Most people taking creatine just need to drink water. They drink more water using creatine. In reality, the water/hydration is doing the heaviest lift, not the creatine.
I don’t know. I personally wouldn’t take it if you aren’t also working out/lifting frequently (even if you drink a ton of water).
Anecdotal so safe to ignore this… but my hair did thin out but only after I was lazier on my work outs. Stopped taking and hair mostly returned to normal thank God.
Antacids did this to me. I was convinced it was electrolytes, would take supps etc but I believe it came down to calcium absorption. Taking a break from the antacids immediately stopped the cramping.
The reason I asked is that creatine will allow you to lift a bit more (a little more weight, a few more reps). This will cause more muscle fatigue which in turn can lead to more cramping. Water and electrolytes can help, but when the muscles are fatigued they are still more likely to cramp.
> but my hair did thin out but only after I was lazier on my work outs.
How old are you?
Also, working out helps reduce stress. Does it seem more plausible that getting lazier on your workouts, rather than the creatine, increased stress in your life, thus the hair thinning?
I have never heard of creatine causing thinning hair.
I noticed hair thinning too. To be clear I don’t know that creatine caused it. But what feels like a longer period of thinning (I’m 43) coincides with creatine use. It’s not a well-documented side effect if is indeed real.
I like creatine when I’m lifting because it reduces soreness. For some people that effect helps them push further and train harder, for me it’s just proactive pain relief
I was taking 5mg of Creatine and was in the ER for an unrelated reason. My metabolic panel measured creatinine at 1.34 mg/dL. A panel from last year without the supplement was a very normal 0.95. These were gummies and I wasn’t slamming water.
BTW, it tends to trash the eGFR test which relies on an unbiased creatinine reading.
Plausible-sounding mechanisms like you're presenting here do not add value to the discourse without data. There are tons of plausible mechanisms we could make up absent empirical evidence to distinguish them.
Clouds of intracellular water more efficiently retained in muscle due to creatine supplementation[?]. Hydration is controlled for in some studies but not all.
There are lots like Vitamin water, alkaline, and coconut water. And overpriced salt packets like Nuun and LMNT.
There's also no shortage of expensive water bottles being sold, and smart water bottles that track your drinking frequencies and flavor pods sold via subscription.
To go off topic a bit further, I recently went into Walgreens to buy some bottled water, and other than Evian, it was all advertised as alkaline. Is that just a trend, was it already alkaline and now that’s just in fashion? Personally I see it and worry I’ll get an upset stomach if it start messing with my pH.
Water that's coming out of your tap is generally aiming for neutral (~7 ph). The alkaline waters in the store are using minerals to elevate it into probably the 9s.
Like many hippie health trends that then go mainstream, a lot of it seems to filter in from Rastafarian traditions, where in the Ital diet they believe that alkaline water coming from the Blue Mountains in Jamaica (and other natural springs there which are naturally alkaline) help detoxify the acids in the body.
> Water that's coming out of your tap is generally aiming for neutral (~7 ph).
Not really. In the US at least, there’s the “Lead And Copper Rule”, which effectively requires utilities to adjust water composition to make the water minimally corrosive to copper and to lead. This often involves delivering water at a pH higher than 7. (San Francisco, for example, has water pH near 9, although it seems to be on the high end compared to other systems.)
I slam a lot of water. I also have a toddler and baby who suck at sleeping (I've done all the things, these kids just suck at sleeping).
Since taking creatine I feel so much more energized. I can make it through the day with just 2 coffees (was previously drinking 5 coffees and an energy drink).
Maybe it's placebo. Maybe it's not. I don't really care. I feel the benefit and I love it.
I also drink a lot of water (always have). I also train Muay Thai and am in my 40s, which means an hour of 1:1 with my trainer would just leave me ridiculously tired. I started supplementing with creatine and immediately it was evident that it was working -- after 8-10 rounds on pads and the heavy bag I was fine. To the point where my trainer would often tell me to take another round on the bag.
At a certain point I was wondering if it was just placebo, stopped taking it for a month or so, and was quickly back to feeling tired after training. Started taking it again, back to feeling energized. It really does work.
"Other studies already proved those effects with creatine with a normal dose schedule, what they were testing is if a single high dose would have a beneficial effect too, which it did.
A normal schedule is 3-5g per day with an optional loading phase of 10-20g per day during 7 days.
In the study they used a single dose of 0.35g/kg which means 20-40g per dose. How do they not get diarrhea? The loading phase is usually split into several doses to avoid diarrhea and I can personally attest to that being a good idea."
What the above doesn't tell you is that taking a loading dose can draw water into your intestines causing diarrhea. You probably can guess how I found this out.
I take my creatine with as little volume of water as possible, probably less than 50ml. I doubt that 50ml is having much impact on my overall hydration.
How much water are you drinking the rest of the day? Creatine in theory makes you more thirsty such that you should be drinking more water throughout the day
Knowledge of the potential is peripheral expectation.
If you can say "Oh yea that makes sense" with the same set of knowledge you had both before and after some event happens, all else being equal, you have an expectation. That is enough for placebo.
You have to have literally 0 knowledge about an event to rule out placebo.
Why are you so sure that the poster (or anyone else commenting here) isn’t drinking enough water?
I drink lots of water. Lots and lots, to the point that it’s already kind of annoying how frequently I have to piss. I’m fairly skeptical that drinking yet more would yield any benefits.
Yes. It’s very rare for a supplement to have such strong and consistent evidence.
A widely-cited review says that short-term supplementation increases maximal power/strength by 5-15%. This in turn may increase the long-term gainz from strength-training exercise. Creatine also increases sprint performance by 1-5%. Though, there seems to be little if any benefit for endurance exercise like long-distance running.
Anecdotal so safe to ignore this… but my hair did thin out but only after I was lazier on my work outs. Stopped taking and hair mostly returned to normal thank God.