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Slims

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Is Creapure brand creatine actually better than standard creatine monohydrate?
 
Old School

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Is Creapure brand creatine actually better than standard creatine monohydrate?
German mono hydrate is the best... been using it for years
 
LeanEngineer

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It's more well known for sure but I personally I think the standard creatine monohydrate works just as well for the same job.
 
TheMrMuscle

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If you are one of those that are sensitive to the side effects of the impurities that come with Creatine that isn’t micronized then Creapure is the way to go. Lesser to no chance of bloat, stomach cramps etc.
 
sns8778

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I don't think there will ever be final agreement to this honestly.

There can always be the argument that 99% pure creatine is 99% pure creatine. But then some people really do say they respond better to CreaPure; so its hard to discount that much feedback.

From a company perspective, the challenges that companies always face is that there are some people that want CreaPure but then 99% of people when buying Creatine Monohydrate just want the cheapest one they can find. That's why we stopped doing a Creatine Monohydrate ourselves - because we were selling it at an extremely low margin and yet somehow there were brands that still claimed to be offering it for less (which is terrible frustrating when you know the kg. cost and the prices being offered seem impossible but thats a whole different story altogether lol).

Another aspect of the 'CreaPure vs. Creatine Monohydrate' debate is that some people say they experience less bloating and stomach discomfort off CreaPure than regular monohydrate. That definitely is not true for me. Creatine Monohydrate makes me feel like I swallowed a Volkswagen it makes me so bloated. So for me personally, I use either Creatine HCI or Magnesium Creatine Chelate (Creatine Magnapower).
 
Afi140

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I don’t notice a personal difference between regular mono and creapure so try both and see if you notice a difference.
 
LeanEngineer

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I don’t notice a personal difference between regular mono and creapure so try both and see if you notice a difference.
Best advice for many supp debates. Trying for yourself and coming to your our conclusion is going to be the best way to go for you personally in this specific situation.
 
KvanH

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Maybe I'm misunderstanding something and when people say bloating, they mean something additional and negative bloat, but if you don't get any increased water weight from creatine, it's not working. It's how creatine works.
 
DieselNY

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Maybe I'm misunderstanding something and when people say bloating, they mean something additional and negative bloat, but if you don't get any increased water weight from creatine, it's not working. It's how creatine works.
True but bloat in midsection is not what we want and is what I get immediately. I find creatine hcl minimizes this effect.
 

lfod14

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Maybe I'm misunderstanding something and when people say bloating, they mean something additional and negative bloat, but if you don't get any increased water weight from creatine, it's not working. It's how creatine works.
You should have intramuscular water retention (more glycogen) not GI bloat, which many get from certain forms of creative. I do if I don’t use Creapure.
 
GQdaLEGEND

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So for me personally, I use either Creatine HCI or Magnesium Creatine Chelate (Creatine Magnapower).
MCC is prolly the best, i cant believe how quickly it attributes to strength ( atleast for me and few i know )

to the OP question - i think they all work the same .. creapure is def loved more and more by the community .. i never felt any bloating or any negative sides from old creatine

but after all that i am currently using creapure from all max nutrition bc i got it for sale to cover it for the whole year.
 
sns8778

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Maybe I'm misunderstanding something and when people say bloating, they mean something additional and negative bloat, but if you don't get any increased water weight from creatine, it's not working. It's how creatine works.
I'm not talking about intracellular water. I'm talking about stomach distress and bloating that a lot of people experience with creatine monohydrate. Some people say that they get less of that with CreaPure but I don't; I bloat terribly when I use creatine monohydrate which is why I jokingly said I look like I swallowed a dang Volkswagen vehicle. That's why I personally prefer Creatine HCI or Magnesium Creatine Chelate because I don't hold the fluid retention with it.
 

Slims

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I get slight GI discomfort with monohydrate, but the main reason I bought it was because it's supposed to be the purest/best form creatine.
 
sns8778

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I get slight GI discomfort with monohydrate, but the main reason I bought it was because it's supposed to be the purest/best form creatine.
I think its the best in terms of cost effectiveness for people that can take it, but I don't think its better than Magnesium Creatine Chelate or Creatine HCI. And the required doses on them are so low that it really averages out; and for me, its so much more comfortable without the fluid retention.

It's always interesting to see the forum perspective versus the general market perspective. Here's a good example - we stopped making Creatine Monohydrate bc it didn't really sell well for us overall but both Magnesium Creatine Chelate and Creatine HCI sell good.

We make Creatine HCI in both capsule and powder form.

We make Magnesium Creatine Chelate (Creatine Magnapower) in powder form. We are out of it at the moment but hope to have it back in within a couple of weeks.
 

