Transcription
When you give yourself a scoop of creatine, something very interesting happens, and it has nothing to do with building muscle, dropping fat, or lowering inflammation. Your body no longer has to make creatine when you take a scoop of it because creatine is one of the most metabolically expensive compounds to make. This is one of the most important videos you could probably ever watch on creatine. Taking a scoop of creatine is literally relieving your body of major, major workloads.
Okay, everybody talks about taking creatine for muscle. They talk about it for strength, for brain health. All of that is real, it's super valid. But the most interesting thing that creatine does is actually nothing to do with any of that. Okay, it has to do with what your body stops doing once it doesn't have to make any more creatine because you're providing it externally.
Making creatine inside your body burns through almost half of your body's methyl groups. The same methyl groups that you need for DNA repair and for neurotransmitter production, so things like dopamine and serotonin. I mean, this is crazy. Like, why is no one talking about this?
Making creatine is also consuming your body's like precious glycine. That's an amino acid that your body is already short on by average like five or so grams per day and it gets burnt up when your body has to make creatine. So, in modern day, when we're depleting these things even more, it's almost a must, right? Most people have no idea what not taking creatine is actually costing them.
So, here's what I want to cover today. First, we're going to talk about why your body's creatine assembly line is draining methylation cycles, but what that actually means in real human terms cuz I don't want to just like talk over your head. to be real. And then we're going to talk about how the glycine that it burns through to make it is the same glycine that your body needs for connective tissue repair and for glutathione to actually detoxify. Then finally, I want to talk about what actually changes when you supplement creatine and you shut that process down. Like, do we have to be concerned with that process never coming back online? So, let's get rocking on this and hit that subscribe button.
So, your body makes about 1 g of creatine per day on its own. It gets roughly another gram from food, maybe more if you eat a lot of meat and fish. Your body builds creatine in two very simple steps. Arginine and glycine, two aminos, combine in your kidneys to form a compound that is called guanidinoacetate, okay, or GAA. That GAA travels to your liver, okay? Now, stick with me on this. I know it sounds complicated. I promise I'll make sense of it. I just got to get the mechanisms right. The GAA travels to your liver. It gets methylated by what is called S-adenosylmethionine, okay? So, SAM. This is the body's primary methyl donor, okay? This SAM is involved in everything. DNA methylation, neurotransmitter production, like dopamine, serotonin, all these, also detoxification in our body, okay? It is one of the literal most important molecules and studied molecules in the human body.
Creatine synthesis alone consumes about 40% of all of these SAM-derived methyl groups. So, this very important thing, SAM, these methyl groups, right? Imagine what it would feel like if your body didn't have to do that. And it could free up 40% of those SAM-derived methyl groups. So, there was a study in American Journal of Physiology. They found that the methylation of GAA to form creatine uses more of this SAM than any other methyltransferase reaction combined in the body. So, one single reaction, making creatine, consumes more methyl groups than everything else your body uses methyl groups for put together. Like, it's crazy. It also tells us how important creatine is.
So, if you've ever wondered why like your methylation cycle feels like overworked, which would feel like you're toxic or your like neurotransmitters, like you just can't get happy, your mood is crap, this is probably why. Your body is spending its most valuable currency just to manufacture something you can replace with a 5-gram scoop that costs barely nothing. And this matters because methylation drives serotonin and dopamine, which makes you feel good. It drives DNA repair, which makes you feel good. And it drives liver detoxification, which definitely makes you feel good. So, your feel-good is hinging on this. And if your body is pouring 40% of its methyl groups into creatine, those other systems have to compete for what's left. So, mood, your detox capacity, your gene expression, all of it is downstream and creatine's hogging it.
So, there's a second cost though, on top of the methyl groups. And this ties directly into your joints, to your skin, like even to antioxidant defenses, like and again, it's super overlooked. It's one of the most important things. So, we're going to talk about how that works cuz it ties in with glycine in our body, right?
Creatine is cheap, too. Like you can get it anywhere. There's just a lot of crummy quality ones. So, just do your research. Try to look for ones that have the Creapure label on it. That's real German creatine. There's a lot of like these kind of Chinese creatines that are not particularly good. There's been a lot of third-party tests that have shown that a lot of creatines are not actually having the creatine they say they have in them. Personally, the one I use is called Create. If you want to try them out, I'll pop a link down below. It's a pretty aggressive discount, too. It's 54% off. If you want to check them out, they have gummies that are sweetened with allulose, and they have very simple unsweetened stick packs, unflavored stick packs. I use both because the gummies have allulose, so it cancels out the sugar that's in the gummy, which is also required for the creatine to really get into absorption very well. So, it's a really cool combination, very science-backed in terms of how they formulated it. And I also just love these guys. I've known the founder for a very long time. His name is Dan. He's a good dude. Bottom line, it's real. It's Creapure brand. So, it's actually got like the real patented creatine. And that's a 54% discount link. So, just check them out if you don't have a creatine that you already love and enjoy. But I think this one's worth a shot.
Okay, so if we come to this glycine piece, this is going to help us understand when we should take creatine and how much we should take, too. Because glycine is consumed during creatine synthesis, the whole glycine amino acid. And glycine is not just an obscure amino acid that your body has plenty of. Dr. Brad Stanfield actually found that your body needs about 10 g of glycine per day just for collagen turnover alone. You synthesize about 3 g on your own in a typical diet on the average person's going to give you two to five. So, you're roughly looking at like a 5-g daily shortfall before you account for everything else that glycine does.
