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Does creatine make you smarter?

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Re: Does creatine make you smarter?

#221

Post by colechristensen »

dundarious wrote: post #161
switchbak wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I'm getting from all this is that we have an armchair expert explaining details about something they're not an expert in, and we have you reviewing the way they present this information, saying their very weak hedge wasn't strongly negative enough. Based on priors about the industry. Basically, HN doing HN things - having a good deep think about topics outside their realm of expertise, then debating the minutiae…

"HN doing HN things" over someone saying "good discussion, however, one point about the conclusion" and having that point be very rational and still open to debate. Is discussing such secondary but still highly relevant aspects verboten? Must every comment here be by a lead researcher in the specific field? Would a biomedical science researcher necessarily have any more expertise on these important secondary aspects?…

The top of HN threads is generally nitpicking minutiae which are more likely technically correct than not but also highly irrelevant. It's done by non-experts and drowns out any more valuable discussion.

It'll be people arguing about exact language not being someone's preferred level, or overloading the importance and exact definition of a technical term that experts don't really care about, or blowing up some edge case or another.

Re: Does creatine make you smarter?

#222

Post by colechristensen »

gtowey wrote: post #179
grvdrm wrote: post #158

I take 5g/day, through better part of last 9-12 months (don't remember when I started). No noticeable cognitive difference/improvement. And the more I've researched creatine the less convinced I am that there are reliable conclusions about cognitive impacts. Significant physical changes! But other than the pure aesthetics, it's hard to say that my strength increases are tied to creatine or instead a solid routine, pl…

It's my understanding that creatine doesn't directly make you stronger, instead it gives your muscles the ability to work a bit longer. This means you can do more strength training per session which is the part which makes you stronger.

Creatine also causes your muscles to retain a little bit more water making them appear larger.

Re: Does creatine make you smarter?

#224

Post by 99954bb63ccc »

I’ve always wanted to use creatine regularly but every time I’ve started taking it, I get a considerable rise in blood pressure. Would be curious to hear if anyone else experiences this or has found a good workaround.

I’ve researched it quite a bit and found that others do experience it as well, but the usual advice of “just drink more water” (which yes, I have tried) is about the extent of info I find on it. Then, the “it causes your body to retain more water” idea which doesn’t seem to be accurate as what I’ve understood is that it causes your muscles to store more water…

Re: Does creatine make you smarter?

#225

Post by grvdrm »

TIPSIO wrote: post #40
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 don’t know. I personally wouldn’t take it if you aren’t also working out/lifting frequently (even if you drink a ton of water). Anecdotal so safe to ignore this… but my hair did thin out but only after I was lazier on my work outs. Stopped taking and hair mostly returned to normal thank God.

I noticed hair thinning too. To be clear I don’t know that creatine caused it. But what feels like a longer period of thinning (I’m 43) coincides with creatine use. It’s not a well-documented side effect if is indeed real.

Re: Does creatine make you smarter?

#226

Post by CGP_Labs »

overgard wrote: post #73
ttul wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What value is there to an informal conclusion when the topic is as important as intelligence? The downsides to creatine if taken without good scientific backing should not be disregarded, yet that’s exactly what many ordinary people are now doing because of “informal conclusions” like this.

Are there really downsides to creatine though? (Genuine question). All the advice I've seen makes it seem like it's basically just good for you even if it doesn't accomplish some specific thing. The only downside I've heard is maybe water retention?

[dead]

Re: Does creatine make you smarter?

#227

Post by grvdrm »

switchbak wrote: post #76
nonameiguess wrote: post #41

The conclusions aren't any different (it's one of the few thing that helps strength, poses no danger to your hair, and almost certainly does nothing for cognition), but the articles at https://www.strongerbyscience.com/?s=creatine are far more comprehensive, including the famous extremely long podcast episodes they used to do. The one thing this misses is many supplements are tainted, which skews the popular percepti…

"poses no danger to your hair" I keep hearing folks say this, and even in this thread there's someone who's experienced that and had it stop when they eliminated creatine. I too have experienced exactly that with exactly the stopping of issues once I stopped taking creatine. Perhaps you can say "danger to your hair is rare", but there's very clearly (to me at least) an effect there, and the way it gets hand-waved awa…

Do you do anything else for hair? Like Minoxidil, Finasteride, or other serums/etc.

Just curious for other folks experiences as they are on or off creatine in parallel with other hair interventions.

Re: Does creatine make you smarter?

#228

Post by dundarious »

colechristensen wrote: post #221
dundarious wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"HN doing HN things" over someone saying "good discussion, however, one point about the conclusion" and having that point be very rational and still open to debate. Is discussing such secondary but still highly relevant aspects verboten? Must every comment here be by a lead researcher in the specific field? Would a biomedical science researcher necessarily have any more expertise on these important secondary aspects?…

The top of HN threads is generally nitpicking minutiae which are more likely technically correct than not but also highly irrelevant. It's done by non-experts and drowns out any more valuable discussion. It'll be people arguing about exact language not being someone's preferred level, or overloading the importance and exact definition of a technical term that experts don't really care about, or blowing up some edge c…

It wasn't a point about exact language in and of itself. It was a point about the conclusion, and how it doesn't account for highly relevant aspects of the publication record and industry. This was not "a better word would be" or similar. This was "the meaning was wrong, the thinking was wrong, and here's why".

Re: Does creatine make you smarter?

#229

Post by glhaynes »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #207
chmod775 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Issue being that if you took everything that's "probably harmless" at once, cramming your body full of supplements, you might just end up harming yourself with substances that are toxic above certain amounts (acute iron toxicity etc.). Also the more random stuff you take, the more likely it is that something you took actually does turn out to have been harmful later. So no, you should not take something merely becaus…

> So no, you should not take something merely because it's "probably harmless" You and I should not. But I'm also not going to bother correcting someneone taking homeopathy for a cold. It doesn't do anything. But unless it contains heavy metals, it also isn't hurting. When I found ivermectin in my father's fridge, on the other hand, I absolutely asked him what he was taking it for. When I confirmed he's also taking r…

But as you hint at in your second paragraph, people do take them instead of real medicine. So in that sense, it can be harmful.

Re: Does creatine make you smarter?

#230

Post by piguin »

golem14 wrote: post #211
jliptzin wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not completely harmless, for me it causes heart palpitations that are so bad my watch tells me I’m in atrial fibrillation. Yes I know this sounds crazy. I’ve ruled everything else out. No, it is not creatine mixed with caffeine or whatever. Just pure creatine. No, I don’t have any other heart issues. I can give myself an irregular heartbeat just by having some creatine. It doesn’t happen otherwise. I have seen a…

Have you ruled out your supply is contaminated with something that causes your side effects? That might be relatively likely.

Scientifically interesting, but it's kind of the same problem whether supplements are dangerous on their own or from contamination. Given how little value an unnecessary medication is it makes no sense to test it to eliminate a risk that is also eliminated by not taking it.
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