Slims

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I think its the best in terms of cost effectiveness for people that can take it, but I don't think its better than Magnesium Creatine Chelate or Creatine HCI. And the required doses on them are so low that it really averages out; and for me, its so much more comfortable without the fluid retention.

It's always interesting to see the forum perspective versus the general market perspective. Here's a good example - we stopped making Creatine Monohydrate bc it didn't really sell well for us overall but both Magnesium Creatine Chelate and Creatine HCI sell good.

We make Creatine HCI in both capsule and powder form.

We make Magnesium Creatine Chelate (Creatine Magnapower) in powder form. We are out of it at the moment but hope to have it back in within a couple of weeks.
I'd forgotten that Magnesium Creatine Chelate existed to be honest. I remember lots of people jumping on that when it had it's popularity moment. I can't say that I've tried it personally, but I'll add it to my list of supps to try out once you have it back in.
 
sns8778

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I'd forgotten that Magnesium Creatine Chelate existed to be honest. I remember lots of people jumping on that when it had it's popularity moment. I can't say that I've tried it personally, but I'll add it to my list of supps to try out once you have it back in.
Albion is a great company; they just promote their minerals a lot more than MCC so it tends to get overlooked sometimes.

I really like it. They have some really good studies on strength and power output. I have some friends that box and do MMA and they all prefer it bc they say it helps them more with strength output and endurance and doesn't slow them down from holding excess fluid.
 
MikeSumthin

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Did RC1's "Tango" creatine and holy hell, it negatively impacted me in the bedroom. I was so pissed...

Within a day of getting off of it I was back to normal. I just do ON's Micronized Mono... cheap and works.
 
RIPDanDuchaine

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The main difference is that Creapure is micronized, meaning it's been run through a machine that makes the particulate matter of the creatine into a very fine powder. It's also extensively tested to be 99% pure and is at least USP/BSP grade product. When you buy Creapure, you know you're getting pure micronized creatine monohydrate.

I did a little digging on the different forms of creatine and basically every study done on creatine in the past 30+ years of study has used creatine monohydrate. But, every year a company will come out with a new form of creatine that's always better or more superior than monohydrate, but they never have the science to back up the claims. Here's some info from a study I found on creatine.

Commercially available forms of creatine
There are several different available forms of creatine: creatine anhydrous which is creatine with the water molecule removed in order to increase the concentration of creatine to a greater amount than that found in CM. Creatine has been manufactured in salt form: creatine pyruvate, creatine citrate, creatine malate, creatine phosphate, magnesium creatine, creatine oroate, Kre Alkalyn (creatine with baking soda). Creatine can also be manufactured in an ester form. Creatine ethyl ester (hydrochloride) is an example of this, as is creatine gluconate which is creatine bound to glucose. Another form is creatine effervescent which is creatine citrate or CM with citric acid and bicarbonate. The citric acid and bicarbonate react to produce an effervescent effect. When mixed with water the creatine separates from its carrier leaving a neutrally charged creatine, allowing it to dissolve to a higher degree in water. Manufacturers claim that creatine effervescent has a longer and more stable life in solution. When di-creatine citrate effervescent was studied [59] for stability in solution it was found that the di-creatine citrate dissociates to citric acid and creatine in aqueous solutions which in turn forms CM and eventually crystallises out of the solution due to its low solubility. Some of the creatine may also convert to creatinine.

Jager et al [60] observed 1.17 and 1.29 greater peak plasma creatine concentration 1 hour after ingesting creatine pyruvate compared to isomolar amount of CM and creatine citrate respectively. However time to peak concentration, and velocity constants of absorption and elimination, was the same for all three forms of creatine. Although not measured in this study it is questionable that these small differences in plasma creatine concentrations would have any effect on the increase of muscle creatine uptake. Jäger et al [61] investigated the effects of 28-days of creatine pyruvate and citrate supplementation on endurance capacity and power measured during an intermittent handgrip (15 s effort per 45s rest) exercise in healthy young athletes. The authors used a daily dose protocol with the intention to slowly saturate muscle creatine stores. Both forms of creatine showed slightly different effects on plasma creatine absorption and kinetics. The two creatine salts significantly increased mean power but only pyruvate forms showed significant effects for increasing force and attenuating fatigability during all intervals. These effects can be attributed to an enhanced contraction and relaxation velocity as well as a higher blood flow and muscle oxygen uptake. On the other hand, the power performance measured with the citrate forms decreases with time and improvements were not significant during the later intervals. In spite of these positive trends further research is required about the effects of these forms of creatine as there is little or no evidence for their safety and efficacy. Furthermore the regularity status of the novel forms of creatine vary from country to country and are often found to be unclear when compared to that of CM [62].

