Is the creatine hype real?
Nutrition hype is all the rage these days, isn’t it? 😏 I’ll answer this way: the benefits of creatine are very much real. Here’s the deal with creatine overall:
Creatine is required for some of the energy production in muscle cells — mainly it is used for shorter bursts of energy. Think: HIIT workouts vs. marathons. Often creatine is stored in muscle cells and, when needed, is able to provide the quick bursts of energy the body needs to sustain a given activity.
We come by creatine in two ways:
1) It is synthesized in our bodies by two amino acids: arginine and glycine. Both amino acids are considered “conditionally essential” which means we don’t exclusively need them from our food (there is some endogenous production/recycling), but it does help in aging populations.
2) Food! Creatine is found mainly in red meat and fish.
Supplementation has been proven in multiple studies to maximize muscular gains in the form of lean body mass after resistance training in both men and women AND may bolster neurological function in older populations by enabling cellular metabolism even in situations of lowered oxygenation. And, since it can be stored in muscular tissue, this is an exciting idea in the aging and longevity research space. It may even help with anxiety/depression!
People in the fitness space *love* a creatine supplement because it’s generally considered super safe and happens to be pretty inexpensive. I am not even that much of a fitness girlie, but do take it a few days a week, at least!
Now, women (and most especially postmenopausal women) are told to focus on resistance training in part to delay or offset the development of osteoporosis, especially as estrogen declines after the reproductive years. This is also very real! We have estrogen receptors on nearly every cell and tissue in our body and estrogen is super protective of our bone mineral density (also cognition, but that is a separate question entirely). Resistance training is believed to help offset some of the natural declines in estrogen women experience in the later half of their lives by encouraging the body (via cellular signaling) to remodel bone, helping to strengthen and maintain said bone in the absence of estrogen.
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