Says every “fitness” guru blog headline. Seriously, if you want to progress in life and gym, make sure you read more than the headlines and do your research.
So what is creatine? And why should you care about it?
Creatine is in the chain of energy production, explicitly replenishing used energy. If you have never heard of the term ATP, that is adenosine triphosphate. Why is that relevant? Well, because it is the molecule that we as humans use for energy. Fun Fact: our muscle cells want to keep our ATP levels low simply because if we use too much energy at once, it causes the muscle cells to become acidic. Therefore f*ck up all cellular functions. To combat your muscles becoming acidic (we all know this feeling with the lactic acid build-up and your legs feeling like cement), another molecule in our muscle cells is creatine phosphate. This sugar gives its phosphate group away to ADP. The ADP can then be quickly recharged into ATP. This system of energy production is known as the Phosphagen system. This system is for immediate bursts of activity (around the first 10 seconds of intense physical activity). Where creatine comes into play is in the production of phosphocreatine.
When the body has excess ATP, it reacts with creatine to formulate phosphocreatine. Meaning the more phosphocreatine you have in your body, the more ATP you can replenish; this is where supplementing creatine comes into action.
Our bodies naturally create creatine. It comes from the breakdown of two amino acids, glycine and arginine. However, studies have shown that supplementing creatine has improved power output by up to 26% after taking creatine monohydrate. The effects of supplementing creatine are pretty notable.
Some side effects you may encounter supplementing with creatine are due to consuming creatine without sufficient water intake. Cramping is one of the most common side effects because creatine is an osmotically active substance, meaning increased water retention and consequently gains in body mass. People often confuse these effects with fat gain. The other common ones are diarrhea and nausea when supplementing too much creatine in one sitting; if this happens, spread out the doses and take them with meals. (Also, how much are you supplementing to get those results slow down!). To counter creatine causes hair loss, there has been one study that creatine supplementation may increase dihydrotestosterone (DHT) — an androgen that contributes to hair loss, particularly in males. It is important to note that this is the only study of its kind, and in the study, the DHT levels were well within the normal range. Meaning even IF creatine increases DHT, it still may not cause more significant hair loss than otherwise would have happened naturally. To this day, there have been no studies that tested creatine's effects on hair loss.
In the end, creatine is very safe and one of the most researched supplements out in the market AND one of the most effective.
Are you convinced yet? Check out Nova3Labs creatine by clicking here.
You may be wondering why is ours different from the others? Well, we have a creatine blend. Our blend includes creatine monohydrate, creatine pyruvate, and creatine citrate. This blend helps you get up to saturation faster, allowing you to be more explosive quicker!
Hey guys, it's Mike from Nova3Labs, and I just wanted to address a concern that I sometimes get about creatine, creatine and hair loss. Is there a connection? Briefly, no, there's no connection. Um, there has been some studies linking creatine to increases in DHT dihydrotestosterone. That is a metabolite of testosterone and far more potent, uh, that has been linked to hair loss in those that are predisposed to have male pattern baldness, creatine does not directly increase the DHT. It is probably more likely due to the increased training volume and resistance training that athletes do when they get the benefits of creatine, just like max creatine. So I've been taking creatine for well over 20 years and I'm doing okay. I think so. That's my thoughts on creatine and hair loss.