35 replies to this topic

[HealthyLiving]

Hi.

I've read several articles that says that creatine boosts brain performance.

However, which type of creatine boost brain performance and at which dose?

Thanks in advance

[LBGSHI]

Creatine generally only boosts cognitive performance in vegetarians. Non-vegetarians generally get enough creatine dietarily, and studies using non-vegetarians have shown no significant cognitive performance improvement.

[HealthyLiving]

Ok, but I am pretty much a vegeterian:)

Edited by HealthyLiving, 28 January 2013 - 09:33 PM.

[krhn]

Creatine isn't really much of a brain enhancer so to speak, more helpful if your looking at bodybuilding as it basically causes more saturation of water in our bodily cells...

[LBGSHI]

Creatine isn't really much of a brain enhancer so to speak, more helpful if your looking at bodybuilding as it basically causes more saturation of water in our bodily cells...

Incorrect; creatine monohydrate increases ATP production, resulting in significant cognitive gains for vegetarians:

http://www.ncbi.nlm....les/PMC1691485/

http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/22254121


...though I wouldn't call it a nootropic so much as an ATP deficiency mediator.

Edited by LBGSHI, 30 January 2013 - 09:16 PM.

[gray.bot]

Creatine equals 100% awesome.

Really any creatine in any form will probably help you - monohydrate is the cheapest.

I'm using creatine ethyl ester which is meant to be slightly more absorbable. I'm taking 4grams instead of the usual 5grams a day.

With creatine you really have to pay attention to cycling it. I've found/felt the difference. Try 1 month on 2 weeks off as a starting point but test it for yourself - you'll notice the difference as a feeling of 'lack of fatigue' almost.

If you workout you can load 20grams a day for a week or two and then go to a normal dose for a month and then 2 weeks of nothing, and cycle that. This is really for increasing physical ability for the workouts though.

For your brain, 5grams a day is fine. Just jump on it! Oh and by the way it tastes like ass.

(not that I know what ass tastes like dot dot dot)

[Strelok]

I've always wondered, if taking Creatine for bodybuilding purposes, must it be taken every day of the week or can you simply take it pre and post workout? Specifically, I'm wondering about the creatine ethyl ester that I have that does not require a loading phase.

Edited by Strelok, 01 February 2013 - 01:41 AM.

[gray.bot]

BOTH!

Yes you can take it 30-60mins before your workout and because you aren't taking it everyday it will supersaturate creatine in your muscles.

So you are correct, you can easily use creatine ethyl ester to improve your workouts and it does not require a loading phase.

Alternatively you can super saturate constantly with a loading phase (and hell, take it before your workout too). It's proven to be effective time and time again.

I like loading because you have more energy the next day, constantly feeling better, it helps your muscles repair (of course you need the building blocks though) and it's good to have up your sleeve for short runs, carrying stuff or even a little booty time (I mean, if you've got a girl half naked its pretty lame to say 'hang on, I need to take some creatine 30 minutes before I pound you)

Another little secret I use is during the 2 weeks when not taking creatine, usually 1 of those I have totally not training and just eating eating eating and sleeping. This really recharges every last little muscle so when you start your next loading phase you are ready to rock and roll 1000%

Hope that helps.

[nupi]

I just take it every day, no cycling. I don't think it is a nootropic but definitely helps in the gym.

[Strelok]

BOTH!

Yes you can take it 30-60mins before your workout and because you aren't taking it everyday it will supersaturate creatine in your muscles.

So you are correct, you can easily use creatine ethyl ester to improve your workouts and it does not require a loading phase.

Alternatively you can super saturate constantly with a loading phase (and hell, take it before your workout too). It's proven to be effective time and time again.

Thanks for the response. Well, it seems to me that if I can get away with only taking it pre and post workout, then I'll just do that because it'll last me a lot longer that way. The dosing suggestion on my canister has me taking 2250mg both pre and post for total of 4.5 grams...
 

I like loading because ... even a little booty time...

I have never heard of creatine improving sexual performance. Is this so?

Edited by cryonicsculture, 06 August 2014 - 05:20 PM.

