Creatine Quick Detail:
Product Name:Creatine
Alias:Methylglycocyamine
CAS NO.:57-00-1
EINECS:200-306-6
Molecular Formula:C4H9N3O2
Molecular Weight:131.13
Appearance:White Crystalline Powder
Grade:Food Grade,Pharmaceutical Grade
Creatine Description:
In it various forms, which over the years have become more and more advanced, creatine has been recognized by the scientific community and the hard training athlete as a product that delivers on its promise of improved strength and enhanced muscle size.
Creatine is one of the best supplements available, hands down. Few products give you the same mass and strength gains. And we’re not just quoting anecdotal reports from the guys at the gym; hundreds of studies support creatine’s effectiveness in everyone from teenagers to the elderly, both male and female. It has been shown to increase lean muscle mass and strength, boost brain function, reduce the risk of several diseases, work as an antioxidant and even help prevent sun damage to skin. As far as safety goes, numerous studies show that short- and long-term use of creatine in prescribed doses is safe and doesn’t damage the kidneys or cause muscle cramps or strains. Not surprisingly, weightlifting’s wonder supp has taken on a few upgrades over the years. Now, you have more options to choose from, all of which are solid choices.
Creatine-typically bought in flavored powders and mixed with liquid-increases the body’s ability to produce energy rapidly. With more energy, you can train harder and more often, producing faster results.
Research shows that creatine is most effective in high-intensity training and explosive activities. This includes weight training and sports that require short bursts of effort, such as sprinting, football, and baseball.One thing is almost certain: If you take creatine, you’ll gain weight.
Benefits of supplementing with creatine:
- Promote greater gains in increasing FFM (Fat Free Mass, which includes muscle mass).
- Increases muscle fiber size; hypertrophy.
- Increases muscle mass.
- Increases myosin.
- Improves maximal strength.
- Improves maximal power.
- Improves single-effort sprint performance.
- Improves worked performed during repetitive sprint performance.
- Improves performance during exercise of high to maximal intensity.
- Improves recovery following endurance activity.
- Has a neuroprotective function.
- Enhances bone regeneration.
- Improves muscle and performance in vegetarians.
Creatine supplements are used by athletes, bodybuilders, wrestlers, sprinters, and others who wish to gain muscle mass.
A meta analysis found that creatine treatment increased muscle strength in muscular dystrophies, and potentially improved functional performance. It has also been implicated in decreasing mutagenesis in DNA.
When creatine is mixed with protein and sugar at high temperatures (above 148 °C), the resulting reaction produces heterocyclic amines (HCAs). Such a reaction happens when grilling or pan frying meat.
A Meta-analysis from 2011 concluded that “search for the excretion of heterocyclic amines remains a future task to definitively exclude the unproved allegation made by some national agencies”.
BENEFITS OF CREATINE:
One of the most heavily researched supplements in the history of sports nutrition (over 200 studies to date, over the last decade), creatines efficacy cannot be denied. But exactly what benefits will Creatine provide?
1. HIGH INTENSITY WORK
Creatine enhances the body’s capacity to perform high intensity work (and assists greater muscle size and performance gains as a result).
Creatine phosphate (creatines high energy molecule form, stored within cells) is used to supply the type 11b muscle fibers (fast-twitch high-glycolytic; the ones that get largest in size) with immediate energy, ensuring these muscles do not prematurely fatigue.
This strengthens muscular contraction of these fibers, and helps the athlete to pump out more reps, sprint at a faster rate, or engage more forcefully in whatever sport or type of exercise they take part in. Supplementing with creatine allows the muscles to store more of this high-energy molecule to provide greater gains in strength and muscle.
2. CREATINE ENHANCES RECOVERY
Closely monitoring several markers of cell damage (including creatine kinase, lactate dehydrogenase, prostaglandin-E and tumor necrosis factor-alpha) in their sample of 18 male athletes (who used 20 grams of creatine monohydrate per day for five days, mixed with 60 grams of maltodextrine), the researchers found levels of these markers were reduced after the race, compared to 16 control subjects who took only the maltodextrine.
