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Does creatine make you smarter?

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Re: Does creatine make you smarter?

#111

Post by richardlblair »

jerlam wrote: post #95
richardlblair wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I slam a lot of water. I also have a toddler and baby who suck at sleeping (I've done all the things, these kids just suck at sleeping). Since taking creatine I feel so much more energized. I can make it through the day with just 2 coffees (was previously drinking 5 coffees and an energy drink). Maybe it's placebo. Maybe it's not. I don't really care. I feel the benefit and I love it.

"Creatine found to improve cognitive performance during sleep deprivation" (2024, 56 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40170474

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40184046

"Other studies already proved those effects with creatine with a normal dose schedule, what they were testing is if a single high dose would have a beneficial effect too, which it did. A normal schedule is 3-5g per day with an optional loading phase of 10-20g per day during 7 days.

In the study they used a single dose of 0.35g/kg which means 20-40g per dose. How do they not get diarrhea? The loading phase is usually split into several doses to avoid diarrhea and I can personally attest to that being a good idea."

What the above doesn't tell you is that taking a loading dose can draw water into your intestines causing diarrhea. You probably can guess how I found this out.

Re: Does creatine make you smarter?

#112

Post by zemvpferreira »

Personally I have noticed a lot less cognitive impairment after a poor night’s sleep since starting on 10g per day. It seems to make a noticeable difference in my ability to reason and to act having slept less than 7 hours per night, even on consecutive nights.

Re: Does creatine make you smarter?

#113

Post by jgbuddy »

John23832 wrote: post #108
jgbuddy wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true. Did you read the article?

Yes. None of the supposed action of creatine was backed by any statistically significant study. Just drink water. Or don't. It's up to you.

Does creatine make you stronger?

Yes. It’s very rare for a supplement to have such strong and consistent evidence.

A widely-cited review says that short-term supplementation increases maximal power/strength by 5-15%. This in turn may increase the long-term gainz from strength-training exercise. Creatine also increases sprint performance by 1-5%. Though, there seems to be little if any benefit for endurance exercise like long-distance running.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5469049/#CR46

Re: Does creatine make you smarter?

#114

Post by antonvs »

taeric wrote: post #15
olooney wrote: post #11

Good discussion, but this conclusion: > I don’t know. Maybe a little. is not the right way to interpret the null result (insufficient evidence to reject null hypothesis that it has no effect) because the prior for supplements that people are trying to sell you is so low. In the absence of clear, strong evidence, you should assume the the whole thing is just an example of motivated reasoning. People want nootropics to…

Heavily agreed. The supplement industry has such a low level of reliability that it has really soured me on so many practices people have. And I flat out do not understand how some of the supplement stores survive.

They survive because people want to believe. Look at the history: the phrase “snake oil” exists because people actually sold products by that name as a remedy. There were also tonics based on radium.

“There's a sucker born every minute.”

Re: Does creatine make you smarter?

#115

Post by SubmarineClub »

John23832 wrote: post #39
Retr0id wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take my creatine with as little volume of water as possible, probably less than 50ml. I doubt that 50ml is having much impact on my overall hydration.

If you actually drank enough water daily, sans creatine, I'm sure you'd feel better.

Why are you so sure that the poster (or anyone else commenting here) isn’t drinking enough water?

I drink lots of water. Lots and lots, to the point that it’s already kind of annoying how frequently I have to piss. I’m fairly skeptical that drinking yet more would yield any benefits.

Re: Does creatine make you smarter?

#116

Post by CalChris »

John23832 wrote: post #22

Most people taking creatine just need to drink water. They drink more water using creatine. In reality, the water/hydration is doing the heaviest lift, not the creatine.

I was taking 5mg of Creatine and was in the ER for an unrelated reason. My metabolic panel measured creatinine at 1.34 mg/dL. A panel from last year without the supplement was a very normal 0.95. These were gummies and I wasn’t slamming water.

BTW, it tends to trash the eGFR test which relies on an unbiased creatinine reading.

Re: Does creatine make you smarter?

#117

Post by somenameforme »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #94
Retr0id wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I take creatine for entirely non-cognitive reasons, so it's reassuring to know it's probably not making me any dumber.

Though you also have to consider potentially adulterated powder (accidental or not) in the unregulated supplement industry. That's why I dropped creatine since I didn't notice any benefits when I tried it for a year.

With most industries companies live and die by their reputation. Find a bulk provider with a positive reputation and the creatine you buy is almost certainly going to be safer than e.g. eating at Taco Bell. And with creatine in particular it's so dirt cheap that a lot of motivation for dodgy stuff goes away unlike e.g. with protein powders where amino acid spiking can save a company a bunch of money. And incidentally creatine is one of the substances dodgy companies use for amino acid spiking, just because it's so cheap!

That said it's obviously the right decision to drop it if you're not seeing any effects. The interesting thing about creatine is that people's bodies are very different in their natural levels of creatine, and if you're already at 'saturation' then more creatine isn't going to do anything. Same reason the typical benefits of creatine don't show much difference beyond 5g/day. That's enough to send the overwhelming majority of people towards 'saturation.'

Re: Does creatine make you smarter?

#119

Post by ffsm8 »

somenameforme wrote: post #102
olooney wrote: post #11

Good discussion, but this conclusion: > I don’t know. Maybe a little. is not the right way to interpret the null result (insufficient evidence to reject null hypothesis that it has no effect) because the prior for supplements that people are trying to sell you is so low. In the absence of clear, strong evidence, you should assume the the whole thing is just an example of motivated reasoning. People want nootropics to…

I think this is quite different because (1) creatine has been proven to be completely harmless for people of all ages absent some rare thing like a kidney disorder and (2) it has a bunch of clearly measurable positive effects. So this is more like trying to determine whether ginseng is good at keeping away colds or whatever. Maybe it does (actually quickly searching this, it definitely does but let's pretend it's as…

and the thing people seem to not understand: how exactly do you _expect_ to be able to notice this change? Its something that happens after you take it for a prolonged period of time (>7days) and only has a minor/medium effect.

It doesn't make you a genius. I think a better view on it is that it may mitigate some of the adhs symptoms (at least for me).

I can keep on track for a significantly longer time since ive started supplementing with it at ~15g/day - and while i dont feel a difference, i can observe it when actually paying attention to what i do / how often i drift off etc.

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