Creatine: A Hack To Get Jacked?

Fitness buffs online can’t stop raving about creatine. They say it is THE supplement to get you shredded in no time — and that it can even boost your brain and memory too. Are they right? We dive into the science of creatine and talk to anatomy Professor Darryn Willoughby, physicist Dr. Ali Gordji-Nejad, and psychology researcher Julia Fabienne Sandkühler. Find our transcript here: https://bit.ly/ScienceVsCreatine In this episode, we cover: (00:00) The hype around creatine (02:40) How creatine builds muscle (08:41) Are the gains all muscle? (17:23) Does creatine help with sleep deprivation? (22:10) Does creatine boost cognition? (27:05) Is creatine safe? This episode was produced by Michelle Dang, with help from Wendy Zukerman, Meryl Horn, Rose Rimler, and Ekedi Fausther-Keeys. We’re edited by Blythe Terrell. Fact checking by Marlowe Starling. Mix and sound design by Bobby Lord. Music written by Emma Munger, So Wylie, Peter Leonard, Bumi Hidaka and Bobby Lord. A special thanks to the researchers we reached out to, including Dr. Imtiaz Desai and Prof. Phil Chilibeck. Thanks to Larry Lee and Lee Physical Therapy & Wellness. Science Vs is a Spotify Studios Original. Listen for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us and tap the bell for episode notifications. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Wendy Zukerman?

  Hi, I'm Wendy Zukerman and you're listening to Science Versus.

• 0:05Wendy Zukerman?

  Today on the show, we're pitting facts against fitness buffs.

• 0:28Wendy Zukerman?

  And you know how we're gonna get that greatness from our workouts? With one supplement that everyone is talking about.

• 0:35Speaker 01

  This is creatine.

• 0:39Speaker 01

  Take creatine, how important creatine supplementation is.

• 0:42Speaker 02

  A wonderful, wonderful supplement. It's the best thing ever.

• 0:46Wendy Zukerman?

  Creatine, it's huge if you wanna get huge. People are saying that if you wanna build muscles, you have to take this.

• 0:54Speaker 03

  Here's how to use creatine to get bigger and stronger.

• 0:57Speaker 04

  You're a gym girly with a flat ass. I have a supplement that will help.

• 1:00Wendy Zukerman?

  Creatine, creatine. Girl, creatine made that booty grow.

• 1:05Wendy Zukerman?

  But it's not just about your booty and muscles. More and more, we're hearing that creatine can also boost your brain power too.

• 1:13Speaker 03

  There's a lot of cognitive benefits and one of the big ones that they've found recently is performance when sleep deprived.

• 1:20Speaker 05

  You know, the data is unbelievable and it improves mood and memory. That's extraordinary.

• 1:30Wendy Zukerman?

  Over and over again, influencers, podcasters are saying that the studies on creatine are amazing. You'll hear things like, there's 50 years of data to show that it works and it's safe. And some folks on our team actually got so excited about the hype here that they have started to give it a go.

• 1:50Wendy Zukerman?

  But then, more recently, there's been some not so exciting headlines about this supplement. Like, quote, "Creatine may not build more muscle after all, study suggests." Another one, "Shocking new study challenges muscle-building hype." So what's going on here? Should you take creatine or not? Will it boost your brawn and your brain? That is on today's show. When it comes to creatine, there's a lot of... Girl, creatine made that booty grow.

• 2:22Wendy Zukerman?

  But then, there's science.

• 2:26Wendy Zukerman?

  Science vs. Creatine is coming up just after the break.

• 2:37Wendy Zukerman?

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• 3:14Speaker 06

  I don't know what I'm doing. Need a break. Forget it, I quit.

• 3:18Speaker 07

  Escape to Pluto TV.

• 3:19Speaker 05

  This is objectively fantastic.

• 3:21Speaker 07

  Relax into the movies and shows you already know and love, all for free. Shwing! Even our news is uplifting.

• 3:27Speaker 08

  You stay classy, San Diego.

• 3:29Speaker 07

  Watch Tommy Boy, Crazy Ex Girlfriend, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, The Ex Files, Wayne's World, and so much more.

