Is creatine bad for you? Does creatine work? What does creatine do?

If these are the questions you are asking yourself, then I hope that you will find this short article useful. And don’t forget to let me know what you think of it - just leave the comment below. Thanks!

Now, moving on to creatine… Over 200 clinical studies have been conducted on creatine. It is probably the most researched bodybuilding supplement in the world, however it is causing as much contraversy now as it did 10 years ago, when in 1996 Mr Olympia 75% - or 3 out of 4 - athletes were using creatine.

Benefits of creatine use include:

• Helps increase the fat free muscle mass of an athlete
• Promotes muscle hypertrophy
• Increases muscle mass
• Increases athlete’s maximal strength.
• Improves maximum power
• Helps increase performance during high to maximum intensity exercise

Taking creatine supplements results in loading up all of your muscle fibers, in particular the fast twitch muscle fibers with phosphocreatine. This creatine loading gives your muscles ability to work harder and store more strength and power. More strength and power results in higher intensity of workout, thus stimulating faster gains in strength and muscle mass.

Is creatine safe?

In fact one of the most recent studies hot-off-the press provides further support of the safety of creatine, under conditions of a long-term study, conducted by Groeneveld and coworkers.

In this study, the researchers performed a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of creatine monohydrate, with patients taking 10 grams of creatine a day for a period of 310 days or a placebo. The patients were questioned periodically and their plasma urea concentrations and urinary creatine and albumin concentrations were measured.

Groeneveld and coworkers found that there were no significant differences in side effects between the group taking the creatine monohydrate supplement compared to the group of people who were taking the placebo.

Out of the almost 200 research subjects only 3 experienced side effects like nausea and diarrhea which caused them to discontinue the use of creatine. These side effects disappeared after creatine use was stopped.

Do you have any thoughts about creatine that you would like to share?