Bodybuilders and weightlifters looking for gains have long leaned on creatine to help build muscle and hasten post-workout recovery.
But according to scientists in Australia, Canada and the United States, dosing up on usually expensive creatine supplements makes next to no difference to getting swoll, or extremely muscular.
“In contrast to previous findings, the results of this study showed that (creatine) had no additive effect on LBM (lean body mass) changes when combined with RT (resistance training),” the team said in a paper published in the journal Nutrients.
The “confounding” effect, or lack thereof, suggests that bigger and potentially unsafe doses of creatine could be needed to show it having a discrete muscle-building impact.
There are ample studies – not to mention non-stop advertising and social media “influencers” flaunting their sponsored creatine brands alongside their lycra-clad physiques in endless posts – suggesting that creatine does what it says on the tin.
But other work on the effects of creatine – which in any case, is found in meat and fish – has found difficulties in distinguishing the impact of supplements from that of the exercise and lifting they are taken in tandem with.
“The benefits of creatine may have been overestimated in the past, due to methodological problems with previous studies,” says Australia’s University of New South Wales exercise scientist Dr Mandy Hagstrom.
Her team’s research was based on putting 54 people through a 12-week trial structured to make the distinction clearer.
“The people taking the creatine supplement saw changes before they even started exercising, which leads us to believe that it wasn’t actual real muscle growth, but potentially fluid retention,” she says, adding that once they got into working out, the trialists “saw no additional benefit from creatine”. – dpa