• 3:35Speaker 06

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• 3:36Speaker 07

  The best things on TV really are free. You just have to know where to look. Escape to Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never.

• 3:48Wendy Zukerman?

  Welcome back. Today on the show, Creatine. Can it help you get that big booty, those big muscles, and that big brain? That's what we're asking today. Producer Michelle Dang is here to tell us all about it. Hey, Michelle.

• 4:01Speaker 09

  Hey, Wendy.

• 4:02Wendy Zukerman?

  So what got you so excited about learning all the facts on Creatine?

• 4:07Speaker 09

  Well, I want to build muscle.

• 4:10Wendy Zukerman?

  Yeah.

• 4:10Speaker 09

  And I just kept hearing that creatine is like the supplement to take. And I figured, like... Research is me-search, so let's find out if the hype is real.

• 4:23Speaker 02

  Love it. Okay, so first up, just very, very basic question. What exactly is creatine?

• 4:29Speaker 09

  Some people think it's a steroid, but it's not. It's actually something our body naturally makes from food. When you eat things like meat or fish, your body pulls together amino acids from it to actually create creatine. But people take supplements like that white powder you buy in the store because they want more of this stuff.

• 4:50Speaker 02

  So let's jump into the claims. And I want to start with the muscles. Because online, you see these folks with these huge muscles. Is creatine doing the heavy lifting here?

• 5:04Speaker 09

  Yeah, speaking of huge muscles, we gotta go talk to Darren Willoughby, who's a professor of anatomy at Baylor College Medicine in Texas. Not just any exercise nerd. Darren's also a former bodybuilder, which means lots of skimpy outfits. What's it like to be up there with no clothes on?

• 5:25Speaker 10

  Actually, it wasn't stressful for me at all. I've always been a pretty modest, humble individual. But when it comes time to come on stage, the fact that, you know, I've got these next to nothing posing trunks on, I mean, because I've worked so hard, you know, and you just, you want to show it off.

• 5:46Speaker 09

  Let me show you what he looked like last time he won a competition. This was back in 2018.

• 5:52Speaker 02

  Wow, I mean, he's huge, he's huge. I mean, he looks like those classic images of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

• 5:59Speaker 02

  All right, I trust that this guy knows how to build some muscles.

• 6:02Speaker 09

  Yeah, so Darren's been studying creatine for a while. It was back in the 90s. He started hearing whispers about creatine's powers.

• 6:11Speaker 10

  Obviously, I'm going to be interested in that.

• 6:14Speaker 09

  So Darren wanted to know, does creatine actually work? Does it build muscle? So to find out, he got 22 men, split them into two groups. One got creatine and one got placebo. And for three months, every few days, they did this lower body workout, lots of leg presses. But they showed it a step further and looked inside the muscles themselves by grabbing a giant needle and ramming it into their upper thigh.

• 6:46Speaker 09

  He showed me what one of these looked like.

• 6:48Speaker 10

  It's hollow, but it's very sharp on the end. And then this thing is just a chopper. So I would just take it and just

• 6:54Speaker 09

  Ooh.

• 6:54Speaker 10

  Push it down two or three, two or three times.

• 6:56Speaker 09

  It's kind of like a plunger?

• 6:58Speaker 10

  Yeah, a piece of muscle will actually pooch into that window. And that chopper just then just cuts it right off and then saves it.

• 7:05Speaker 09

  They use an anesthetic, but Darren says it just basically feels like getting punched in the thigh.

• 7:10Speaker 02

  Um, so when he got the muscle biopsies, did he see a difference between the people who were taking creatine and those who weren't?

• 7:19Speaker 09

  Yes, he did see a difference.

• 7:23Speaker 09

  So he took out a bit of muscle from them, did this chemical analysis and found more of these muscle proteins. One called myosin heavy chain and another one called myofibril protein. And there was more of this stuff in the people that took creatine, meaning that their muscles had grown, indeed grown more.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  Oh, that's cool. He could say the actual muscle was getting bigger?

• 7:53Speaker 09

  Yeah, like the density of the muscles growing. You have more units of this like microscopic muscle that's actually being grown and built. And the people in the study were feeling a bit stronger, too.

