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1. What is Creatine?
Creatine is found naturally occurring in the human body and is produced in the liver, kidneys, and pancreas from amino acids (l-arginine, glycine, and l-methionine) found in food, such as meat and fish. Creatine is undoubtedly the most researched sport nutritional supplement due to its benefits to increase lean muscle mass, strength and energy. Approximately 95% total creatine in the human body is found in the skeletal muscle.
2.What does it do and how does it work?
Creatine’s main function is to supply energy to cells mostly found in the muscle. Here is a very basic explanation of how creatine plays a crucial role in providing your muscle cells the necessary energy to perform…
Your body’s ultimate source of energy comes from ATP also known as adenosine triphosphate. As soon as your body starts to exert energy to perform any strenuous exercise, the muscles use the stored ATP to power the muscles. It only takes 5-10 seconds to use up the ATP stores. So, in order to generate additional energy, your body has to make more ATP. During these times of intense energy needs, ATP is resynthesized from ADP. However, your body needs to use creatine phosphate in order for this process to occur. Creatine’s unique characteristic to increase the body’s creatine phosphate stores allows the body to synthesize ADP into ATP during these times of intense training at a rapid speed. If your body does not have the adequate creatine phosphate stores, the human body has to turn to other sources, such as glycogen. The downside to these other sources is that it takes much longer time to create the ATP needed during intense training.
3.Different types of creatine:
There are many different types of creatine that have been introduced into the dietary supplement industry over the last decade. First to the market was creatine monohydrate followed by other variations such as creatine ethyl ester, creatine malate, creatine citrate, Kre-Alklyn, and creatine hcl. With so many variations of creatine out in the marketplace, which one is most effective?
4.Studies that show CEE, Kre Alklyn, Creatine Mono:
Creatine ethyl ester (CEE) is creatine monohydrate with an ethyl group attached, which is suppose to provide greater solubility leading to better absorption. A study was conducted by Department of Life Sciences, Kingston University, Penrhyn Rd, Kingston-upon-Thames, United Kingdom, comparing the bioavailability of creatine from CEE and creatine monohydrate in an acidic condition similar to stomach acid. This study confirmed that CEE actually accelerated CEE to break down to creatinine much faster than creatine monohydrate.
Another study was done to compare the bioavailability of creatine from Kre-Alkalyn and creatine monohydrate in an acidic condition similar to stomach acid by Department of Life Sciences, Kingston University, Penrhyn Rd, Kingston-upon-Thames, United Kingdom. This study also confirmed that creatine monohydrate was much more stable compare to Kre-Alkalyn and that greater percentage of Kre-Alkalyn broke down to creatinine than creatine monohydrate.
5.How PH effects muscle fatigue:
Intense exercise will cause a drastic decrease in muscle PH. Normal muscle PH is close to 7 which is also the PH of water. After heavy weight training, long distance running or any other intense exercise, your muscle PH could be as close to 6.5. This drop in muscle PH is caused by the increase of lactic acid formation within the muscle. This drop in muscle PH leads to muscle fatigue due to your body’s lack of ability to re-synthesize phospho creatine. Conversely, increasing muscle PH has been shown in studies to improve performance. Increasing muscle PH can be obtained by taking in alkaline ingredients, such as sodium carbonates.It’s been shown in studies that oral delivery of sodium bicarbonate at a rate of 300mgs/kg will increase performance in high intensity exercise between 1 and 7 minutes. Another study done in Australia at the Tasmanian Institute of Technology (McNaughton LR, Cedaro R The Aust Journal of Sci and Med in Sport 1991; 23(3): 66-69) gave elite class rowers 300mg/kg bodyweight of bicarbonate or placebo. Ninety-five minutes later, subjects made a maximal effort for six minutes on a rowing ergometer. Compared with placebo, the subjects rowed almost 50 metres further in the same time when
receiving sodium bicarbonate.
6.Science behind Crea –Trona:
The makers of Crea Pure has developed a new form of creatine that is more bioavailable and effective than any other creatine ever to be introduced. Alz Chem has their hands from the very starting material of coal to the end product of creatine monohydrate. This new form of creatine is called Crea-Trona and is currently patented in Europe (DE 102006050931A1) and is patent pending in the USA (US2010/0056633A1). Crea Trona is not another blended form of creatine, but actually chemically altered form of creatine scientifically designed to have a perfect PH that allows the creatine to penetrate into the muscle cells without breaking down. As shown above, blended creatine products like Kre-Alklyn, creatine citrate or malate all break down in acidic solutions more easily than regular creatine monohydrate. However, Crea-Trona’s is actually bonded with 94% creatine monohydrate with the other 6% comprising of sodium bicarbonate (weak acid) and sodium carbonate(conjugated base), giving it a perfect PH of 10.
