For many years, Creatine is a supplement that has been in use in the fitness industry. Various research widely carried out on it have proved its effectiveness.
Creatine has been used by different athletes to add more muscles, achieve overall strength, and increase their endurance, though they may be ignorant of its many other benefits to their bodies.
Creatine Monohydrate plays a very crucial role in the brain energy homeostasis. Various researchers have shown the effect of using creatine supplementations in different scenarios. This article will not dwell on the creatine benefits to the muscle, endurance or strength as there are enough articles on those aspects already.
Here are ten unusual facts about creatine that you need to know:
1 Creatine is Beneficial to your Ketogenic Diet
One good supplement that aids Ketogenic diet is creatine. It makes a perfect combination with Keto as it does not need carbs to function well, besides there is no need to load it before it works. Though, there is a possibility of it causing in some people,
2 Children can also Benefit from Creatine
Creatine has numerous solutions for a lot of medical conditions. Children can also use it. Creatine monohydrate helps in treating and curing children born with defects in creatine metabolism which causes mental retardation and autistic disorders if left untreated.
3 Taking Creatine Makes You Look and Feel Stronger
Creatine can be taken for various reasons depending on the person’s need. It can make you look and feel stronger. Creatine makes you stronger by drawing more water into your muscles. The bottom line is that the additional water brought into your muscle will be used up by the body. That makes it necessary to take 2-5 grams of creatine every day, including drinking a lot of water to maintain it.
Apart from looking stronger, creatine also makes you feel stronger by creating more energy for the body. Regular exercise allows you to use the energy while working out also makes you look smarter as it helps prevent the accumulation of extra water in the muscles.
4 Creatine helps in Boosting Testosterone
Creatine is also useful for boosting testosterone. Taking creatine supplementation for five days has been found to be helpful in increasing testosterone. And other studies have also supported this by advocating a dosage of 0.1 to 0.3g per kg, which is 1-2 grams per day for a guy. The creatine is on the low side, making it possible for any guy to have.
Likewise, you can get to read my article on natural ways to boost testosterone if you want to know how to increase testosterone naturally.
5 Creatine Boost Brain Performance
A study discovered that vegetarians who took creatine are better at remembering numbers in descending orders, they have better working memory and scored higher on a test of general intelligence on the Ravens Progressive Matrices test. The study had examined if there would be a difference between vegetarians taking 5g of creatine for six weeks and vegetarian who did not.
6 Creatine Act as an anti-depressant
Various studies have revealed that creatine supplements can be used as an anti-depressant. In a small preliminary study published in 2007, it showed that bipolar patients supplemented with creatine improved slightly.
Also as revealed in a more significant, double-blind trial on depressive women in 2012, creatine improved patients HAM-D score (a measure of depression) within two weeks of starting the supplementation and this continued for the full eight weeks of the study.
Other studies addressed the use of creatine in patients whose current treatment for resistant depression was working correctly for them. The result showed that their depressive symptomatic were alleviated, their mood improved, and their brain phosphocreatine concentrations increased – the last improvement was reported in the second study.
7 Creatine Enhances Cognitive Performance in Elderly
In a randomized clinical trial which looked at the effect of creatine supplementation on cognitive function in elderly (80+) people and published in 2007 showed that creatine supplementation has a significant impact on all tasks except backward number recall. The test was on random number generation, forward and backward number and spatial recall, and long-term memory tasks. The conclusion was that creatine supplementation enhances cognition in the elderly.
8 Creatine is good for Pediatric Cancer Patients
Creatine has been helpful to pediatric cancer patients that undergo chemotherapy. Creatine helps to reduce the body fat caused by corticosteroid. Pediatric cancer patients take corticosteroid to reduce the adverse effect of chemotherapy, but it also creates a rapid increase of body fats.
9 Taking Creatine with Grape Juice Works Wonder
Taking creatine with sugar like grape juice helps to push the creatine faster into the muscles as creatine uptake needs to be enhanced by the intake of insulin. Taking 100 grams of grape juice for every 5 grams of creatine is recommended. Also, a recent study has shown that creatine taking along with protein produces the same results and it suggested that 50 grams of protein should be taken for every 5 grams of creatine.
10 Creatine has an Anti-Oxidant Effect
Creatine supplement has been found to be useful as an antioxidant when combined with resistance training. This test was carried out on rats, and another two studies supported it. Creatine antioxidant can be said to be responsible for enhancing performances in athletes.
In conclusion
With the facts given above, supplementing with creatine is a welcome idea. It helps in boosting the immunity of the body, increases strength an power, offers protection for the brain and liver against toxins, has an antioxidant effect, guides against muscle wastage, increases weight without increasing body fat and reduces the need for sleep. Its advantages are too numerous.
Apart from the many benefits, creatine supplementation is easily affordable while there are no pronounced adverse effects associated with it.
However, it is essential to consult your doctor before taking the supplement. Also buy from a genuine supplement brand online and measure your fitness metrics to know if it has any effect on your strength, endurance, and performance. Creatine is result-oriented but knowing your data will help you know if you have made the right choice.