• 8:06Speaker 10

  The creatine group actually got stronger. It wasn't, it wasn't dramatic, but it was enough that was certainly, certainly of impact.

• 8:13Speaker 02

  So how is creatine actually doing this? Is it building the muscle for you?

• 8:19Speaker 09

  Well, Darren said it's, it's not physically building muscle for you. Instead, it works by getting you extra energy during your workout. So like as you're working out, you're rapidly using up fuel in your body, which is ATP or adenosine triphosphate.

• 8:37Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 8:38Speaker 09

  And your body like eats it up really quickly, runs out of ATP, and then needs to recycle it to use it again.

• 8:47Wendy Zukerman?

  Uh huh.

• 8:47Speaker 09

  And what creatine does is help that recycling process happen faster.

• 8:53Wendy Zukerman?

  Interesting.

• 8:54Speaker 09

  Yeah, and another really interesting thing that Darren's study tried to sort out is this question of whether creatine actually helped grow muscles, or if maybe it just kind of makes them look bigger.

• 9:06Wendy Zukerman?

  What do you mean?

• 9:07Speaker 09

  It's because of this other thing creatine can do in our bodies. So when we bring a bunch of creatine into our muscles, it can bring water in with it. Here's Darren.

• 9:18Speaker 10

  It pulls water out of the bloodstream into the muscle cell.

• 9:22Speaker 09

  Which would mean maybe your muscles get plumped up, but you're sort of tricked into thinking it's muscle gain when it's really just this water that's hanging around in there.

• 9:32Wendy Zukerman?

  Oh, okay, but Darren's study showed, no, it's not just that. Actual muscle was growing, right?

• 9:40Speaker 09

  Exactly. It looked like at least some of the gain was real muscle. And some studies in older folks have also found that creatine really can help build muscle too.

• 9:49Wendy Zukerman?

  But then, there's been these headlines lately saying that creatine might not help build muscle. So what is going on here?

• 9:58Speaker 09

  Well, this new study came out suggesting that the question of how much of the gains you see with creatine are water weight versus actual muscle growth, hasn't been fully solved. But, you know, we spoke to the author of the study, and he basically told us that when you zoom out and look at the bulk of studies on creatine, it shows creatine can help build muscle. But the question is, how much? So, did you notice that Darren said that even in his study, when creatine made people stronger, it wasn't a dramatic difference?

• 10:31Wendy Zukerman?

  Yes.

• 10:32Speaker 09

  That's what a lot of these studies find. Creatine can work, but it's not this huge change. Like, it's not a night and day difference from how you were working out before. Darren told me, maybe I'll help you do like two to three extra reps, like a few extra pushups or lifts per set at the gym.

• 10:49Speaker 10

  Maybe just a meathead in the gym like me, and you get a couple of extra reps per set.

• 10:55Speaker 09

  And one review of 10 studies that followed people for different times, about a week all the way up to a year, imaged their muscles and found that creatine compared to placebo increased the thickness of their muscles by about a tenth of a centimeter.

• 11:10Speaker 02

  A tenth of a centimeter more muscle? That's like a tenth of a belly button?

• 11:19Speaker 09

  Right, so these differences are not huge. And, and you know, these extra reps you can do thanks to creatine, it might add up for some people. Darren reckons it's worth trying.

• 11:28Speaker 02

  Right.

• 11:31Speaker 09

  But, big picture here, let me tell you about the Olympics. They have this huge list of banned substances. You can't use steroids or this and that. But you can use creatine. It is not a banned substance.

• 11:47Speaker 02

  Oh, it is not a banned substance?

• 11:52Speaker 09

  Yeah, it's not a banned substance. And some have suggested that this is because it's a naturally occurring substance that the body makes from food.

• 12:02Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 12:03Speaker 09

  However, we also reached out to the World Anti-Doping Agency and asked them, like, why isn't this stuff banned? And they told us there's this criteria for banning substances. One is, quote, "It has the potential to enhance sport performance."

• 12:20Speaker 02

  Yes, which you would think if it's building muscle, it obviously has the potential to enhance your sport performance.