[gray.bot]

I have never heard of creatine improving sexual performance. Is this so?

Do your own testing

It allows your buscles to have higher output for longer. Seriously that sentence makes sense in the context of sex.

"The main function of creatine is to provide our muscles with more energy. More energy means that our muscles can contract harder therefore our body must adapt to the greater amount of stress that we put our bodies through."

ref: http://www.abcbodybuilding.com/creatine%20myths%20and_facts.htm

[Strelok]

Do your own testing

Lol, will do.

Edited by cryonicsculture, 06 August 2014 - 05:21 PM.

[HealthyLiving]

Should I mix it with juice when drinking it?

I've heard that drinking it wit water is awful because of the really bad taste.

[LBGSHI]

When I took creatine for athletic purposes, I always drank it with water and it was fine...but it was pre-flavored, not raw creatine. I presume yours is plain, in a white powder form?

[jadamgo]

Yes. Or if you don't mind swallowing pills, you can fill capsules with it and just take a bunch of them.

[gray.bot]

Oh the taste is HOR-RIB-LE!!!

So bad. Creatine Ethyl Ester is like 10 times worse (and that's what I have)

"

Due to the additions of Esters, Creatine Ethyl Ester in its natural raw form is quite unpleasant tasting, due to the taste many Creatine users revert back to standard Creatine Monohydrate."

I tend to just whack everything in a small glass of water and chug and have a chaser of well, anything - because anything tastes better than it.

Unflavoured with plain water you'll be looking around saying "has anyone got some dog-shit I can eat, because that would taste delicious compared to this"

[Strelok]

Well, I believe that the benefit of the CEE is that you need a much smaller dose for it to be effective, therefore capsules are a reasonable way to ingest it.

[gray.bot]

Yaa it says on the back to take 4 grams instead of the normal 5 grams.

It's still a bit of powder though.

I take so much powder capping is impossible for me. It's just "disgusting goo down the hatch!" <cringe>

I still have involuntary muscle cringing sometimes if it goes down the wrong (mostly around the back of mouth, neck, oesophagus area)

[platypus]

Oh the taste is HOR-RIB-LE!!!

So bad. Creatine Ethyl Ester is like 10 times worse (and that's what I have)

"
Due to the additions of Esters, Creatine Ethyl Ester in its natural raw form is quite unpleasant tasting, due to the taste many Creatine users revert back to standard Creatine Monohydrate."

I tend to just whack everything in a small glass of water and chug and have a chaser of well, anything - because anything tastes better than it.

Unflavoured with plain water you'll be looking around saying "has anyone got some dog-shit I can eat, because that would taste delicious compared to this"

Creatine monohydrate is almost tasteless, at least Creapure is. What's the purported benefit of "fancy" creatine products?

Edited by cryonicsculture, 06 August 2014 - 05:21 PM.

[cmc1211]

I've found Krea-alkalyn works best and I am basically a vegetarian. I take it in caps 1.5g two to three times a day. I had to start taking it because my creatine levels were almost next to none.

[Strelok]

I am switching from CEE back to creatine monohydrate. I read some literature that suggested CEE is not very effective, and certainly not worth the extra cost.

I went ahead and got a 1kg of creatine monohydrate, and surprisingly is has nearly no taste whatsoever in water. Only the slightest hint of something, and it's not bad at all. I remember a few years back that I had some creapure monohydrate, and it didn't taste horrible, but it also didn't exactly taste good. Should I be worried about the lack of taste from my creatine? I ordered mine from health supplement wholesalers, and they do indeed post a COA for their creatine...

[Reformed-Redan]

Creatine generally only boosts cognitive performance in vegetarians. Non-vegetarians generally get enough creatine dietarily, and studies using non-vegetarians have shown no significant cognitive performance improvement.