In summary, creatine salts have been show to be less stable than CM. However the addition of carbohydrates could increase their stability [62]. The potential advantages of creatine salts over CM include enhanced aqueous solubility and bioavailability which would reduce their possible gastrointestinal adverse effects [63]. The possibility for new additional formulation such as tablets or capsules is interesting for its therapeutic application due to its attributed better dissolution kinetics and oral absorption compared to CM [63]. However more complete in vivo pharmaceutical analysis of creatine salts are required to fully elucidate their potential advantages/disadvantages over the currently available supplement formulations.

Creatine is a hydrophilic polar molecule that consists of a negatively charged carboxyl group and a positively charged functional group [64]. The hydrophilic nature of creatine limits its bioavailability [65]. In an attempt to increase creatines bioavailability creatine has been esterified to reduce the hydrophilicity; this product is known as creatine ethyl ester. Manufacturers of creatine ethyl ester promote their product as being able to by-pass the creatine transporter due to improved sarcolemmal permeability toward creatine [65]. Spillane et al [65] analyzed the effects of a 5 days loading protocol (0.30 g/kg lean mass) followed by a 42 days maintenance phase (0.075 g/kg lean mass) of CM or ethyl ester both combined with a resistance training program in 30 novice males with no previous resistance training experience. The results of this study [65] showed that ethyl ester was not as effective as CM to enhance serum and muscle creatine stores. Furthermore creatine ethyl ester offered no additional benefit for improving body composition, muscle mass, strength, and power. This research did not support the claims of the creatine ethyl ester manufacturers.
Creatine supplementation with specific view to exercise/sports performance: an update

If you expand that and read the bottom quote, you'll see a reference to a study where they tested creatine ethyl ester (aka creatine hcl) and found it was not as effective as creatine mono. However, if you're on a budget, there are other brands that sell micronized creatine monohydrate that isn't the Creapure brand, but still goes through the same process it does. For example, Optimum Nutrition used to use Creapure, but for whatever reason, they switched it to some other source, but it is still micronized pure creatine monohydrate.

Here's also a jumbled mess of a Wayback machine article by Anthony Roberts tiled "Everything wrong with Creatine HCL". I can probably recreate it if anyone wants to read it. I also DM'd Anthony on Twitter and will see if he has a backup of it.

 
sns8778

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If you expand that and read the bottom quote, you'll see a reference to a study where they tested creatine ethyl ester (aka creatine hcl) and found it was not as effective as creatine mono. However, if you're on a budget, there are other brands that sell micronized creatine monohydrate that isn't the Creapure brand, but still goes through the same process it does. For example, Optimum Nutrition used to use Creapure, but for whatever reason, they switched it to some other source, but it is still micronized pure creatine monohydrate.
I really wish that when you posted, you would do so in an educational way of talking about the high points of whatever ingredient without feeling the need to insult other forms of it. You have some potentially good posts that you ruin by insulting other ingredients or taking things too far and saying things that aren't true.

It's like for some reason in your posts, you have to say something negative or bad about something like it helps you get your point across. And at least from my perspective it doesn't. I know that a lot of people here give you a hard time when you post, and I really try not to. I feel bad sometimes when I correct things you post bc I don't want you to think I'm nit picking you, and I'm not, its just that its not fair to people reading that may wind up believing it if it wasn't clarified, especially when its negative information attacking a company or ingredient and it isn't true.

So please don't take my post offensively, hopefully you can see it as encouraging in the sense of how certain things that are said may take away from what could otherwise sometimes be good posts.

I don't think anyone's ever said that most of the studies done on Creatine weren't done on Creatine Monohydrate. The research on Creatine Monohydrate is great but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have some downfalls for many people that can't be improved upon. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with companies trying to make improved versions of something.

In the above part of your post that I quoted, you make the statement:
If you expand that and read the bottom quote, you'll see a reference to a study where they tested creatine ethyl ester (aka creatine hcl) and found it was not as effective as creatine mono.

^^^ A study testing whether Creatine Ethyl Ester is as good as Creatine Monohydrate has nothing to do with Creatine HCI. So why correlate the two and hurt the credibility of your post? Instead, you put Creatine HCI in parenthesis which is very misleading to anyone reading because you give them the impression that Creatine Ethyl Ester and Creatine HCI are the same things, which they are not.

You also made the following statement in your post:
I did a little digging on the different forms of creatine and basically every study done on creatine in the past 30+ years of study has used creatine monohydrate.
^^^ MOST, not all, studies have been done on Creatine Monohydrate because that is the most commonly known and used form. That does not mean that other types haven't been researched and it also doesn't mean that some of the data can't translate over to other types.