• 12:27Speaker 09

  Yes, yes, and they told us that creatine does not satisfy that.

• 12:31Speaker 02

  Criteria, interesting.

• 12:34Speaker 09

  Mm hmm. We followed up and said, you know, triple checking here. Like, are you sure creatine does not have the potential to enhance sport performance? And they wrote back, "It is not considered sufficiently performance enhancing."

• 12:49Speaker 02

  Hmm, that is very interesting. Because if creatine did, what the internet really makes it sound like it does, which is you take it and you become the Hulk in a few months. There's no way the Olympics would allow it.

• 13:08Speaker 02

  But the fact that they're saying that's sufficiently performance enhancing, right? So maybe it helps a little, but we don't care. Go for it.

• 13:18Speaker 09

  Exactly. Even the US Anti-Doping Agency, which also doesn't ban creatine, says, quote, "Although creatine can have a small effect on performance, the effects are not guaranteed," end quote. And this takes us to another really important point about creatine. The reason those effects are not guaranteed

• 13:40Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 13:41Speaker 09

  is that we know from the research, there are some people who don't respond to creatine. So people who don't even get those small benefits that we talked about earlier.

• 13:52Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 13:53Speaker 09

  For example, there was one small study that found about one in four men didn't respond, and we think it might be even worse for women.

• 14:01Speaker 02

  Oh, how come?

• 14:03Speaker 09

  Maybe because the hormone fluctuations with the menstrual cycle affect our uptake of creatine, but we're not really sure yet. And well, Wendy, I've been taking creatine and Blythe, our editor, has also been taking creatine. And speaking of all this like booty growing, she's been doing this workout program called the Brazilian Booty Lift.

• 14:25Speaker 02

  Okay. And so is, dare I ask how's Blythe's booty going?

• 14:31Speaker 09

  Yeah. Here's a snippet of how it's going. Do you feel any differently at the gym?

• 14:39Speaker 11

  Five weeks in, no.

• 14:42Speaker 09

  Oh.

• 14:45Speaker 11

  Yeah, I totally log it. And I was like, let me see if I'm lifting any more weight for the exact same workout than I was in January or even February. Right? Well, if creatine is doing anything, you know, I would think I would be like putting more, more weight or being feeling stronger. And I looked at the pounds and it's like basically the same. I was like, ah, can I, can I do more weight on this incline press? Like pushing my arms above my head? And I just like, no, no, I just can't. I really can't push the weight up there. Michelle, it's not working.

• 15:18Speaker 09

  And you know, I've been taking it too. And me and Blythe were just an N of two. But I haven't noticed a difference either while taking creatine.

• 15:29Speaker 09

  But just because we haven't experienced a difference doesn't mean like you listener won't so.

• 15:36Speaker 02

  But then, I mean, just one, one more question on this muscle thing. What do you make of these videos where people get so huge, like they'll have this before and after. And they say the only thing that's changed is creatine.

• 15:51Speaker 09

  Why, why are they so swole all of a sudden? Well, one, they, it could be exaggerating. Like how, how fast it took them. But it's also possible that some people like are responding really well to creatine. But kind of in a psychological way too. Darren told me that when you go to work out, you could be physically working harder because you think like, oh my God, this creatine is amazing. Here's Darren.

• 16:20Speaker 10

  A lot of times that's because they're actually training harder or working harder. Hoping that they're really going to get an impact from the supplement. So in, in the end, they have improved performance, period. That's all that matters, right? Whether it's placebo effect or where it comes from creatine.

• 16:36Speaker 10

  Game on.

• 16:40Speaker 02

  All right, so here's where we're at with creatine and building muscle. It does have the potential to help you build muscle through either giving you more energy to do more reps because you have more ATP to play with. Or because it's working on your mind of. But it's not magic. Some people don't respond at all. And even if you do respond, for most of us, it's not going to make us shredded.

• 17:09Speaker 09

  Exactly.

• 17:10Speaker 02

  Okay. After the break, forget brawn. It's time to look at the brain. People are saying that creatine can do remarkable things to boost your brain power. Could they be right?

