Live data from Hacker News

Creatine raises brain energy levels and slows cognitive decline: study

thesciverse.org

91–100 of 395 posts

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

#91
post #2

Creatine is one of the few supplements I actually notice a difference if I quit taking. Happy to see it’s benefits extend to beyond performance in the gym.

I feel like it makes me feel like crap and my brain weird every time I try it and searching my spreadsheet shows this effect many times when I forget and read something like the above article and try it again. Anyone else feel like this?

Are you increasing your water intake when you do? That sounds like dehydration. Creatine takes a large amount of water to appropriately process, and during the loading phase, your body is pushing substantially more water into your muscles. Anecdotally, if I don't drink something like an extra half gallon of water a day while loading at 15g/day, I show symptoms of dehydration. And I'm already drinking somewhere between a half gallon to a gallon a day.

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

#92

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 bumped mine from 5g daily to 15 and noticed way less anxiety. It's a must have for me now. Besides that is the regular benefit of being able to squeeze out a few more reps during my kettlebell workouts

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

#93
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you work out? If so creatine is supposed to help people push themselves harder and thus build more muscle. As a side-effect of intense exercises you'll create more testosterone. Increased testosterone leads to balding.

Sometimes when I see muscular guy with a head full of hair, I wonder what is counteracting that increased testosterone.

Not what you want to hear, but genes, probably ...

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

#94
post #70

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.

There's evidence creatine may raise DHT levels, and DHT causes hair thinning: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19741313/

I think male baldness is a bit more complex than creatine->DHT->loss of hair.

But if you want to go down that road, there's also indications that the oil in pumpkin seeds reduce the enzymatic process that turns testosterone into DHT - so just eat some pumpkin seeds with your creatine and the problem goes away! It's that simple!!!

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

#95

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.

The plausible mechanism is for male pattern baldness, but increased shedding is not MPB. MPB shrinks the size of the hairs on the top of your head over time. It isn't really affected by shedding which is normal and happens to everyone.

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

#96
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes when I see muscular guy with a head full of hair, I wonder what is counteracting that increased testosterone.

Not what you want to hear, but genes, probably ...

Probably. Money seems to help too, though. A few Hollywood actors have miraculously reversed their male pattern baldness.

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

#98
post #88
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Recently, a pilot study (single-arm) by Smith et al., recruited 20 patients (73 years of age) with AD and provided them with 20 grams/day of CrM for 8 weeks [20]. Serum creatine levels were increased at weeks 4 and 8 (p Yeah 20 patients is not a lot. I'm inferring this is a pre-post test. However some of those p-values are pretty good (.001 on reading and and sorting). Very promising pilot study but not conclusive…

19 patients completed, according to the article. And List Sorting, Oral reading, and Flanker only? The first and last are part of global and fluid composites, so those have to be excluded from comparison. That leaves us with 3 improved scores out of 12 tests. So 9 did not improve, or got worse. Figure 3 (of the original article) shows that the changes aren't big. Just "significant". Since the participants were in the…

Sounds like something we should study more rather than dismiss.

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

#99
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)

High dosage is not for your daily intake

It’s called a loading phase to quickly saturate the tissues i.e for a week or so for someone who never took the creatine. You can absolutely skip this.

I wouldn’t go higher than 10g daily on a regular basis.

I personally take 7.5g for the last couple of years.

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

#100
The first time I took creatine (6g IIRC), I actually felt the mental effect just 2 minutes later. A pleasurable sensation of augmented presence and (mental) relaxation.

I paused taking that momentarily out of precaution while I wait some physical issue to normalize, but I plan to resume it in some weeks. Also it is considered a very safe supplement.

Post reply on HN