Creatine is a popular supplement known for its role in muscle building. In this video, Dr. Rena Malik explains everything you need ...

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Creatine Supplement as a Testosterone Booster?! Do They Work?

creatine seems like an amazing supplement for so many things and it's widely touted for its ability to improve muscle growth but the question remains is does creatine have any positive impact on serum testosterone levels I'm Dr ream malic urologist and pelvic surgeon and today we're going to be covering creatine and its impact on testosterone so let's get started what is creatine so creatine is a naturally occurring compound that's found in muscle cells and it's typically synthesized in the liver kidneys and pancreas from amino acids and it's typically stored in muscles in the form of phosphocreatine and what it does is it helps recycle ATP which is the primary energy source for muscular contractions supplementing creatine is known to increase a couple things one it increases intramuscular phosphocreatine as well as free creatine stores and this increase is seen in skeletal muscle by about 20% and even in the brain by somewhere between 5 to 10% now taken together this can improve muscle energy production and support muscular growth and hypertrophy which then leads to improved strength power and performance there's also studies that suggest it may even improve brain health because of the increased phosphocreatine in the brain so they've actually looked at things like cognition and recovery from injuries to the brain however in terms of looking at hormonal responses to creatine supplementation most of the studies have been done on young healthy men who are active athletes or training now there was 13 studies done looking at the impact of creatine on hormones specifically testosterone now out of those 13 three of them found a positive correlation between creatine supplementation and testosterone and these include a total of 60 men one of them looked at 20 college-aged rugby players from South Africa and they were randomized to get a placebo or creatine and they got a loading phase of 25 gram per day for one week followed by a maintenance dose of 5 gram per day for 2 weeks now this particular study didn't actually see a change in testosterone but it did see an improvement in dihydrotestosterone or DHT by 12 nog per de later the other two studies EV valued amateur swimmers in Iran and active males and they in these studies got 20 gam daily of creatine for 6 days or one week and in both of those studies they did see an increase in testosterone of 57 nanog per Deiter in the one study and 150 nanog per Deiter in the other study how remember there was 13 studies so 10 of the other trials looking at 218 men saw no impact on testosterone levels when getting creatine now these studies had anywhere between 11 and 33 men per study and followed them from anywhere from 8 days to As Long As 12 weeks now the dosing was variable some of them got 3 grams a day some of them got 25 gram a day I'm generally not persuaded that creatine alone is having an impact on testosterone levels however I do think that creatine supplementation is beneficial for athletes and individuals engaging in high-intensity exercise for the benefits of performance muscle growth and potentially even supporting brain health in terms of side effects creatine is very generally safe it's pretty well tolerated now some people have some nausea or abdominal cramping diarrhea or bloating um and it usually does cause some increased water retention which can then translate to an increase in weight at least initially when you start taking it and lastly if you have kidney disease there is a potential concern that's not really been very substantiated that it can have an effect on people who have some baseline impaired kidney function and generally if you have liver disease you're pregnant or breastfeeding or taking any medications that may affect the kidneys you may want to be cautious about taking creatine in these cases because it hasn't been studied in these groups now while creatine didn't show much of a difference there's actually been some studies looking at creatine with beta alanine and creatine with beta hydroxy beta methylate also known as hmb let's start with beta alanine beta alanine is a non-essential amino acid that's naturally produced in the liver and it can be obtained in the diet primarily through animal-based foods like beef chicken and other organs now generally beta alanine is a precursor for carnosine which helps maintain the acidbase balance balance in muscle synthesis and specifically in skeletal muscles the brain and the heart now during exercise the carnosine that your body produce protects against acid buildup during these high-intensity exercises and it helps keep your muscles from fatiguing too quickly so the thought is that it may lead to improved performance specifically in high-intensity activities like maybe sprinting or swimming which may be short bursts like then were lasting from 1 to 10 minutes so by itself beta alanine again hasn't shown any significant changes in serum testosterone levels however there's been two studies that have evaluated creatine and beta alanine together and they had sort of mixed results one so looked at 20 military personnel they got 4 weeks of supplementation with 6.4 G of beta alanine and then they got one week of creatine loading of3 G G per kilogram per day which would be about 21 G for an average 70 kg adult and in this study they did see a significant increase in testosterone from 5.46 nog per liter to 5.92 nanog per liter and the authors themselves say that this small increase in testosterone may only play a minor role in muscle adaptations and is generally controversial now the next study recruited 33 male Collegiate football players and they got 10.5 G of creatine and or creatine alone daily or a placebo and they also followed a 10we resistance training program at the same time and essentially here they found that there was no significant difference in the creatine and beta alanine group compared to Placebo however in this study interestingly the creatine only group did see an increase in total serum t testosterone so generally speaking beta alanine doesn't seem to have any hormonal effects in terms of increasing testosterone with or without creatine however there are some risks associated with beta alanine supplementation and one of the common side effects is actually paresthesia or a tingling sensation on the skin and this is generally avoided by taking smaller doses so the larger doses you take you're more likely to have this side effect or taking more extended release formulations now last lastly hmb now hmb is a metabolite of the essential amino acid Lucine which you may have heard of as being very important for muscular growth hmb is naturally produced in the body when Lucine breaks down and it's known for what we call anticatabolic properties meaning it helps prevent muscle breakdown it also enhances the buildup of protein and reduces muscle damage subsequently it can then enhance recovery and because of the enhanced recovery improve exercise performance in 2020 they looked at the effects of creatine monohydrate and hmbb supplementation in a double blind randomized Placebo controlled trial where they recruited 28 male Elite rowers they divided these rowers up into four groups so the first group got creatine only at about 04 G per kilogram per day group two got three gram of hmb per day and group three got creatine and hmb and group four got Placebo and so what they saw was that there was a significant increase in testosterone in the group that got creatine and hmb which was from 4.91 nanog per deer to 5.97 nanog per Deiter however again this trial was really really small because there's only about seven guys in each group and it was not pre-registered meaning they didn't really have a clear primary outcome so it wasn't designed perfectly to assess this outcome now there's another study looking at 28 Elite male rugby players again got either a placebo hmb 3 G per day or hmb 3 G with creatine daily and they again in this study found no significant difference in serum testosterone levels ultimately what I think is that hmb doesn't really have any true benefits in terms of increasing testosterone at least at this point the data is not convincing and not rigorous I do think hmb may be beneficial in older populations to prevent muscle breakdown but not quite significant enough where I would recommend it widely bottom line I don't think that taking creatine supplementation causes any hormonal changes in terms of sex hormones however creatine monohydrate is one of the most widely studied supplements and it has significant benefits in terms of increasing muscular strength recovery and potentially some increase in muscular size so I think if you're taking it for those purposes it is probably beneficial now hope you guys enjoyed this video if you did please make sure to check out my other videos on testosterone boosters and check out my free ebook better sex better life which covers my top 10 tips to have the best sex of your life and as always want to take care of yourself because you're worth it

Dr.

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