Creatine Dosing Update.
A recent study compared two creatine dosing protocols and looked at 24 hour urine excretion of creatine and methylamine. Subjects took 5 grams of creatine 4 times a day for five days and the other trial had subjects taking 1 gram 20 times a day. The more frequent lower dosing protocol showed significantly less creatine was excreted in the urine when compared to the higher dosing protocol.
While it’s likely unrealistic to dose 1g of creatine 20 times a day, this study does give important insight into lower more frequent dosing being the optimal method of creatine supplementation. One of the more recent findings of creatine supplementation is we no longer need the loading(20gram) a day phase and can establish the same muscle creatine concentrations at 30 days, when using a much lower dose of 3 grams a day. Since many of us our now are utilizing these much lower dosing strategies( 3-5g) a day, it would be interesting to see a study compare 5 grams a day, taken one time, or the same dose broken up into various doses and then look at urinary excretion.
It has been postulated that the CREAT transporter has limited capacity and ingesting large amounts of creatine at one time overwhelms its uptake ability, allowing much of the creatine to get metabolized and excreted in the urine. The other area of interest when looking at the reasons why smaller dosing may be more beneficial, is the faster downregulation of the CREAT transporters that the larger and less frequent doses of creatine may bring about compared to smaller more frequent dosing strategies.
Sale C, Harris RC, Florance J, Kumps A, Sanvura R, Poortmans JR.
Urinary creatine and methylamine excretion following 4 x 5 g . day(-1) or 20 x 1 g . day(-1) of creatine monohydrate for 5 days
By: ATHLETIC EDGE NUTRITION
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