Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hi, everyone. I'm Courtney and I'm your dietitian with E2M. Today's video, I wanted to talk about creatine and the benefits of creatine, not just with exercise, but outside of exercise.
[00:00:13] So for those of you that aren't familiar with creatine, it's a really popular supplement in the health and fitness world.
[00:00:20] It is a compound that is naturally occurring in the muscle and in the brain.
[00:00:27] It is a compound that's made up of three amino acids, arginine, glycine, and methionine.
[00:00:34] Now, when we have creatine, what is it doing?
[00:00:37] It really helps to regenerate ATP, also known as energy, for short bursts of higher intensity and even more endurance with our muscles. So you may hear creatine helps to build muscles, but technically that's not what it's doing. It's giving our muscles muscle's energy to work harder, work longer, and that's how we can help to build the muscle. Creatine also helps to rehydrate our muscle cells so it pulls. It helps to pull water into the muscle cells, and that will help to plump your muscles up and kind of give you more definition. So with those three things, that's kind of how we see muscle building with creatine.
[00:01:22] Outside side of exercise, though, creatine has a lot of research when it comes to memory and cognitive function, so it can really help maintain and support memory and cognitive function. We do see early research studies about the potential benefits of using creatine in individuals with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.
[00:01:47] There is also research out there on creatine and its support for heart health, cardiac function, and reducing arrhythmia risks.
[00:01:56] So definitely, like, look into the research behind creatine, because there's a lot of research coming out now specifically for women. There is research regarding creatine's benefit in reducing fatigue during your menstrual cycle. So it kind of helps us feel less tired when we're menstruating. Creatine has also been helped, also been found to help support bone health during menopause. And that whole process is kind of in line with, we use creatine to give our muscles more energy so they can work harder and work longer. And those resistance exercises are what help to build our muscle, or not muscle. Excuse me, help to build and maintain our bone strength. Excuse me. And that's specifically during menopause.
[00:02:53] Creatine as a supplement is a safe, daily thing you can take. I always recommend talking with your medical team before starting Any type of supplement. Your doctor, your personal dietitians, they know your medical history, they know your medications.
[00:03:10] So definitely talk with your medical team before starting any supplement. However, creatine is a safe thing to take daily. When we're talking about the supplement itself, we're looking for something that has three, three to five grams per day. We are also wanting to make sure that that supplement is only one ingredient. You're probably going to be bombarded with lots of supplements with lots of ingredients, but we want to look for something that only has one ingredient and that ingredient is creatine monohydrate.
[00:03:43] Lastly, we want to make sure we're choosing a supplement that has been third party tested to verify that it is of course, quality. It has the ingredients that it says it has and in the amounts that it says it has. So those products are usually going to be labeled with NSF International or NSF Certified for Sport or even Informed Choice. So when we're looking at those supplements, we can feel safe. We can feel like this is something that I can take daily.
[00:04:18] I am not necessarily going to recommend doing loading dose for anyone. Loading dose is usually intended for short term use, whereas the 3 to 5 grams per day is going to be your long term use. Now again, talk with your medical team before starting any supplement. I cannot stress that enough.
[00:04:39] Lastly, as a dietitian, I'm always going to promote food first for those individuals that really just want to avoid supplements. Totally get it. We want to make sure you're getting in foods that have creatine naturally in it. And that's going to come from your animal proteins. So your red meat definitely make sure it's lean so we can minimize saturated fat intake.
[00:05:01] We're also going to do poultry, lean poultry. We're also going to do dairy, very lean dairy, eggs and fish, those are all items that have creatine in it that we want to make sure we're eating on a daily basis. Breakfast, lunch, dinner and all your snacks so we can ensure you're getting creatine in.
[00:05:22] Now, just to kind of like recap everything that I just said, creatine is a safe supplement to take daily.
[00:05:29] Creatine helps to enhance muscle function by increasing intensity of muscle function and increasing endurance for muscle function. And those are kind of how we see more, more muscle definition. Creatine is also helping with cognitive and memory function.
[00:05:49] It has cardiac benefits. It also has benefits for women during their menstrual cycle and during menopause. So all of these things kind of added up together. Creatine is a pretty nice thing to have.
[00:06:06] If there are any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to our team, but I always recommend doing your research as well.
[00:06:15] Talk with your medical providers too, before starting any supplements, and I hope everybody has a wonderful day.
[00:06:22] Bye.