They concluded that creatine supplementation somehow reduced muscle cell damage and inflammation following the exhaustive exercise. The researchers issued the following statement:
It seems creatine also helps to promote complete recovery from intense exercise. Another reason strength and endurance athletes may benefit from its use.
3. CREATINE IMPROVES ANAEROBIC CAPACITY
In their impressive study, Ziegenfuss and fellow researchers demonstrated that creatine loading over just three days significantly improved muscle volume and cycle sprint performance in elite power athletes
For this study, ten male and ten female athletes were assigned to creatine or placebo groups, where, before and after the three-day creatine supplementation period, they were assessed on repeated sprint performance and thigh muscle volume – the creatine group was given 0.35 grams of creatine per kilogram of fat free mass, and all subjects completed six maximal ten second cycle sprints with 60 seconds of recovery in between.
It was found that over the three-day period, creatine subjects experienced increased total body mass of, on average, 0.9 kilograms, a 6.6% increase in thigh volume (in five of six creatine taking participants), and increases in performance in all six sprints. Their anaerobic capacity clearly had improved with the addition of creatine, compared to the control subjects who took in only maltodextrin.
4. CREATINE ENHANCES MUSCLE VOLUMIZATION
“CREATINE HAS A PROPERTY THAT CAUSES MUSCLE CELLS TO INFLATE, WHICH PRODUCES A MORE HEAVILY MUSCLED APPEARANCE.”
Another important benefit for bodybuilders and strength athletes is creatines muscle volumizing effect 3. Creatine has a property that causes muscle cells to inflate, which produces a more heavily muscled appearance, and, more importantly, serves as a stimulus for protein synthesis.
Up to six pounds of added bodyweight in the first few weeks is commonly reported in those who begin creatine supplementation (a process primarily accounted for by water moving rapidly from the bloodstream to the muscle).
5. CREATINE ENHANCES METHYLATION
As explained previously in this article, creatine’s erogenic actions work to assist energy production and power output, resulting in muscle size and strength, and improved performance. Additionally, it has been found creatine provides a powerful anabolic boost through its enhancing of systemic methylation (the regulation of gene expression, protein synthesis and RNA metabolism through enzymatic catalyzation) status.
Creatine drains the body’s SAM reserves like nothing else, which, in turn, deleteriously impacts methylation status (during its synthesisation by the liver and kidneys, creatine draws heavily from the SAM reserves). Supplementing creatine will enhance methylation status, as it will lessen the drain on the liver and kidneys, and alleviate the body’s need to synthesize creatine from amino acids.
6. CREATINE ENHANCES BRAIN FUNCTION
Widely known for it muscle-building benefits, creatine, it appears, has much more to offer than its erogenic properties. Researchers Wyss and Schulze looked at the broader health implications of creatine as they tried to determine its value in treat[ing] several neurodegenerative, vascular and muscular disorders.
7. CREATINE IMPROVES BONE HEALING
Cell energy (of which in their study on bone regeneration creatine played a major role) is important for bone development and maintenance, and therefore directly related to osteoporosis. Creatine, as we know, enhances cellular energy production. The researchers linked this to bone formation.
8. CREATINE IMPROVES GLUCOSE TOLERANCECreatine might assist with the combating of diabetes, as it has been shown to improve glucose tolerance. Derave and co-researchers showed that supplemental creatine increased glucose transporter (glut-4) expression and muscle glycogen content while improving glucose tolerance in a previously immobilized limb.
9. CREATINE MAY REDUCE SARCOPAENIA (AGE RELATED MUSCLE LOSS)
As we age there is a natural decline in the production of muscle building (anabolic) hormones such as testosterone, growth hormone and the insulin like growth factors (IGF-1). As a result there is a natural tendency for those advancing in age to progressively lose muscle mass.
10. CREATINE IMPROVES PERFORMANCE & MUSCLE MASS STATUS IN VEGETARIANS
It was revealed that vegetarian subjects who took creatine experienced a greater increase in total creatine, phosphocreatine, lean tissue, and total work performance compared to the non-vegetarians who took creatine, indicating vegetarians are more responsive to creatine supplementation.
Rowe Chen
Sales Manager