• 17:23Speaker 09

  Yes, scientists are getting excited here. Whoa, yeah, yeah.

• 17:29Speaker 12

  That's for me totally amazing.

• 17:31Speaker 02

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  Escape to Pluto TV.

• 18:13Speaker 01

  This is objectively fantastic.

• 18:15Speaker 07

  Relax into the movies and shows you already know and love, all for free. Shwing! Even our news is uplifting.

• 18:21Speaker 08

  You stay classy, San Diego.

• 18:22Speaker 07

  Watch Tommy Boy, Crazy Ex Girlfriend, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, The X-Files, Wayne's World, and so much more.

• 18:28Speaker 06

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• 18:30Speaker 07

  The best things on TV really are free.

• 18:32Speaker 13

  You just have to know where to look.

• 18:34Speaker 07

  Escape to Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never.

• 18:38Speaker 14

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• 19:40Wendy Zukerman?

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• 20:31Wendy Zukerman?

  Welcome back. We're looking at the supplement creatine and we're going to find out if it can help our brain, which I'm seeing a lot of buzz about right now, that creatine is going to help with your cognition and memory, particularly when you're sleep deprived.

• 20:46Speaker 09

  Yeah. Now, this idea isn't totally wild. Remember how creatine works to help you build muscle? Because you're better at recycling that fuel ATP?

• 20:58Wendy Zukerman?

  Yes, that's right. You have more fuel, then you have more energy. You can do more reps. Yes.

• 21:03Speaker 09

  Yeah. Well, the brain also uses ATP. So, Ali Gorgianajan, a physicist from the Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine in Germany, figured...

• 21:14Speaker 12

  We thought, okay, when that is working for the muscles, why not for the brain?

• 21:19Speaker 09

  So, Ali wanted to know if creatine could really boost your brain power. And for this study, he wanted to get the brain when it's at its worst and really needs that fuel.

• 21:30Speaker 12

  When it is totally exhausted, totally stressed.

• 21:33Speaker 09

  And the totally exhausted, totally stressed state that he studied was the sleep deprived brain.

• 21:40Wendy Zukerman?

  Ugh, this study is, this is gonna get rough.

• 21:43Speaker 09

  Uh huh. And so, one evening, Ali brought 15 people into the lab and ran a bunch of tests on them. In one of these tests, he's looking at reaction times. So, a green dot lights up on a screen and you have to press a clicker as soon as you see it. But you get tired and more tired and you get really crappy at this.

• 22:08Wendy Zukerman?

  Yes, I know. I've done this test, actually while sleep deprived. And you think it would be easy because you just see this damn green dot, but you're just, you know, missing the clicker at points.

• 22:18Speaker 09

  Yeah. So there's also memory tests he did, stuff like that. And then Ali, Ali had to make sure that these folks didn't sleep. And for those who were struggling to stay awake, he had a cheeky trick.

• 22:34Speaker 12

  I find out what controversial thematic issues are and I, and I take the opposite position.

• 22:41Speaker 09

  You debated about politics.

• 22:43Speaker 12

  Yeah, about politics, exactly.

• 22:47Speaker 02

  Oh my gosh, I couldn't imagine anything worse than having political discussions with someone at three, four, five in the morning where everyone's just going bonkers at that point.

• 22:58Speaker 09

  On top of the annoying chats throughout the night, Ali's taking MRI scans and repeating those cognitive tests once at midnight, at 2:00 AM and at 4:00 AM. And you know, these people are really dedicated. They all came into the lab to do this on a second night again. So each person got one night on creatine, another on placebo. They didn't know which they were getting each time.

• 23:27Wendy Zukerman?

  Okay, it is time to find out, did they do better at the cognitive tests with creatine?

• 23:34Speaker 09

  Well, very on theme, it was late at night when Ali tallied up the results and he got so excited. Creatine was actually doing something.

• 23:44Speaker 12

  And that, that is a totally amazing moment, yes. Okay, wow, cool. Yeah, just imagine it was about 1:00 AM or something like that, 2:00 AM. And I saw, wow, cool. I didn't know all the people were sleeping here. I didn't know whom to say so. It was for me totally amazing, but I have to keep the celebration for myself for the first time. But next day, I told it to the colleagues and there we celebrated that.

