This is such a crazy substance. I'm 43 and I feel like I have more energy than I have ever had before. I started taking it during recovery from a bad ankle fracture since it helps building muscle mass. Once the ankle was better I took up CrossFit, and kept on taking creatine because why not, it helps replenish ATP so I will be able to give the extra-push when working out, I thought.
What is blowing my mind though is that at $dayjob my team is going through a crazy crunch to deliver a very strategic project and some of us are pushing 10-12h days often. I'm in hour 12 today for the second day in a row, and my head is not tired at all. Turns out the brain also uses a lot of ATP too, specially during demanding cognitive tasks so I guess it is creatine that is keeping the engine running smoothly even after so many hours.
I will like once every week or two have a poor night sleep. These days I take twice the dose and I don't feel like I'm sleep deprived at all. Feels like cheating! And apparently no side effects at all so far. Well, maybe I'm working too much.
It has an especially noticeable effect if you're a vegetarian. I'm a lifelong vegetarian, and high doses of it for me are a crazy cognitive enhancer.
Creatine is not available from plants and the 0.5 g is not insignficant for normal health. The 5 grams you're quoting is generally for people who supplement for athletic performance.
Creatine is created within the body so a vegetarian eating plant precursors can help create their own baseline supply.
A non-aggressive, curious question: can you give a citation for the "significant" health benefits of 0.5g creatine? That seems like quite a claim. (I'm reading "not insignificant" as "significant", perhaps a step too far?)
Note that there have also been brain benefits from creatine, but those have only been observed in ~20g/day studies (its not just athletic performance).
I'm not making a claim for a significant health benefit from 0.5g of creatine I'm just countering your bald claim that it's insignficant - we are getting into word lawyer territory. But anyway to establish what I'm claiming, 0.5g of creatine, I feel, is a useful amount - the numbers you are fixated on are for athletes or neurotropic nerds.
"Although the human body produces a portion of its daily creatine needs, approximately 50 % must be obtained through the diet – predominantly from animal-based foods like red meat and fish"
So in that context, a vegetarian can benefit from small amounts of supplementation if they aren't getting it in their diet.
Ah. I guess the term we're looking for is "physiologically meaningful"; I wasn't talking about "statistical significance". Something can be statistically significant but have a clinically worthless effect size.
FYI the standard null hypothesis is that differences are not significant until shown otherwise. E.g. no doctor will prescribe 50mg metformin to a prediabetic even if it might have an effect; it will be physiologically meaningless.
> the numbers you are fixated on are for athletes or neurotropic nerds
If you have other numbers/studies to back "0.5g of creatine, I feel, is a useful amount", then I'm willing to "fixate" on those numbers.
nsbk · · focus · HN ↗
What is blowing my mind though is that at $dayjob my team is going through a crazy crunch to deliver a very strategic project and some of us are pushing 10-12h days often. I'm in hour 12 today for the second day in a row, and my head is not tired at all. Turns out the brain also uses a lot of ATP too, specially during demanding cognitive tasks so I guess it is creatine that is keeping the engine running smoothly even after so many hours.
I will like once every week or two have a poor night sleep. These days I take twice the dose and I don't feel like I'm sleep deprived at all. Feels like cheating! And apparently no side effects at all so far. Well, maybe I'm working too much.
meowface · · focus · HN ↗
mpalczewski · · focus · HN ↗
AlexErrant · · focus · HN ↗
That's pretty insignificant. Does anyone really wanna eat 2.5lbs of beef every day for the usual dose of 5g?
djmips · · focus · HN ↗
Creatine is created within the body so a vegetarian eating plant precursors can help create their own baseline supply.
AlexErrant · · focus · HN ↗
A non-aggressive, curious question: can you give a citation for the "significant" health benefits of 0.5g creatine? That seems like quite a claim. (I'm reading "not insignificant" as "significant", perhaps a step too far?)
Note that there have also been brain benefits from creatine, but those have only been observed in ~20g/day studies (its not just athletic performance).
djmips · · focus · HN ↗
"Although the human body produces a portion of its daily creatine needs, approximately 50 % must be obtained through the diet – predominantly from animal-based foods like red meat and fish"
So in that context, a vegetarian can benefit from small amounts of supplementation if they aren't getting it in their diet.
<a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12722096/" rel="nofollow">https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12722096/
AlexErrant · · focus · HN ↗
FYI the standard null hypothesis is that differences are not significant until shown otherwise. E.g. no doctor will prescribe 50mg metformin to a prediabetic even if it might have an effect; it will be physiologically meaningless.
> the numbers you are fixated on are for athletes or neurotropic nerds
If you have other numbers/studies to back "0.5g of creatine, I feel, is a useful amount", then I'm willing to "fixate" on those numbers.
djmips · · focus · HN ↗