What Happens to Your Body On Creatine

Introduction

Creatine is one of the most popular supplements for building muscle and increasing athletic performance. Research shows that 45% to 75% of athletes like power lifters, boxers, and weight lifters use creatine. So, what actually happens to your body when you take creatine? Is it safe long-term, and what kind of effects can you expect, both good and bad? Today, we're going to take a journey inside of your body to see exactly what happens after creatine is consumed.

The Discovery and Natural Production of Creatine

Less than 200 years ago, we didn’t even know what would happen because it wasn’t until 1832 that it was discovered by French scientists. They successfully extracted it from beef. It was only then that we started to learn that this molecule is very common and it gets produced by mammals from the amino acids glycine, methionine, and arginine. Specifically, your body primarily produces creatine out of these amino acids in the liver, although it's also synthesized to a lesser extent in the kidneys and pancreas.

Creatine Storage in the Body

Research shows that a 70-kilogram (155-pound) man with an average physique naturally has about 120 grams of creatine stored in his body without any supplementation. About 90% to 95% of this creatine is located within his muscle cells where the creatine can quickly be used to provide benefits for energy production and athletic performance. The other 5% to 10% of creatine can be found all over the body in other cells and tissues, including the brain.

While your body creates about 1 to 2 grams of creatine per day on its own, you can also get more creatine from food or supplements. Especially red meat and fish score high in creatine because, like I said, 90% to 95% of creatine is found in human muscle and this is also true for animal muscle. One pound of beef or salmon provides about 1 to 2 grams of creatine.

Creatine in Vegetarians and Vegans

Since vegetarians and vegans don’t eat meat, they often have lower levels of creatine in their bodies. This is because even though your body does produce about 1 to 2 grams of creatine per day on average, your body also releases about 2 grams of creatine per day in the form of creatinine. So, if you don’t eat meat products and you don’t supplement with creatine, you're unlikely to become deficient, but you can end up with lower levels of creatine in your muscles and circulatory system, which will have a negative effect on your athletic performance.

Enhanced Energy Production

If you take in a surplus of creatine through supplementation or through food, the most significant impact that it'll have after entering your body will be enhanced energy production. Muscle contractions require energy, which comes from the breakdown of adenosine triphosphate, also known as ATP. The amount of ATP found within a muscle is generally so low that it's only enough to generate energy for a fraction of a second. After it generates that energy, it breaks down into ADP, which can’t be used for energy at this point. Your body will use a phosphate molecule to recycle this byproduct ADP back into ATP so it can be used for energy once again.

How Creatine Works in Energy Production

Most people don’t know that creatine is actually turned into creatine phosphate inside your body. Creatine phosphate serves as the phosphate donor for the replenishment of ATP. In other words, creatine provides a buffer against muscle fatigue by assisting with the energy production process. The step-by-step process is like this: First, the creatine is ingested either through food or in a supplement form. The creatine is then converted into creatine phosphate, and this leads to more creatine phosphate being stored in your muscle tissue. That extra phosphate becomes available for ATP recycling and ultimately leads to muscles being able to produce more energy for longer with less fatigue.

The Impact on Athletic Performance

Thanks to this mechanism, creatine is highly effective at increasing athletic performance and power output. In fact, in a large meta-analysis that included 22 studies on creatine, researchers found that it significantly increased lifting performance. The results showed that the average increase in weightlifting performance was 14% higher in the creatine group than in the placebo group. Other studies on creatine supplementation in relation to athletic performance also demonstrated very impressive results, with short-term creatine supplementation leading to improved maximal power, strength, muscle contractions, and sprinting performance. Some of these stats increased by 5% to 15%, which is substantial, especially for top-level athletes who go through extremely difficult workouts for years to get just a little bit better.

Water Retention and Muscle Growth

As creatine stores fill up, not only does the level of creatine phosphate increase, but you also tend to retain more water. When creatine is taken into a muscle cell, it also draws water into that cell. The exact mechanism for how this works isn't fully clear yet, but it definitely leads to an increase in water retention within your muscle cells. This is why your body weight is very likely to go up when you take creatine. Your muscles retain more water, making you weigh anywhere from one and a half to three and a half pounds more after a week of creatine loading.

Potential Concerns and Side Effects

While water retention might sound like a bad thing, it's actually beneficial when water is retained within your muscles because it gives your muscles a fuller look, making you appear more muscular. It also assists with muscle growth because improved muscle cellular hydration increases the pressure placed against the cell membranes and cytoskeletons found within muscle cells. So, your muscle cells perceive this as a threat to their integrity, which can increase anabolic signaling, leading to a more favorable protein turnover rate.

