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Comment by ortusdux

5 hours ago

Are there risks to creatine?

Not risks but sideeffects that might affect you. I just decided to cut creatine out during summer months, as I sweat significantly more when on creatine (and pee of course, but that is manageable). Now I already sweat more than average joe based on my genetics (yes, I had that checked out by a doctor) but on creatine it became really annoying during hot season. Since creatine definitely allows me to lift heavier and progress, I will just plan around that and put cutting/maintenance phases into the hot season off-creatine, and go back to supplementing it the rest of the year.

Anecdotally, it makes me feel like crap and significantly increased hair shedding. I've seen attestations of both side effects online as well. No idea how or why it could cause either, and the crumminess at least significantly improved very quickly after stopping it. Neither side effect seems to be especially common though.

Generally no, it's expensively studied and has had daily consumption to be safe for upto 5 years at least (studies haven't generally gone longer).

That being said some people do have adverse effects to supplementation, e.g. excessive water retention, bloating, stomach discomfort, &c.

So try it, if you have a bad reaction stop.

If you have kidney problems, it's very dangerous. My friend's son took creatine to build muscles, but got Berger disease. Be careful!

I get severe cramping from it (reproducible). All I can find are papers about this being a myth and some reddit threads about other people having this.

  • I get it too if I don't drink a lot more water. So did many people on my sports team.

    Creatine binds to water (making less water available to your muscles) and allows your muscles to work harder (which makes them need more water). So if you're not drinking a lot more water when you're taking creatine, you will get cramps from either dehydration and/or muscle overuse.

    But once you're past the loading phase for creatine and getting sufficient hydration, it's supposed to lessen cramps because the water bound to creatine also becomes available for use again as the creatine is used by the body.

    • Yeah, of course I tried to drink more water. I also tried to ramp up the dose slower.

      But the cramps are really debilitating, as in random back muscle locks up debilitating, so I thought it best to just give up on this.

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  • I get this unless I drink a lot of water. About 48 fl oz seems to be the right amount for 10g creatine. Sometimes this needs to be combined with a light snack, like a handful of nuts.

  • Did you try different sources I do not trust some of the stuff out there and often wonder if these supplements aren’t just generic white powder…

Essentially none. Creatine supplementation is a good idea for most people, especially vegans/vegetarians.

  • Why especially those?

    • Your body can synthesize creatine, so it's not essential, but meat is a source of exogenous creatine and eating it results in higher stored creatine levels, which is slightly good for muscle power endurance in the ~5-15 second effort range. Supplementing produces slightly higher relative improvements in creatine levels in vegetarians and vegans than it does in people who eat meat.

    • Well, if vegetarians and those of the Vegan religion don't get enough creatine it is most likely related to them not partaking of an important source of the substance: meat.

    • Not vouching for creatine, but in general, humans get some vital nutrients from animal consumption. Vegans have to take some B-vitamins for best health due to what they don't get from meat. I assume creatine is the same.

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It can make you hold more water weight so you should drink more water in response.

  • i personally have problems with tinnitus and hearing loss, and creatine use tends to trigger it due to water retention so i stay off the stuff.

    • Interesting, I wonder how that is related? Do you believe you are getting hearing loss because you are retaining more water, or because you are dehydrated from retaining more water elsewhere in the body with the same intake rate? Does this go away if you were taking creatine and drinking more water? Or does it come up if you simply drink more water?

Excessively large doses make your stomach and perhaps your kidneys unhappy and supplements being lightly regulated there may be purity issues where the risk is what else is in it.

But it's pretty safe at recommended doses.