• 24:17Speaker 09

  Those taking creatine on average did significantly better at both the memory test and the clicker test.

• 24:25Speaker 12

  Surprising was the speed in processing time. They were all extremely faster.

• 24:31Speaker 09

  Wow, extremely faster. Through those MRI scans, Ali was also able to see that brain creatine levels increased and went up over time and that the brain was using them up throughout the night. That's so cool that they could see it in the, in the brain scanners. Yeah, so he had total proof that this is what was happening.

• 24:55Speaker 09

  But you have to know that Ali gave the people in the study a huge dose. Most people suggest that you need to take around like five grams a day. He gave them around five times that.

• 25:06Speaker 12

  Yeah, this is about 20 to 30 gram. Just imagine, this is like a half, half glass.

• 25:11Speaker 09

  Oh, that's a lot.

• 25:13Speaker 12

  It's a lot. It tastes also not good.

• 25:16Speaker 09

  Yeah, but hey, it worked. And Ali's study has created this huge buzz online. You've got folks like Joe Rogan talking about it, but it is a small study. And so before I started smashing half a glass of white powder, I went hunting for other studies looking into creatine in the brain and came across this very interesting one by Julia Fabian Sandkuler.

• 25:41Speaker 16

  I'm Fabian and I'm a psychology researcher.

• 25:45Speaker 09

  At the University of Bonn, also in Germany. So Fabian and her team recruited 123 healthy people and had them take creatine for six weeks. She also had those same people take placebo for six weeks to compare. And Fabian thinks this is the largest study on creatine supplementation and the brain that we have so far. She did a bunch of cognitive tests on them. Stuff like you heard before, things that look at memory, but also intelligence and reasoning. For example, they did this one test called the backward digit span test.

• 26:20Speaker 16

  I tell you a few numbers. I start with two, just two, and then you have to say them back in reverse order.

• 26:29Speaker 09

  Would you like to try it out, Wendy? Sure, sure. I want to give you digits. You have to repeat it back to me, but backwards.

• 26:36Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 26:37Speaker 09

  And I'm going to add a digit until you mess up.

• 26:40Speaker 02

  Okay, okay.

• 26:42Speaker 09

  Two.

• 26:43Speaker 02

  Two.

• 26:45Speaker 09

  Two, six.

• 26:46Speaker 02

  Six, two.

• 26:48Speaker 09

  Two, six, three.

• 26:50Speaker 02

  Three, six, two.

• 26:52Speaker 09

  Two, six, three, one.

• 26:55Speaker 02

  One, six, three, two.

• 26:59Speaker 09

  Okay, you messed up.

• 27:01Speaker 02

  Two, three, it was two, three, wasn't it?

• 27:03Speaker 09

  So you did almost average. On average, people can do about five digits pretty well.

• 27:09Speaker 02

  Uh huh. So if I took creatine, according to Fabian's study, would I do better?

• 27:15Speaker 09

  So Fabian looked at the results before and after creatine. And on average, no, it didn't help. Some people got a little boost compared to when they were on the placebo. But overall, it wasn't statistically significant.

• 27:32Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 27:34Speaker 09

  Yeah. So people online say it's amazing, brings you this giant boost in mental clarity and energy.

• 27:42Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 27:43Speaker 09

  Fabian says you should know it's not anywhere near that big of a jump. Like suddenly they can do like quantum physics.

• 27:52Speaker 16

  No, definitely no quantum physics. I'm not sure how easy it would be to notice.

• 27:56Speaker 02

  She's saying, I'm not sure how easy it would be to notice.

• 28:01Speaker 09

  Right. And I've been taking it, Blythe has been taking it, we've been exercising. And we haven't really noticed much of anything. Here's Blythe. How do you feel mentally? Do you feel any different from before, before you took creatine to now?

• 28:19Speaker 11

  No, not whatsoever, not remotely. Yeah, no, I feel no different. Zero, zero, zero across the board on increased memory, cognition, energy. I'm not noticing that.