Not true. See:
http://jtoomim.org/f...lementation.pdf

The results across the five cognitive tasks were generally
consistent. CEE seemed to improve performance in
several domains, from tasks that had a strong memory
component to tests of attention. Improvements were
found consistently for reaction time across measures as
well as for some measures of accuracy. This indicates that
creatine supplementation seems to improve basic cogni-
tive functions in particular.
This improvement in performance was similar to the
increases reported by Rae
et al.
(2003) in their study using creatine monohydrate. In this study, in three of five tasks
– Memory Scanning, Arrow Flankers and Raven’s Matrices
– CEE supplementation significantly improved reaction
time performance when compared with the placebo
group. The measure of general intelligence used in this
study involves global cognitive functioning, including
mental rotation skills, decisiveness in stimulus elimination,
critical thinking, working memory and logical deduction.
Performance in this task also increased in the creatine
group when compared with the placebo group, although
part of this increase was because of a lower baseline score
in the creatine group.
The Number-Pair Matching and Sustained Attention
tasks showed more modest improvements than other
measures, perhaps because they required less cognitive
processing. For example, the Ravens Matrices require the
coordination of a range of cognitive abilities to solve each
matrix. Generally, creatine acts as a ‘backup energy store’
second to the ATP cycles that all cells use. In tasks that
require less demanding cognitive processing, neurons
may rely only on ATP energy cycles, whereas when a
highly demanding task is initiated, activation will be more
widespread leading to greater demand for energy. It is
in such conditions that creatine supplementation could
perhaps aid cognitive ability the most, that is, when
performing highly complex cognitive tasks that draw
upon global cognitive functioning. This is a conjecture
that requires further examination.
This study has shown that CEE may be as effective as
creatine monohydrate in improving cognitive perfor-
mance, although this requires explicit testing and a
replication of this study, with the addition of a creatine
monohydrate group. Some caution with interpretation
is therefore warranted, as particularly for the IQ data,
the creatinine group was lower at baseline and thus had
more scope for improvement. This does not minimize the
result – the fact is that this group did respond with
improvement over the course of the study on many
measures – but this is a limitation of our study as
improvements from a higher baseline may be harder to
achieve. Participants in both conditions were asked to
keep a written diary of how alert they felt. Neither group
reported side effects of the supplements, and those in
the creatine group gave anecdotal reports of improved
cognitive function and reduced experiences of fatigue.
Such subjective evidence requires further investigation
However, such reports, in addition to the quantitative
results, support earlier research that has found positive
correlations between brain creatine levels and recognition
memory (Ferrier
et al.
, 2001) and that creatine supple-
mentation can reduce mental fatigue (Watanabe
et al.
, 2002).
In conclusion, the data show that cognitive ability seems
to be improved by CEE supplementation. Although we
believe these results are robust, they require replication,
preferably using blood glucose testing as an objective
measure of compliance. Should these results be repli-
cated, an important next step would be to examine the
impact of creatine supplementation over a longer dosing
period at the same time as using food diaries, to exclude
the possibility that creatine supplementation might
merely have been redressing nutritional imbalances

[LBGSHI]

Interesting study.

They mixed up creatine with creatinine (a totally different substance) in the conclusion, but I believe that was just a typo. Other than that, I would conjecture that even non-vegetarians may at any given moment not be totally sufficient in creatine, thus we may just be boosting creatine back to proper levels, but this certainly doesn't diminish the fact that this is clear evidence of creatine's efficacy as a nootropic. Thanks for posting it.

[BioFreak]

I believe creatinine is the metabolic end product of creatine in the body, and creatine in solution will degrade to creatinine over time too.
I had elevated creatinine levels from creatine supplementation long ago, but it wasnt enough to disqualify me from military service. :D
Increased creatinine levels are a marker for decreased kidney function, too. But increasing creatinine through creatine supplementation does not mean that the kidney function is decreased, only that there is more creatinine from creatine supplementation to excrete.

Also, from the research I've done a year ago or so CEE is worthless. I mean literally not effective at all.
And I believe that meat eaters will benefit too, for the simple reason that there is not so much creatine in meat after all, and in chicken for example there is no creatine at all. If that was not true, it would not be likely that meat eaters would benefit from creatine in the gym,but they do.
I got a slight mental benefit from creatine, something along the lines of more energy available for the brain cells to do their job. After all, the brain has the highest energy requirements of all human organs and creatine does exactly that - provide more energy.
Combine it with high dose thiamine and you get even more energy. Its no wonder drug combination though just gives a slight boost.
and combine that with mucuna pruriens seed powder and you will have more catecholamines in the body = more energy available (increased adrenaline and noradrenaline, while dopamine helps with brain function).

