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Creatine raises brain energy levels and slows cognitive decline: study

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Re: Creatine raises brain energy levels and slows cognitive decline: study

#151
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience in testing actual AI written content on willing participants is that people are entirely useless at detecting AI written content with any reliability whatsoever.

I don't know what your experience is, according to mine there are some people who are better than chance at picking this up. And I believe my experience is something expected. People are also certain kind of a neural network. If an LLM system is trainable to be a decent detector, I don't see a reason why at least some people couldn't be.

I haven't seen any evidence an LLM is trainable to be a decent detector for anything people have made any kind of attempts at trying to get past them. Which is as expected as access to a detector effectively makes the problem equivalent to the halting problem (you can tweak the output using a detector as judge until you have a process to bypass it). Some of them are somewhat able to recognised "raw" output.

Re: Creatine raises brain energy levels and slows cognitive decline: study

#152
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After 10g or so, the excess starts going to the brain which helps quite a bit with brain energy.

What exactly does it do? What is brain energy?

A good question, but we don't know what anti-depressants do or how they do it, same with anti-psychotics, mood stabilizers, psychedelics, etc. I think we can say we have good theories for creatine.

We do know that it does do something at certain doses.

Re: Creatine raises brain energy levels and slows cognitive decline: study

#153
post #3

Direct link to the study: https://jpbs.hapres.com/htmls/JPBS_1766_Detail.html I wanted to check the dosages they used. Looks like the review includes studies ranging from 5g/day to 20-25g/day. (Typical dosage you'll see for daily use is 5 grams)

I use it as a supplement because I do weightlifting. 5g/day. I did 20g/day for a week once, and didn't notice it made any difference, so I'm back to 5g now. In terms of stuff like memory, mood, etc. I can't say it's made any improvement but the idea that it might be helping prevent decline is nice.

For lifting you hit a saturation point quickly where your muscles will only hold so much of it. Not sure if there is an equivalent for any brain related effects.

Re: Creatine raises brain energy levels and slows cognitive decline: study

#154

The article made up the claim it’s not from the paper itself. There was some improvement in cognitive scores, but no placebo group. Without a placebo group, there are a lot of explanations for the data.

FWIW creatine is "one of the most studied supplements for muscle and strength".

But at the same time "creatine’s brain benefits aren’t as exciting as social media makes them out to be. The research at this point just doesn’t support the hype".

Source: https://physiqonomics.com/creatine-cognitive-performance/

Re: Creatine raises brain energy levels and slows cognitive decline: study

#155

Curious if anyone has had hair issues while taking it. I’m aware that there’s no positive evidence for an effect, but there is an at least plausible mechanism. I’ve gone through two periods where I took it and liked the effects, but felt like I shed way more hair and stopped due to that.

My personal experience has been dramatic:

5/6g a day.

Very demanding job with lots of ‘thinking’

3 times a week gym

Pre creatine I would struggle to maintain ability to do the hard thinking around 3pm. Just like, fog or I could feel my brain didn’t have capacity.

Now, I am capable till the end of the day. Feels like a well trained athlete at the end of a game being able to deliver rather than just holding on.

Re: Creatine raises brain energy levels and slows cognitive decline: study

#156
post #142

I feel like for me it would be thwarted by the fact creatine seems to completely mess up my sleep. I don't remember that from when I was younger, but recently tried adding it to my diet and had to bail.

I counteract it with Magnesium Glycinate. Works well for me.

Re: Creatine raises brain energy levels and slows cognitive decline: study

#158

Curious if anyone has had hair issues while taking it. I’m aware that there’s no positive evidence for an effect, but there is an at least plausible mechanism. I’ve gone through two periods where I took it and liked the effects, but felt like I shed way more hair and stopped due to that.

I take 10g a day, have for a couple years now. Started mostly because of training but it does wonders in sleep deprived states.

5g would probably be fine without a lot of training ( I train about 10hrs a week). Seems like I need 10g to both get the physical and mental benefits, especially during peak training blocks (running 50-60 mpw with strength training).

Re: Creatine raises brain energy levels and slows cognitive decline: study

#159

I wonder how long it’ll take this thread to become a proxy of r/creatine.

I don't take it. But to the best of my knowledge there are basically only three things with any body of evidence that they work with few/any downsides: protein supplements, fish/algae oil, and creatine. That's it. It's kind of weird that people get so hyped up about it, but at least they're not getting hyped up about some random wellness influencer supplement.
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