• 28:33Speaker 02

  Hmm. So does this mean this claim about creatine? I mean, you have Ali's study that said yes, then Fabian's larger study that says no. What do you, what do we make of this?

• 28:48Speaker 09

  So Ali's study was really when the brain was at its worst, right?

• 28:54Wendy Zukerman?

  Right. Everyone was sleep deprived.

• 28:57Speaker 09

  And maybe that's where creatine does its best work for the brain. Because there's been other studies showing that creatine can help with the brain in other stressed out states, like helping with recovery after a stroke or concussion and maybe even depression. A study published just this year on 100 folks with pretty nasty depression, found that taking creatine along with cognitive behavioral therapy helped folks more than just CBT and a placebo.

• 29:27Wendy Zukerman?

  Huh, interesting.

• 29:28Speaker 09

  And even just for older folks. A recent review suggested that maybe it's more effective in boosting the memory of older adults compared to younger adults. But as for those online influencers who are like, "Everybody take this, everybody boost your brain, do a better job at work," that's probably overstated.

• 29:48Wendy Zukerman?

  I guess even though it's not going to turn you into a quantum physicist, just the fact that, you know, maybe if you're sleep deprived, it could help your brain. Or if you have depression, maybe it could help. Early research suggesting it's exciting. Plus, those small benefits that you say to your muscles. I mean, I'm not kicking this supplement out of bed just yet. But the last question is, what are the risks of taking it?

• 30:18Speaker 09

  So we know from the hundreds of studies on creatine that it's safe on the recommended dose, three to five grams a day. One thing on the internet I hear a lot that people are worried about is putting on weight and bloating. We think this sometimes happens because, as you heard before, creatine does this thing where it brings water into muscle cells.

• 30:42Speaker 09

  So muscles around your body are holding on to a bit more water than it normally would. This can lead to that bloated feeling. And that water retention might lead to a bit of weight gain on the scales.

• 30:55Wendy Zukerman?

  Uh huh, okay.

• 30:57Speaker 09

  But if this happens to you, you should feel back to normal pretty quickly.

• 31:01Wendy Zukerman?

  Okay.

• 31:02Speaker 09

  There's also this big idea that you'll get dehydrated from creatine. So people online say like drink tons of water to make up for this. But Darren, our bodybuilder, says you don't have to worry about this.

• 31:14Speaker 10

  There's no concerns with any types of ongoing dehydration. There have been a number of studies that have shown that also to be true.

• 31:22Speaker 09

  Just quickly, some people don't seem to digest creatine very well. Uh, you can get a bit of diarrhea or feel uncomfortable in your gut. Darren is actually one of these people. He said he gets gassy on creatine and he's tried all kinds of different forms of creatine to help, but nothing did.

• 31:41Wendy Zukerman?

  Uh huh.

• 31:42Speaker 09

  And also, if you're someone who has any kind of kidney conditions, you should maybe, you maybe shouldn't take creatine because it's going to give your kidneys a lot of extra work.

• 31:53Wendy Zukerman?

  Uh huh.

• 31:53Speaker 09

  But if your kidneys are healthy, that three to five gram dose should be perfectly fine for you.

• 31:58Wendy Zukerman?

  That's great.

• 32:00Speaker 09

  And if you do want to try this for your muscles, there's no need to be taking more than the recommended dose.

• 32:07Wendy Zukerman?

  Oh, because people talk about taking a ton of this stuff when you first start, that loading phase?

• 32:14Speaker 09

  Yeah, people claim you should take this loading phase of 20 to 25 grams of creatine a day for a week so that you saturate your muscles faster. Um, and then you drop down to that lower dose. But Darren's actually said you, you don't need to do this. It's not necessary. He did a study on this, looking at how much creatine came out of people's pee when they started their creatine regimens with a loading phase.

• 32:40Speaker 10

  So after like four days, the subjects were urinating out large amounts of their creatine dose. After about four days, the muscle is saturated.

• 32:52Speaker 09

  So that, that convention that it takes like weeks to become saturated?

• 32:57Speaker 10

  No, that's not true. Not true at all.