For example, Creatine Magnapower is a patented ingredient of Albion Labs, one of the most respected branded ingredient companies in the industry and they do have great studies on their version. A lot of athletes I've worked with personally love their version bc they feel that it helps them more with explosive power and it doesn't slow them down bc it doesn't cause the bloating and fluid retention that some people experience with Creatine Monohydrate. Good examples of brands offering this would be SNS offering a single ingredient powder and Controlled Labs has used it in their products for years with great feedback.

Another example is Creatine Anhydrous. PES used Creatine Anhydrous in Ergonine and so many people loved that product. They also offered it as a single ingredient for a long time. And many people loved it and many people that did have bloating and fluid retention and/or gastrointestinal issues with regular monohydrate said they could use the anhydrous form without any problems.

Another example is Tricreatine Orotate. MAN Sports used this in their Orotine and Clout products and many people loved it. It was a very hard to source form of Creatine and by far one of the most expensive forms.

There is nothing wrong with people having options.

If Creatine Monohydrate works for a person, whether its regular micronized creatine, CreaPure, or whatever, that's great for them. But there are a large number of people out there that do not like Creatine Monohydrate due to fluid retention, bloating, and/or gastrointestinal issues. I know a lot of women and athletes that will not take Monohydrate bc of the fluid retention. So there is absolutely nothing wrong with them having options.

For me personally, I will not use Creatine Monohydrate because it makes me so bloated and hold so much fluid that I joke it makes me feel like I swallowed a Volkswagen Beetle and makes me absolutely miserable. If it were the only type available, I wouldn't use Creatine at all. I personally use Creatine HCI and Creatine Magnapower because that's what works best for me.


So again, I wish you would post positively about things and help educate people without attacking other things. You could have made your informational points about CreaPure and regular Creatine Monohydrate without ever attacking, bashing, or even mentioning other types of creatine.
 

Wallet55

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The main difference is that Creapure is micronized, meaning it's been run through a machine that makes the particulate matter of the creatine into a very fine powder. It's also extensively tested to be 99% pure and is at least USP/BSP grade product. When you buy Creapure, you know you're getting pure micronized creatine monohydrate.

I did a little digging on the different forms of creatine and basically every study done on creatine in the past 30+ years of study has used creatine monohydrate. But, every year a company will come out with a new form of creatine that's always better or more superior than monohydrate, but they never have the science to back up the claims. Here's some info from a study I found on creatine.



Creatine supplementation with specific view to exercise/sports performance: an update

If you expand that and read the bottom quote, you'll see a reference to a study where they tested creatine ethyl ester (aka creatine hcl) and found it was not as effective as creatine mono. However, if you're on a budget, there are other brands that sell micronized creatine monohydrate that isn't the Creapure brand, but still goes through the same process it does. For example, Optimum Nutrition used to use Creapure, but for whatever reason, they switched it to some other source, but it is still micronized pure creatine monohydrate.

Here's also a jumbled mess of a Wayback machine article by Anthony Roberts tiled "Everything wrong with Creatine HCL". I can probably recreate it if anyone wants to read it. I also DM'd Anthony on Twitter and will see if he has a backup of it.

Huh, how is Creatine HCl the same as ethyl ester..? Ethyl ester implies there's a CH2-CH3 (ethyl) linked to the oxygen which is linked the carbonyl group
 
RIPDanDuchaine

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Huh, how is Creatine HCl the same as ethyl ester..? Ethyl ester implies there's a CH2-CH3 (ethyl) linked to the oxygen which is linked the carbonyl group
Well, I thought that sounded a little off too, but the authors of the study I posted said that EE was the same as HCl.
 

Slims

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I've tried a few different creatines over the years, HCL, Kre-Alkalyn, Citrate, CEE and obviously Mono. I'm one week in on Creapure now, 10g per day, and I have noticed that it feels better stomach wise. I think the best way to describe is that there's no heaviness or bloat feel and there's no discomfort at all after taking it.
 
sns8778

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Well, I thought that sounded a little off too, but the authors of the study I posted said that EE was the same as HCl.
I can see where you may have gotten confused but they never said that Creatine Ethyl Ester was the same as Creatine Hydrochloride. The way they wrote it in the study you posted is 'Creatine Ethyl Ester (hydrochloride)', which is technically correct. The Ethyl Ester form does have a hydrochloride attachment but that doesn't mean its the same thing as Creatine Hydrochloride. But that's an example of what I meant in my above post about staying on point and not speaking negatively about other ingredients or forms of an ingredient, and that how when you do, it hurts the value of your post in general, especially if you're wrong and providing incorrect information, even if accidentally.

Different forms of an ingredient can still be a hydrochloride form but it doesn't make them the same ingredient.

The name of Creatine Ethyl Ester is technically Creatine Ethyl Ester Hydrochloride.
However, Creatine Ethyl Ester HCI is completely different than Creatine HCI because there is no Ethyl Ester in Creatine HCI.
 

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