One of the main disadvantages of Kre-Alklyn is described in the USA patent application of Crea-Trona. Stating that “even small amounts of acids are sufficient in order to neutralize these mixtures or set an acid pH.” So, to have a true “buffered” creatine, the ingredient must contain both a weak acid and a conjugated base. Preparation of Kre-Alklyn only contains a base and therefore is not a true buffered creatine that leads to the conversion of creatinine in an acidic pH environment such as the stomach. Mixing creatine monohydrate with just sodium carbonate leads to an alkaline creatine that is titrated rapidly in low PH solution (see figure 1). Crea Trona, on the other hand, uses a true buffered system to regulate the pH level to remain constant at 10.
By using sodium carbonate (conjugated base) and sodium bicarbonate (weak acid) to create a buffering system of Crea-Trona, the pH of a solution is slightly affected when an acid or a base is added. Crea Trona achieves its pH buffering properties from the equilibrium between the acid HA and its conjugate base A[SUP]-[/SUP]. HA is in equilibrium with H[SUP]+[/SUP] + A[SUP]-[/SUP]. When an acid (in our case this would be the stomach, or mixing with acidic ingredients) is added to a mixture of the buffer (weak acid-sodium bicarbonate, and its conjugate base-sodium carbonate), the equilibrium is shifted to the left. Because of the shift, the hydrogen ion concentration increases by less than the amount expected for the quantity of strong acid added. The opposite is true if a strong alkali is added to the mixture; the hydrogen ion concentration decreases by less than the amount expected for the quantity of alkali added.
Crea Trona’s true buffering system protects the creatine from converting into creatinine in the stomach and also is proven to have a significantly higher bioavailability leading to higher absorption into the muscle cells. In USA patent application for Crea Trona, it clearly shows “the sodium content f the formulation having a decisive influence on the bioavailability and the uptake of creatine into the cells.” This use of sodium is similar to the usage of carbohydrates ability to increase creatine uptake.
An experiment was put together to illustrate the bioavailability between creatine monohydrate, Kre-Alkalyn, and Crea Trona. Three groups of testers, each comprising of 10 people, had the same starting values of creatine in muscle dry mass. The study was conducted over a 4 week period where each group was administered a daily dose of 2 grams of either creatine monohydrate, Kre-Alkalyn, or Crea Trona. Creatine stores in the muscle cells were measured via muscle biopsy before the study and after 4 weeks of intake. Figure 2 clearly shows that Crea Trona far superior in bioavailability than creatine monohydrate or Kre-Alkalyn. After 4 week, the users of Crea trona appeared to have close to 15% more creatine stores in their system than the users of creatine monohydrate or Kre-Alkalyn.
Refferences:
1. Harris, R.C. (1999) Effects and safety of dietary and supplementary creatine. International Congress Creatine: From Basic Science to Clinical Application: Milan. 2. Harris, R.C., Howard, A.N. (1999) Compositions containing creatine. USPTO patent No 5,968,544. pg 1-13.
3. Gastner, Thomas, Engelsberg (DE) (2010) Solid or Aqueous Alkaline Preparation Comprising of a Creatine Component, Process for the Production thereof and the use thereof. USPTO patent application number US 2010/0056633 A1. Pg 1-8.
4. Edgar, G., Shiver, H.E. (1925) The equalibrium between creatine and creatinine, in aqueous solution: the effect of hydrogen ion. J.Am.Chem.Soc. 47: 1179 - 1188.
5. Matson LG, and Tran ZV. Effects of sodium bicarbonate ingestion on anaerobic performance: a meta-analytic review. Int J Sport Nutr 3: 2-28, 1993.
6. McNaughton LR. Bicarbonate and citrate. In: Nutrition in Sport, edited by Maughan RJ. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000, p. 393-404.
7. Parkhouse WS, and McKenzie DC. Possible contribution of skeletal muscle buffers to enhanced anaerobic performance: a brief review. Med Sci Sports Exerc 16: 328-338, 1984.
8. Sale C, Saunders B, Hudson S, Sunderland CD, Wise JA, and Harris RC. Effect of beta-alanine supplementation, with and without sodium bicarbonate, on high-intensity cycling
capacity. In: American College of Sports Medicine. Baltimore, Maryland: 2010.