• 33:00Speaker 02

  Oh, okay. So forget the loading phase. You're just gonna pee it out. Pee out all this excess creatine. Your muscles don't need it.

• 33:09Speaker 09

  Yeah. But bottom line, capping off this episode here, having done the research.

• 33:14Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 33:15Speaker 09

  For me, creatine isn't mind blowing, but it's safe and it might boost some muscle. So I think it might be a helpful tool in the gym. I plan to keep trying it out and see if it works for me.

• 33:25Speaker 02

  Huh. Okay. I mean, even though some of the benefits are definitely overstated, I, I will say, Michelle, it's probably the most optimistic conclusion we've had about a supplement in a long time. So thank you.

• 33:41Speaker 09

  Thanks, Wendy.

• 33:45Speaker 02

  So how many citations are in this week's episode?

• 33:48Speaker 09

  Wendy, there are sixty five citations.

• 33:51Speaker 02

  Sixty five citations?

• 33:52Speaker 09

  Yes.

• 33:52Speaker 02

  And if people want to see them in all of their glory, where should they go?

• 33:57Speaker 09

  Please check out our transcript in the show notes.

• 34:00Speaker 02

  Michelle, happy birthday.

• 34:03Speaker 09

  Happy birthday to.

• 34:05Speaker 02

  Science versus.

• 34:08Speaker 09

  Science versus.

• 34:09Speaker 02

  Science versus is ten years old.

• 34:11Speaker 09

  Crazy.

• 34:12Speaker 02

  This show's been going for ten years. It's, it's bonkers.

• 34:15Speaker 09

  Well, you've been here for all those ten years. How are you feeling?

• 34:18Speaker 02

  What, what is most funny to me is how things have changed a lot in the world. Um, and in the world of misinformation and in social media, blah, blah, blah, blah. But at the same time, the more things change, the more they stay the same. And I love that my, the very first pilot episode of Science Versus, which in the future, I reckon we, we should put it down the feed because it's so funny. It's about the paleo diet.

• 34:42Speaker 09

  Ooh.

• 34:43Speaker 02

  And next week, our episode is about the carnivore diet.

• 34:47Speaker 09

  Oh, yeah.

• 34:48Wendy Zukerman?

  That, yeah, that is very nice symmetry to me.

• 34:51Speaker 09

  Oh, and there's something that you wanted to ask the audience about, right?

• 34:54Wendy Zukerman?

  Yeah, well, if you guys want to send us a message, or it feels weird. Do you want to, do you want to send me a happy birthday message? No, but, you know, in, in a future episode, we're going to kind of be pulling together some fun birthday stuff. And we would love to hear from you about how you felt about listening to Science vs. over these years, if there was like an episode that changed what you do, or a pun that still makes you laugh, that seems unlikely. But we would just love to hear from you.

• 35:30Speaker 09

  Yeah, so people should send us a voicemail or even a video to our email at [email protected]. Or if you're in the US, you can call us and leave a voicemail at 774-481-1238. Those two things will be in our show notes, so head over there and send us a message.

• 35:52Wendy Zukerman?

  All right, see you soon, Michelle.

• 35:53Speaker 09

  See ya, bye.

• 35:55Wendy Zukerman?

  Bye.

• 36:03Wendy Zukerman?

  This episode was produced by Michelle Dang with help from me, Wendy Zukerman, Merrill Horn, Rose Rimler, and Aketi Foster Keys. We're edited by Blythe Terrell, fact checking by Marlo Starling. Mix and sound design by Bobby Lord. Music written by Emma Munger, So Wiley, Peter Leonard, Bumi Hidaka, and Bobby Lord. A special thanks to all of the researchers that we reached out to, including Dr. Imtiaz Desai and Professor Phil Chilibeck. Thanks to Larry Lee and Lee Physical Therapy and Wellness. Science vs. is a Spotify Studios original. Listen to us for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. We are everywhere, but if you are listening on Spotify, you could follow us and tap the bell icon so you get notifications when new episodes come out.

• 36:47Wendy Zukerman?

  And on whatever app you are listening on, please give us a five star review if you like what we're doing, because it helps people find the show. I'm Wendy Zukerman, back to you next time.

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