Creatine has been studied extensively for 35 years (and counting), and it’s safe to say that it’s much safer than Tylenol. (You won’t find any documented cases of accidental overdose causing death.)

Research on everyone from infants to the elderly should help you feel good about the supplement. Here’s a big roundup of a lot of the research that’s been done on the benefits, if you’re curious and want to look for yourself.

So why the controversy? Because in a supplement market clouded by lots of hype and little noticeable results (“pump” supplements, anyone?), creatine actually works. Really well, actually, and in more ways than you probably imagined.

To calm your uncertainty, we found the people who know best: researchers, scientists, and Ph.D’s, to provide you with the real story — and why creatine is better (and safer) than you might think.

Creatine is all-natural. (Seriously)

You can find creatine in everything from steak to beef, chicken, rabbit, and milk. The problem: the dose is so small you’d have to eat 2-3 pounds of meat per day to experience the same impact of as about 1 teaspoon of the powder form, says Kamal Patel, Director at Examine.com, an independent website devoted to demystifying the science and nutrition of supplementation.

It works kind of like a shot of adrenaline.

Your main source of energy is ATP—that’s short for adenosine triphosphate. It’s a mouthful, but here’s what you need to you know. You burn up ATP the same way you chug a beer: fast and reckless. Creatine is like having a buddy with extra beers always waiting.

When you exercise that tri-phosphate becomes a di-phosphate and you hit your wall. Enter creatine, which provides that third phosphate molecule so you can keep pushing harder. It’s extra energy when you need it most, without any uncomfortable caffeine-like crash.

It can, in fact, help your muscles grow bigger.

Creatine can increase muscle fiber size by increasing water content in your muscle cells, which triggers genes involved in increasing size.

It can also help you get stronger.

In a review of 22 studies, people who use the supplement show nearly a 10 percent increase in strength compared to those that don’t. More of a high reps person? It also boosts non-max exercise reps by almost 15 percent.

Super-loading does not cause quicker results. (Only an emptier wallet)

If you lift weights, aim for 5 grams per day. If you don’t, just 2 grams will do the trick. Taking anything more will only mean more trips to the supplement store, not more size or strength.

Creatine might help make you faster, too, at least for shorter distances.

It’s not just for the meatheads. If you’re running sprints, you’ll not only see your speed increase, you’ll also be able to recover faster to keep running at a higher intensity. Just don’t expect the benefit to translate to long-distance running.

Have to take a break from the gym? Creatine can help.

While creatine won’t preserve your body as if you’re cryogenically frozen, it will speed up the process of how quickly you can get back in shape.

Worried about dehydration? Don’t.

Research on NCAA football players found that athletes using creatine had less cramping, heat exhaustion, and muscle strains than non-users.

The biggest downside? Your sensitive stomach.

While creatine is safe from any dangerous or serious health concerns, side effects include nausea and diarrhea. Want to limit potential bathroom shenanigans? Take smaller doses (less than 5 grams), drink enough water, or consume it with food, says Alan Aragon, M.S., a nutritionist, and founder of Alan Aragon’s Research Review.

Creatine Might Strengthen Your Brain, Too

Some of the most interesting research is with those suffering from traumatic brain injury. Creatine also shows potential for limiting frequency of headaches, fatigue, and dizziness.

It may be especially helpful to people who follow vegan and vegetarian diets.

Eating all the kale in the world is very healthy, but it still doesn’t provide your brain with some necessary nutrients. Creatine helps feed your neurons the same way it feeds you muscles, and helps protect against breakdown.

The buyer’s guide: Stick with monohydrate.

Creatine monohydrate is not only the cheapest version, it’s also the best, says Aragon. Need proof? Research shows that other forms like creatine ethyl ester are about as effective as a placebo.

Convenience is not better with creatine.

If you’re going to supplement with creatine, buy the powder version, not the pre-mixed liquid. Pre-mixed liquid creatine (created for manufacturing and longer shelf life) reduces the effectiveness and absorption compared to powder or capsules. And no, this does not apply to mixing at home into a solution.

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Adam Bornstein

Adam Bornstein is a New York Times bestselling author and the author of You Can’t Screw This Up. He is the founder of Born Fitness, and the co-founder of Arnold’s Pump Club (with Arnold Schwarzenegger) and Pen Name Consulting. An award-winning writer and editor, Bornstein was previously the Chief Nutrition Officer for Ladder, the Fitness and Nutrition editor for Men’s Health, Editorial Director at LIVESTRONG.com, and a columnist for SHAPE, Men’s Fitness, and Muscle & Fitness. He’s also a nutrition and fitness advisor for LeBron James, Cindy Crawford, Lindsey Vonn, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. According to The Huffington Post, Bornstein is “one of the most inspiring sources in all of health and fitness.” His work has been featured in dozens of publications, including The New York Times, Fast Company, ESPN, and GQ, and he’s appeared on Good Morning America, The Today Show, and E! News.

The post Science Proves Why Creatine is Better Than You Thought appeared first on Born Fitness.

The parallels could go on and on. Las Vegas looks the way it does for a reason (lots of lost money), and the supplement industry—all $32 billion in 2012—has sucked dry (the wallets and hopes of) many individuals with great intentions of becoming healthier, losing fat, and gaining muscle. 

That said, not all supplements are bad. While few fat loss supplements are actually fat burners, and creatine might be the only real muscle building supplement, that doesn’t mean everything is a waste of your money. Many have benefits, but reading through all the research to discover what you should buy can be difficult and confusing.

