects of creatine on the kidneys and liver, but these concerns have either been debunked or lack any concrete evidence, especially in human trials. The only notable side effect is the retention of water in your cells, which might make you look a little bit more plump and a weigh a bit heavier.

If you have more questions about other popular supplements, Leave your suggestions on the comment section !