Take your Creatine
Creatine (and its various salts/esters) has easily been among the most effective, safe, and popular sports performance supplements since it was introduced in the early-1990's. Thousands of tons of this useful product have been sold under one guise or another and the reason is simple: creatine is very effective at adding muscle mass and improving functional strength. Furthermore, recent research has demonstrated that supplementing with creatine has a cornucopia of other beneficial effects. Consider the following:
Oral creatine supplementation has been correlated with a decreased risk of a variety of neurological diseases such as Huntington's Chorea, Parkinson's Disease, and Lou Gehrig's Disease. In animal models deliberately "given" these diseases, oral creatine seems to also slow the progression of these diseases.
Aside from possibly protecting against neurodegenerative diseases, oral creatine supplementation might actually make you smarter by strengthening memory functions and intellectual capability. It may also lengthen life expectancy in certain conditions and improve fat metabolism. Finally, creatine biosynthesis has been postulated as having a major influence on reducing homocysteine concentration in the plasma, which has been identified as a risk factor for atherosclerotic disease. By decreasing homocysteine production, oral creatine supplementation may also lower the risk for developing coronary heart disease or cerebrovascular disease. (1)
In addition to all that, creatine may also help with genital herpes! Herpes is painful, recurrent, and there's no cure, but it appears that oral creatine supplementation can help you. A physician at the Camp Pendleton Marine Base treated numerous Marines who had recurrent genital herpes (apparently, it seems that young Marines engage in a lot of premarital sex — can you imagine?). Anyhow, beginning in 1998, a number of these patients failed to return to the doc for periodic acyclovir (Zovirax) therapy, which is the standard treatment for herpes. Inquiries revealed that these patients had all commenced supplemental creatine after their last outbreak, and had experienced no further outbreaks. A literature search uncovered a report that cyclocreatine, a synthetic compound structurally and functionally homologous to creatine, helps stop the herpes simplex types 1 and 2 from replicating.
Furthermore, dietary creatine can possibly reduce morbidity and mortality in mice infected with the herpes virus. The fact that creatine exerts neuroprotective and cancer-retardant effects in rodents encourages the speculation that creatine may have significant anti-viral activity. Pilot studies to assess the impact of creatine loading on recurrence of oral and genital herpes should happen soon. The impact of creatine on shingles occurrence in high-risk patients should also be explored. Although initially conceived as an aid to athletic performance, creatine loading may prove to have broad preventive and therapeutic applications. (2)
Many critics of creatine like to say that creatine supplementation only results in water weight gain. This isn't so, at least not in pigs. A study in pigs given 25 grams of oral creatine monohydrate for only five days (before they were slaughtered) showed that those pigs that received the creatine gained an average of 2.26 kg (a little over five pounds) more than those who didn't receive the creatine. So what? This doesn't prove the weight isn't water weight. However, the "creatine pigs" tended to show more marbling of the meat and less loss of "meat" when the meat was cooked. Conclusion: Creatine might cause some water weight gain but it potentially does cause changes and increases in lean muscle mass also. (3)
Okay, so oral creatine increases muscle mass and has a plethora of potential long term health benefits, but how does this translate into increased athletic performance on the playing field? Glad you asked! One study investigated the effects of acute creatine supplementation on the performance of elite female soccer players undertaking an exercise protocol simulating match play. On two occasions, seven days apart, 12 players performed five 11-minute exercise testing blocks interspersed with one minute of rest. Each block consisted of 11 all-out 20-meter running sprints, two agility runs, and one precision ball-kicking drill, separated by recovery 20-meter walks and runs.
After the initial testing session, subjects were assigned to either a creatine group (five grams of creatine, four times per day for six days) or a placebo group (same dosage of a glucose polymer) using a double-blind research design. Body mass (BM) increased an average of 0.7kg (1.54 pounds) in the creatine group; however, no change was observed in the placebo group. The group that received the creatine supplementation improved performance in repeated sprint and agility tasks simulating soccer match play, despite an increase in BM. (4)
Creatine supplementation can also reduce mental fatigue! Studying for calculus finals? Skip the coffee and go with creatine. Consider this: While the role of creatine in preventing muscle (peripheral) fatigue for high performance athletes is well understood, its biochemical role in prevention of mental (central) fatigue isn't. Using a double-blind placebo-controlled paradigm, a study demonstrated that creatine (eight grams a day for five days) reduces mental fatigue when subjects repeatedly perform a simple mathematical calculation.
After taking the creatine supplement, the task-evoked increase of cerebral oxygenated hemoglobin in the brains of subjects was significantly reduced, which is compatible with increased oxygen utilization in the brain. (5)
In summary, it looks like creatine has even more uses than we thought!
