should i start taking creatine now or wait?

ive been lifting like crazy for 3 months. should i start taking creatine now or wait till next summer. i'm 5'10", 155, a little bit muscular, but not much.

 

why not do that and take creatine? creatine is safe, and it is proven to work. my friend gained 4 pounds in 1 week on it! all muscle too

 

i think it's safe. cause it started out in europe in 1980. i mean it's been around for 23 years.

 

i think im gonna try out creatine. i know a kid that got jacked off of creatin in 3 months. he wasn't big at all when he started.

 

i am 16

on bodybuilding.com everyone said it's healthy for a 16 year old. i called 10 gnc's today. they all said it's fine. ill post the article on creatine that i read.

 

you can find a ton of articles at a ton of articles here:
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=110159
these are two really good ones:

Setling The Debate With Science
Within the past five years creatine has emerged as the top selling nutritional supplement in the world, Creatine sales totaled over 400 million dollars in last year alone! There is a good reason for this increase in creatine sales: it is safe and it works! There are a great number of studies touting it's effectiveness and its safety, however, over the past few years some people have questioned creatine's safety with opinions that are not verified by science.

This has led to a large-scale spread of misinformation among the public about creatine. Some people have claimed that creatine causes multiple problems from muscle cramps and dehydration to kidney failure. Due to this misinformation many coaches and schools have forbidden creatine usage and teams like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers do not even allow it in the locker room. The NCAA has recently banned the distribution of creatine by colleges to its players and is even considering banning the use of creatine. The time has come to stop this spread of misinformation about creatine so people can make intelligent decisions about creatine supplementation, based on scientific evidence, not opinion.



What Is Creatine?

Creatine is a combination of three different amino acids, glycine, arginine, and methionine. It is produced by the liver and can be found in foods such as meat and fish, usually at a concentration of four grams per kilogram of meat. Most people ingest about one gram of creatine per day and the body makes about one gram of creatine per day.

When creatine is taken in the form of a supplement it has several benefits for hard training athletes. After creatine is ingested it bonds with a phosphate group to form creatine phosphate. CP (creatine phosphate) can then donate a phosphate molecule to ADP (adenosine tri-phosphate) to form ATP (adenosine tri-phosphate). ATP is the energy currency of the cell and is used to drive almost all cellular functions and is a crucial molecule in muscular contraction. Supplementing with creatine increases the body's ATP production thus enhancing performance and decreasing fatigue in intense, short duration activities such as weightlifting and sprinting (NCAA).

Another benefit of creatine to athletes is its ability to hydrate muscle cells. Creatine pulls fluid from outside the muscle cell into the cell. This increase in water retention by the cell also causes more ions such as Nitrogen to be pulled into the cell, which increases muscle protein synthesis. This increase in muscle protein synthesis allows athletes to recover from exercise faster and in turn grow more muscle(5). One can easily see the obvious benefit of creatine supplementation to athletes who engage in high intensity sports that require quick bursts of energy or athletes that merely want to improve their strength and speed.

Long Term Side Effects?

Opponents of creatine supplementation cite several reasons for not using creatine, "because of the lack of long-term studies on possible side effects (6)." They claim that since creatine is a relatively new supplement there is no way to tell whether or not it has any long-term side effects. This statement is misleading as it is only recently that creatine has become popular, however creatine itself has been around for quite some time. Steven Scott Plisk, director of sports conditioning at Yale University says, "it has been used in the United Kingdom since the early 1980's without any problems... if creatine caused long-term side effects, there would be indicators in the shorter studies. With anabolic steroids, you see some signs in the short term that warn you about what's coming in the long term, and you don"t see any of that with creatine (7)." There have been several studies conducted on creatine supplementation, which concluded that long term creatine use has no side effects (8 and 9).

Cramping And Dehydration?

The cause of muscle cramps and dehydration are both due to inadequate water consumption, not creatine supplementation. There is scientific evidence to verify that creatine does not cause dehydration or muscle cramps among athletes.

Two similar studies on creatine's effects were conducted upon college athletes by the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD) which demonstrated creatine safety. One study looked at the side effects associated with creatine supplementation on Division I-A football players during 3-a-day practices. The other study was almost exactly the same, the only difference being that Division I-A baseball players were studied during the fall collegiate baseball. Both studies concluded that there were "no perceived side-effects or health-status problems associated with creatine supplementation" in the athletes during the time period in which they were examined(2 and 3). Opponents of creatine supplementation sometimes try to discredit studies such as these by stating that they are only looking at a short period of time and cannot determine how creatine supplementation affects dehydration and muscle cramping in athletes over a long period of time. Once again, there is scientific evidence to counter their argument. A recent study examined the relationship between adverse health effects and long-term creatine supplementation in athletes. The researchers concluded that there "were no differences in incidences of cramps, muscle injury, or side effects between athletes and controls (9)."

Kidney Problems?