[LBGSHI]

I believe creatinine is the metabolic end product of creatine in the body, and creatine in solution will degrade to creatinine over time too.
I had elevated creatinine levels from creatine supplementation long ago, but it wasnt enough to disqualify me from military service. :D
Increased creatinine levels are a marker for decreased kidney function, too. But increasing creatinine through creatine supplementation does not mean that the kidney function is decreased, only that there is more creatinine from creatine supplementation to excrete.

Yeah, I'm aware of that (I had at least one documented heat stroke when I was in the military, and got to learn all about creatinine when my kidneys and liver shut down temporarily). However, they suddenly referred to "the creatine group" (meaning those in this study who supplemented creatine) as "the creatinine group", which simply doesn't make sense. It's a typo.

and in chicken for example there is no creatine at all.

There is creatine in chicken, it's just nearly negligible in quantity.

I got a slight mental benefit from creatine, something along the lines of more energy available for the brain cells to do their job. After all, the brain has the highest energy requirements of all human organs and creatine does exactly that - provide more energy.
Combine it with high dose thiamine and you get even more energy. Its no wonder drug combination though just gives a slight boost.
and combine that with mucuna pruriens seed powder and you will have more catecholamines in the body = more energy available (increased adrenaline and noradrenaline, while dopamine helps with brain function).

Interesting anecdotal data.

[moleface]

I am switching from CEE back to creatine monohydrate. I read some literature that suggested CEE is not very effective, and certainly not worth the extra cost.

I went ahead and got a 1kg of creatine monohydrate, and surprisingly is has nearly no taste whatsoever in water. Only the slightest hint of something, and it's not bad at all. I remember a few years back that I had some creapure monohydrate, and it didn't taste horrible, but it also didn't exactly taste good. Should I be worried about the lack of taste from my creatine? I ordered mine from health supplement wholesalers, and they do indeed post a COA for their creatine...

I just received some from HSW and it tastes the same as the other brands I've taken. Creatine tends to have a neutral flavor, at least from the brands I've tried.

[BioFreak]

So chicken has minimal amounts of creatine too... well, never to late to learn. :D

[HealthyLiving]

I just took creatine monohydrate yesterday with caffeine and I actually noticed an improvement in brain performance.

I've tried different stuff but most of them doesn't work.
Only things so far that has worked on me:
Creatine monohydrate mixed with apple juice
Caffeine
Zinc
Omega 3 fats.

What should I take in addition to creatine to get a even better cognitive effect?

[Redux]

I just took creatine monohydrate yesterday with caffeine and I actually noticed an improvement in brain performance.

I've tried different stuff but most of them doesn't work.
Only things so far that has worked on me:
Creatine monohydrate mixed with apple juice
Caffeine
Zinc
Omega 3 fats.

What should I take in addition to creatine to get a even better cognitive effect?

Racetams is definitely what you are looking for. They benefit all areas of brain - data interpretation, language, memory retention, and so on. I would first check the universally claimed Piracetam, for price, and countless studies supporting safety & results, then start trying more exotic racetams, like Anicaretam, and Noopept (personally like it a lot).

Edited by Redux, 10 April 2013 - 10:32 AM.

[Suirsuss]

I just took creatine monohydrate yesterday with caffeine and I actually noticed an improvement in brain performance.

I've tried different stuff but most of them doesn't work.
Only things so far that has worked on me:
Creatine monohydrate mixed with apple juice
Caffeine
Zinc
Omega 3 fats.

What should I take in addition to creatine to get a even better cognitive effect?

Racetams is definitely what you are looking for. They benefit all areas of brain - data interpretation, language, memory retention, and so on. I would first check the universally claimed Piracetam, for price, and countless studies supporting safety & results, then start trying more exotic racetams, like Anicaretam, and Noopept (personally like it a lot).

i would second that but also strongly suggest weaning down caffeine to about half (or less depending on the doses) before indulging in the ampakines