Since the prerequisite to muscle growth is a positive protein turnover rate, which is simply when the rate of protein synthesis exceeds the rate of protein breakdown in the body, it becomes clear that increased cellular hydration, or in other words, increased water retention, may be one of the ways that creatine supplementation helps to stimulate muscle growth. Research shows that supplementing with creatine can benefit the muscle cross-section area for a variety of different people, including recreational and elite athletes, sedentary individuals, and even the elderly.

For example, a six-week-long strength training study found that men who supplemented with creatine gained, on average, two more kilograms of muscle than the men who received a placebo. Even though it’s difficult to say for sure that this extra muscle growth was directly due to increased cellular hydration, we can say for sure that creatine can help build more muscle mass.

Creatine and Cognitive Function

Most people have no idea that creatine benefits cognitive function. It can actually benefit your brain just like your muscles. Your brain stores phosphocreatine and requires plenty of ATP for optimal function. For example, scientists from the University of Sydney assessed the effects of creatine on cognitive performance. They concluded that creatine supplementation gave a significant, measurable boost to brain power.

One of the things the study measured was the effect of creatine supplementation on the ability of participants to remember a sequence of numbers. The ability to remember long numbers improved from a number length of approximately seven digits to an average of eight and a half digits, which is actually a 20% increase. One downside to the study is that the participants were vegetarian, so supplementing with creatine could have had a bigger impact on them than on people who eat meat and get more creatine from their diet regularly.

With that said, it is still clear that creatine is very important for optimal brain function because people who have a rare genetic condition that prevents them from producing their own creatine naturally have severe cognitive issues, including mental disabilities like autism.

Hair Loss and Other Side Effects

Aside from the benefits, there are some negative effects as well that you should be aware of. First, one of the most common worries for people deciding whether to supplement with creatine is hair loss. This fear mostly comes from a study that found three weeks of creatine supplementation increased levels of dihydrotestosterone (DHT), the primary androgen associated with male pattern baldness.

However, based on the current evidence, even though creatine by itself is unlikely to lead to hair loss alone, it can’t be ruled out without further studies. That’s because there are no direct studies available as to whether creatine causes hair loss or not, and there's also not much other data on whether creatine increases DHT other than that one study.

Many studies have tested creatine's effects on testosterone, and only a small handful found a significant increase when 20 grams of creatine was being taken per day over the course of a week. However, the majority of the studies found no effect of creatine on testosterone. Given that most data indicates creatine does not increase testosterone, it’s unlikely that creatine alone will cause hair loss, but more studies could change that theory.

Most commonly reported side effects related to digestion include cramping, nausea, stomach pain, and diarrhea. Usually, these digestive issues happen during a loading phase where you're taking up to 25 grams of creatine per day to fill your muscle creatine stores faster. If you have digestive issues, you can skip the loading phase and fill your muscle creatine stores by taking five grams of creatine for about four weeks.

Dehydration Concerns

There have also been reports of people becoming dehydrated while taking creatine. Since creatine pulls water into muscle cells, it’s no surprise. If someone starts supplementing with creatine and doesn’t drink enough water, dehydration can happen. It’s essential to drink enough water while supplementing with creatine, especially if you do decide to do a loading phase.

Finally, once your muscle creatine stores are saturated, it generally takes about four to six weeks for your creatine stores to return back to normal baseline levels after stopping creatine.

This should give you a very good idea of what happens inside your body when you take creatine. If you want to get more into the details and learn how to actually take creatine for optimal muscle growth and improve performance, I have additional resources.

Keywords

• Creatine
• Muscle Growth
• Energy Production
• ATP
• Athletic Performance
• Cognitive Function
• Dihydrotestosterone (DHT)
• Hair Loss
• Water Retention
• Loading Phase

FAQ

Q: Is creatine safe for long-term use? A: Generally, creatine is considered safe for long-term use, but it's advisable to consult with a healthcare professional before starting any supplementation.

Q: Does creatine cause hair loss? A: Based on current evidence, creatine is unlikely to cause hair loss alone, but further studies are needed to confirm its effects on DHT levels.

Q: Can creatine improve cognitive function? A: Yes, studies have shown that creatine supplementation can provide a measurable boost to brain power, including improved memory.

Q: What are some common side effects of creatine? A: Common side effects include digestive issues such as cramping, nausea, stomach pain, and diarrhea, particularly during the loading phase.

Q: Should I drink more water if I’m taking creatine? A: Yes, it’s essential to drink enough water while supplementing with creatine to avoid dehydration.

Q: How does creatine help in muscle growth? A: Creatine aids in muscle growth by retaining water in muscle cells and increasing anabolic signaling, leading to better protein turnover rates.