Opponents of creatine supplementation also like to state that creatine is hard on the kidneys and can cause kidney damage with long term use. Once again, there is no scientific evidence to back up their claims. There is scientific evidence to refute these claims however. A new study examined whether or not oral creatine supplementation affected the kidneys of athletes over short-, medium-, and long-term periods of supplementation. The researchers concluded that "no detrimental effects on athletes' kidney functions from short-, medium-, or long-term use of this supplement (8)." Jeff Volek, a doctoral student at the Center for Sports Medicine at Pennsylvania State University recently completed a study that found no negative side effects to creatine use states, "because it is a naturally occurring compound, side effects are not as likely... and it has been proven to be readily handled by the kidneys(4)".



Unfair Competitive Advantage?

Still opponents of creatine find other ways to discredit it. Some opponents claim that creatine may give athletes an unfair advantage. Once again this is a ludicrous claim. Creatine is available to anyone and is very affordable (a 250-day supply can be found for as little as $19.99 on Bodybuilding.com). Using the same notion that creatine may provide an unfair advantage to athletes using it one would have to consider whether vitamins provide an unfair advantage to athletes who use them. Should athletes thus be discouraged from supplementing with vitamins? Obviously not. Creatine should not be treated differently.

Conclusion

Over the past few years creatine has emerged as an effective and safe supplement that benefits athletes who are looking to increase strength, size, and power. It's safety and effectiveness has been supported in numerous peer-reviewed studies and many experts in the field of sports nutrition. How unfortunate it is that unfounded statements regarding creatine's safety by people looking to stir up controversy has caused the spread of misinformation throughout the country. Hopefully, in the years to come this wave of misinformation will be replaced by scientific reasoning and allow people to make educated decisions regarding creatine.
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Myth
Creatine Harms The Kidneys And Liver.
Truth
Unless you have a pre-existing medical condition, creatine use should not damage your kidneys or liver. Most of the hype has been the result of anecdotal reports. In one study which tracked healthy athletes over a five-year period, football players who used creatine at levels up to 15.75g of creatine per day showed no effect on markers of renal or kidney stress. In another study conducted by Dr. Kerry Kuehl at the Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland and presented at the 2000 annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine, the kidney function of 36 healthy male and female athletes who consumed 10g of creatine per day was examined. After twelve weeks, Dr. Kuehl found that creatine did not adversely affect kidney function.
Myth
Creatine Causes Excessive Water Retention.
Truth
More bull****. A recent double-blind, placebo-controlled study found that, after three months of creatine use, test subjects showed no significant increase in body water. In fact, the creatine group showed greater gains in total body mass and fat-free mass. Best of all, this recent study employed the latest in body composition measurements-deuterated water isotopic analysis which utilizes a non-radioactive "tracer". Now it is possible that some inferior-grade creatine may actually promote water gain that results in a soft, puffy look. However, this can be due to several reasons. One, it may not be due to the creatine, but excess sodium. When cheaply manufactured, excess sodium remains in the finished product.
Myth
Creatine Causes Cramping
Truth
The idea that creatine use causes muscle cramping is anecdotal with no clinical evidence to support this claim. On the contrary, clinical studies show that creatine use is not associated with cramping. In one study, researchers examine 16 men who either supplemented with creatine or a placebo. Under specific dehydration conditions, the occurrence of cramping and tightness were reported in both groups, but "nothing that would suggest a greater incidence associated with creatine supplementation." Two other studies conducted at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro fond that creatine use by 61 Division I athletes during training camps had no effects on the incidence of muscle cramps, injury or illness. These athletes used 15-25g per day on the loading phase, and another 5g/day as maintenance.

Sources

Brenner M, et al. The effect of creatine supplementation during resistance training in women. J Strength Cond Res 2000;14(2): 207-213.

Burke DG, et al. "The effect of 7 days of creatine supplementation on 24-hour urinary creatine excretion.

J Strength Cond Res 2001;15(1):59-62.Eijnde B, et al. Med Sci Sports Exerc 2001;33:449-453.

Greenhaff PL, Steenge GR, Simpson EJ. Protein and carbohydrate-induced augmentation of whole body creatine retention in humans.

J Appl Physiol 2000;89:1165-71.Guerrero-Ontiveros ML, Walliman T. Creatine supplementation I n health and disease. Effects of chronic creatine ingestion in vivo: down-regulation of the expression of creatine transporter isoforms in skeletal muscle.

Mol Cell Biochem 1998;184:427-437.Poortmans JR, et al. Long-term oral creatine supplementation does not impair renal function in healthy athletes. Med Sci Sports Exer 1999;31(8):1108-1110.Poortmans JR, Francaux M. Adverse effects of creatine supplementation. Sports Med 2000;30:155-170.

Vogel RA, et al. Creatine supplementation: effect on supramaximal exercise performance at two levels of acute hypohydration. J Strength Cond Res 2000;14(2) 214-219.

 

yeah but why would my uncle say that it's not bad? have you read all those articles?

 

that's my uncle. gained all that muscle naturally. had a protien drink, some other amino acid stuff, and he drank eggs lol (which he said wasn't healthy, cause of solminila).