To save you time, I teamed with the supplement experts at Examine.com to uncover three supplements that frequently pop up as “must buys,” but are more hype than help for you fitness and nutrition goals.

Three Overrated Supplements

Research By Examine.com

Raspberry Ketones

There are quite a few supplements, almost all of them fat-burners, that people take simply because of one man’s recommendation: Dr. Oz. These include raspberry ketones, green coffee extract, African mango (irvingia gabonensis), and 5-HTP (there are many more, but these seem to be the most popular).

While green coffee extract and 5-HTP may actually have a role in supplementation (though not really as fat-burners), and African mango seems to be pretty ineffective but not too popular, raspberry ketones is unique in the sense that is both incredibly popular yet has no evidence to support its usage.

There are currently no human studies using raspberry ketones in isolation in humans. There are a few studies that super-loading in rats worked minimally as a fat burner, but the equivalent dosage would be 1000 times higher than what you find in most pills as a modest estimate. In fact, the only way to reach such a dosage would likely be via injections!

Resources

1. Morimoto C, et al. Anti-obese action of raspberry ketone. Life Sci. (2005)

Glutamine

Glutamine was one of the first amino acids to be recommended to athletes for the purpose of enhancing performance, recovery, and muscle building. The concept was pretty basic: the more glutamine a muscle cell gets, the more it builds muscle; a simple dose-dependent relationship that many people thought would result in more and more muscle.

Unfortunately, this did not pan out in human studies where glutamine supplementation failed to outperform placebo in building muscle. It wasn’t just one failure either; when tested glutamine failed over and over again.

It was later discovered that the intestines and liver really love glutamine, and they act to regulate the exposure of glutamine to the rest of the body, by sequestering its levels and feeding it to intestinal and immune cells.

While glutamine still has a role in states of a relative glutamine deficiency (burn victims, possibly vegans, and endurance exercise over 2 hours in length), it has no role as a super-loading supplement due to its inability to get to muscles in sufficient levels.

That doesn’t mean glutamine is without benefits. It can help your immune system, but in terms of fitness goals (beyond staying healthy), you won’t see any benefit. Most importantly to the marketing hype, your body tightly regulates the amount of glutamine your muscles actually get. Thus, glutamine does not induce increased muscle protein synthesis.

Resources:

1. Wilkinson SB, et al. Addition of glutamine to essential amino acids and carbohydrate does not enhance anabolism in young human males following exercise. Appl Physiol Nutr Metab. (2006)
2. Candow DG, et al. Effect of glutamine supplementation combined with resistance training in young adults. Eur J Appl Physiol. (2001)

Glucosamine

Glucosamine is one of the most used supplements in the western world, and has a position where its reputation is nearly untouchable; it is apparently the ‘go-to’ joint health supplement.

That said, there are many issues with the research surrounding this product, including:

• It is not a ‘joint health’ supplement, it is an “anti-osteoarthritis” supplement. While the difference is not a concern for people with osteoarthritis, this is a completely different issue for an athlete who wants to reduce joint pain or post-workout soreness
• Glucosamine does not have any evidence for its efficacy following oral ingestion. Glucosamine sulfate does, and glucosamine hydrochloride paired with chondroitin sulfate does, but glucosamine hydrochloride does not.
• In regards to the selective italicization just now, it seems the benefits associated with glucosamine supplementation may actually be due to the previously thought to be inactive stabilizer of glucosamine (the sulfate).

Sulfur deficiencies are known to cause osteoarthritic symptoms, and many supplement that provide dietary sulfur (MSM, N-acetylcysteine, SAMe) are used to reduce symptoms of joint pain. Even glucosamine’s anti-osteoarthritic benefits are extremely unreliable, working in some people, and not in others.

The unreliability of the supplement fits well with the hypothesis that sulfur supplementation in response to a deficiency alleviates its symptoms (with no inherent effect on persons with adequate sulfur intake).

Bottom line: Glucosamine actually has no good evidence to support its usage, but another ingredient that has been slipped into the supplement (sulfate) may be effective. Even then, it’s only good for combating osteoarthritic pain, not joint pain.

Resources

1. McAlindon TE, et al. Glucosamine and chondroitin for treatment of osteoarthritis: a systematic quality assessment and meta-analysis. JAMA. (2000)
2. Richy F, et al. Structural and symptomatic efficacy of glucosamine and chondroitin in knee osteoarthritis: a comprehensive meta-analysis. Arch Intern Med. (2003)
3. Clegg DO, et al. Glucosamine, chondroitin sulfate, and the two in combination for painful knee osteoarthritis. N Engl J Med. (2006)

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Adam Bornstein

Adam Bornstein is a New York Times bestselling author and the author of You Can’t Screw This Up. He is the founder of Born Fitness, and the co-founder of Arnold’s Pump Club (with Arnold Schwarzenegger) and Pen Name Consulting. An award-winning writer and editor, Bornstein was previously the Chief Nutrition Officer for Ladder, the Fitness and Nutrition editor for Men’s Health, Editorial Director at LIVESTRONG.com, and a columnist for SHAPE, Men’s Fitness, and Muscle & Fitness. He’s also a nutrition and fitness advisor for LeBron James, Cindy Crawford, Lindsey Vonn, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. According to The Huffington Post, Bornstein is “one of the most inspiring sources in all of health and fitness.” His work has been featured in dozens of publications, including The New York Times, Fast Company, ESPN, and GQ, and he’s appeared on Good Morning America, The Today Show, and E! News.

The post 3 Overrated Supplements appeared first on Born Fitness.