5 replies to this topic

[medicineman]

From wikipedia:

Creatine has been demonstrated to cause modest increases in strength in people with a variety of neuromuscular disorders.^[17] Creatine supplementation has been, and continues to be, investigated as a possible therapeutic approach for the treatment of muscular, neuromuscular, neurological and neurodegenerative diseases (arthritis, congestive heart failure, Parkinson's disease, disuse atrophy, gyrate atrophy, McArdle's disease, Huntington's disease, miscellaneous neuromuscular diseases, mitochondrial diseases, muscular dystrophy, and neuroprotection).^{[citation needed]}

A study demonstrated that creatine is twice as effective as the prescription drug riluzole in extending the lives of mice with the degenerative neural disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease). The neuroprotective effects of creatine in the mouse model of ALS may be due either to an increased availability of energy to injured nerve cells or to a blocking of the chemical pathway that leads to cell death.^[18] A similarly promising result has been obtained in prolonging the life of transgenic mice affected by Huntington's disease. Creatine treatment lessened brain atrophy and the formation of intranuclear inclusions, attenuated reductions in striatal N-acetylaspartate, and delayed the development of hyperglycemia.^[19]




A placebo-controlled double-blind experiment found that vegetarians who took 5 grams of creatine per day for six weeks showed a significant improvement on two separate tests of fluid intelligence, Raven's Progressive Matrices and the backward digit span test from the WAIS. The treatment group was able to repeat back longer sequences of numbers from memory and had higher overall IQ scores than the control group. The researchers concluded that "supplementation with creatine significantly increased intelligence compared with placebo."^[20] A subsequent study found that creatine supplements improved cognitive ability in the elderly.^[21] A study on young adults (0.03 g/kg/day for six weeks; only 2 g/day for 150lb individual) failed however to find any improvements.^[22]

[medicineman]

Could this possibly be one reason why our ancestors suffered little of the diseases that plague us???? Creatine is in large amounts in raw meat, and our ancestors more than likely consumed raw meat.... Anyone try creatine as a nootropic????

[The Likud Is Behind It]

I stopped taking creatine when I no longer had time to work out. I am adding it again because it is cheap enough and it now seems stupid not to. Thank you for this!

[drmz]

Could this possibly be one reason why our ancestors suffered little of the diseases that plague us???? Creatine is in large amounts in raw meat, and our ancestors more than likely consumed raw meat.... Anyone try creatine as a nootropic????

I believe there is a study where creatine raised the IQ of vegatarians but not of meat eaters

ah here it is

Oral creatine monohydrate supplementation improves brain performance: a double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over trial.
Rae C, Digney AL, McEwan SR, Bates TC.

Discipline of Biochemistry, School of Molecular and Microbial Biosciences G08, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. c.rae@mmb.usyd.edu.au

Creatine supplementation is in widespread use to enhance sports-fitness performance, and has been trialled successfully in the treatment of neurological, neuromuscular and atherosclerotic disease. Creatine plays a pivotal role in brain energy homeostasis, being a temporal and spatial buffer for cytosolic and mitochondrial pools of the cellular energy currency, adenosine triphosphate and its regulator, adenosine diphosphate. In this work, we tested the hypothesis that oral creatine supplementation (5 g d(-1) for six weeks) would enhance intelligence test scores and working memory performance in 45 young adult, vegetarian subjects in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over design. Creatine supplementation had a significant positive effect (p < 0.0001) on both working memory (backward digit span) and intelligence (Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices), both tasks that require speed of processing. These findings underline a dynamic and significant role of brain energy capacity in influencing brain performance.

Edited by drmz, 12 November 2009 - 07:42 AM.

[Davevanza]

I have tried several forms of Creatine from different companies.

In 2002, Muscletech manufactured Cell-Tech which contains Creatine Monohydrate, Dextrose and Sodium/Potassium/Magnesium-Phosphate.

I had a great result from this product.

Recently, Muscletech changed the ingredients from the Cell-Tech, and I developed arrhythmias after taking it. ( I was curious and check the internet whether Creatine can cause arrhytmias, and found several articles about it.)

I think, it is not the Creatine that is causing arrhythmias, but I suspect the contamination from the batch.

From the same company, I bought a new form of Creatine called Creakic recently, but didn't notice any arrhytmias.

I remembered also in 2003, I bought Creatine Monohydrate from Musashi company, and I got severe throbbing headache....

But I didn't get any side effects from Serum Creatine manufactured by MuscleMarketing, neither from EAS Company.

Creatine Monohydrate is insoluble in water, and needs loading phase to take it, and it can put too much stress on kidney functions.

Nowadays, there are better soluble Creatine such as Creatine Ethyl Ester ( BSN company), Creatine Gluconate ( Gaspari's Nutrition) and Creakic ( Muscletech).

In my experiences, I noticed little effect on memory, but it has great effect on my strength and muscle pump.

[medicineman]

if taking it for nootropic purposes, the loading phase can be omitted. Plus, creatine may stress the kidneys in the doses taken for bodybuilding, but check this out:

http://ndt.oxfordjou...t/full/18/2/258

Rats with renal failure exhibited no deterioration of kidney function at all with creatine supplementation in 4 weeks.... Creatine is a dietary nutrient, and if you omit the loading phase, you can go 4-6 weeks on a low 3-5g dose and for safety measures take a one week break... every pound of raw meat carries about 2 grams of creatine.... our ancestors more than likely consumed raw meat in large amounts. and even though without evidence, something tells me renal failure wasn't an issue they had to deal with.