Glycine does a lot, by the way. Okay, it's a precursor to glutathione, which is your body's master antioxidant. It's the most abundant amino acid in collagen. So, it's very essential for your joints, your skin, your hair, your connective tissue. And it's also used for bile acid conjugation and detoxification. There's a lot of researchers that even argue that it should be reclassified as possibly even conditionally essential or fully essential in many ways because endogenous production simply cannot keep up with demand. We probably used to eat more glycine, so it was fine. But, we don't eat connective tissue anymore. So, every molecule of glycine that your body burns through to make creatine is a molecule that is not going towards your glutathione. It's not going towards your collagen. And it's not going towards your detox pathways. So, when you're already running a daily deficit, that's really bad. Because if your skin has been losing like elasticity, or maybe your joints just don't feel good anymore, your recovery is garbage, right? The glycine shortfall could absolutely positively be a part of that. So, if you're already taking collagen, or maybe you're taking direct glycine, as long as your body is still making its own creatine, a good portion of the glycine you are taking is getting diverted to creatine synthesis instead of actually going to where you want it to go.
Okay, which brings us to what happens when you shut the whole thing down. And I want to get into that cuz that's really important. But, I would recommend, if you're over the age of 30, that you go up to 10 g of creatine if you're dealing with connective tissue stuff, too. Okay, because what's happening is you're going to have more connective tissue potential risk of not turning over when you're older. So, if you're over 30, collagen plus creatine kind of becomes a must, in my opinion. At the very least, consuming foods that are rich in collagen or glycine. So, bone broth, ground beef with the gristle, okay? Like, you don't have to take a collagen supplement. Like I do here and there. I mix and match it. But, 10 g of creatine. 5 g almost minimum if you're really over 30. And you know there's different things that you can do to kind of test it out. You can split it up throughout the day. That's what a lot of people are saying because it's actually going to like stabilize maybe this methylation process. So, you're like kind of dosing it throughout the day cuz that's a fast response. It's not something you just necessarily load up on. So, almost try microdosing a couple grams multiple times throughout the day, or just put it in your water and sip on it in your water.
Let's talk really quick when you shut this whole thing down. Okay, when you supplement creatine monohydrate, your body recognizes that it no longer needs to manufacture its own. That sounds scary because if it's like testosterone, like you wouldn't want to shut that down. It'd be hard to come back up. There was a study in the British Journal of Nutrition showed that creatine supplementation down regulates the enzyme that kicks off creatine synthesis in the body. So, your body body like actually shuts down the assembly line. And when that happens, two things change.
First, all those methyl groups that were being consumed actually radically become available for other reactions. You have more SAM for DNA methylation, so you have better gene expression. You have more neurotransmitter synthesis, more sero tonin, more dopamine. You have more liver detoxification. You're not adding methyl groups by taking creatine, you're literally stopping the biggest drain on them. The thing is is the moment you stop taking creatine, your body still has a demand. So, it just goes right back to creatine again. You don't actually create a deficit. Okay? You don't create this issue where you don't produce creatine anymore. You would have to potentially be taking ridiculous amounts all the time constantly. Like that's And even then, we don't have the cohort even test if that would be a problem.
This whole thing has a direct downstream effect on homocysteine, which is probably something you've seen on your lab work before. Okay? And if that sounds complicated, it might sound like it, but homocysteine is just a very good indicator of how we're doing with methylation. Every time that SAM donates a methyl group, it produces homocysteine as a byproduct. Because creatine synthesis is the single largest consumer of SAM, it is responsible for a huge proportion of homocysteine production. Now, if we look at a study that was in the American Journal of Physiology, it showed that creatine supplementation reduced GAA levels and lowered homocysteine from that pathway. So, we're seeing this stuff. It's powerful. If your homocysteine has ever come back elevated, it's worth paying attention to.
Now, secondly, the glycine that was being consumed to build creatine is now freed up. So, more glycine for glutathione means better antioxidant effects, better skin, you look clearer, you're detoxified. You have more for collagen, so you have better skin, better connective tissue, better joints, right? Possibly better hair. You were already running a 5-g shortfall with glycine, so every molecule you're not burning on creatine goes towards closing that gap. So, if you're taking collagen already, just add creatine to it.
Most people think of creatine as something you're adding, helping you get more energy, helping you build more muscle. That is all true, but it's more about what it is freeing up so that your body can do what it does best. Your body doesn't need you to add muscle or add fat. It knows how to do that if you give it the tools. So, your liver gets a break, your connective tissue gets what they need. You're letting your body come back to a natural homeostasis, a natural baseline.
Now, if you're focused on the longevity piece, like on reducing inflammation, on supporting methylation cycles, creatine is just almost a must, right? So, 5 g to 10 g per day, split throughout the day if you can. You don't need to load it. That's not important anymore. You don't need a fancy form of it. Monohydrate is simple. I would also recommend adding glycine, adding collagen, eating ground beef, eating uh consuming bone broth. N-acetylcysteine is also a really good thing to take as well alongside this because N-acetylcysteine stacks with this well. Glycine and cysteine are both precursors to glutathione. So, freeing up glycine through creatine supports glutathione production from both directions, and then NAC kind of helps this process, too.
Now, if you want to make sure the creatine you're taking is actually getting absorbed properly, I did a video talking about how to get creatine to absorb better because actually, if you combine it with a certain kind of mineral, it can increase creatine absorption up to 3x and actually gets in your system the way that you want it. So, I'll put a link to that video right here. It's a great one to watch next to learn how to use creatine properly. And as always, I'll see you tomorrow.