To my knowledge, there haven't been any long term studies done on creatine to assess any health risks. From personal experience, I had some initial weight gain from it, and had no other issues with it. I haven't taken it in over a year now, because I felt it wasn't needed for my performance goals. I started realizing there were a lot of pro-creatine promotional articles and such on it in the magazines (gee, which happens to get their revenues from supplement company ads), and that there wasn't much of a vested interest in my overall health, just in my pocketbook. Natural food intake to meet your caloric needs hasn't caused too many problems for athletes in my opinion. Why add much else when the possible risks aren't even known yet on a supplement? My main opinion on the matter is that most athletes are under-nourished or eating the wrong things, and they turn to expensive powders & pills to 'patch' up their dieting, when in fact, many of them can just change their dieting habits to better choices overall and fix the problem, all without the spendy Super Duper Why Protein 1000 shake mixes.

Just my thoughts,
Rick Karboviak, CSCS
www.thetipedge.com

One of the reasons we couldn't find anything on the Soviets is because of the Cold War issues at the time, and there was a literal wall between the sciences of sport sharing ideas and methods. That's the first that I've heard of creatine being used in the 60's-80's in Russia. The information wall didn't start coming down until the 80's and we started learning more from each other on training methods. And the truth came out...they did inject steroids and other drugs in their efforts to train their athletes.

I'm still skeptical of creatine and its use because I've seen it being overused by HS & college athletes, many of whom look to it as the solution for their goals with training. Truth is most of them have poor nutrition habits and that still hinders their performance, but they think creatine is the missing link in all of it and get lost in the shuffle of flashy psuedo-articles in magazines that are nothing more than advertisements. It does an athlete no good to take creatine & protein powder, when in their free time, they're chowing down Big Mac's & pizzas in an effort to 'gain weight' because their coach said an extra 10-15 pounds would make them better. (If 10 extra pounds is all it took, I suggest to these coaches that they buy a bunch of 10 pound vests for their athletes to wear, since an extra 10 would supposedly increase performance.)

Just my thoughts,
Rick Karboviak, CSCS
www.thetipedge.com

I have to go to the #1 question. What are the goals? Why are you considering taking creatine? What are you training for? What is your age?
Where can I find the results of these studies showing 'speed' gains after creatine use. Creatine has its place. Protein has its place. Supplements have their place. Yes, the supp companies are also magazine publishers and the stories and 'findings' are bias or have no legitimate studies backing the claims. However, that is not to say all supps are not necessary.
Skip Chase
World Class Fitness, Inc.
Guinness World Record Holder
'Most Sit-ups, 24 hours,abdominal frame'
110,912-Jan 2004

Gheck34,
Thank you for your reply. Also, since you are in Iraq, I assume you are a soldier, and I thank you for serving. I am a Viet Nam era veteran. (1st Special Forces Gp (Abn), 1st Special Forces). I am 53 and a personal trainer. I also use creatine. I am training to attempt to break the world record for 'Most sit-ups, 1 hour, using an abdominal frame', as well as training for the 2006 RAAM. I get 3g creatine in a pre workout dring called Muscle Fuel, and 2g in a post work formula. At 53, I am 180 and at 8% body fat. I am training with athletes 1/2 my age, and I am thankful for the excellent supplements I take. The product 'Muscle Fuel' was created by the company at the request of some NFL strength and conditioning coaches who wanted to help their athletes avoid the use of steroids. I have had incredible strength and stamina gains. Email me at skip@abselite with an address, and if you want, I will send you some samples. The product is NCAA, and pro sport approved.

Your samples are in the mail!!! I am sending you a box with 10 servings, nutritional facts and ingredients. Keep in mind, these products ARE approved for college, pro and Olympic athletes.

I take creatine to augment certain aspects of my training for triathlons. We get half of the creatine we need from food... meat to be exact... mainly red meat. Our kidneys produce the rest. I'm a vegetarian, so I did some research on creatine use in vegetarians, and it convinced me to give it a try. The studies I used for this info were university studies and were double-blinded, placebo controlled. I've found that creatine does benefit my strength, anaerobic, and power training enough to justify the cost ($5/month for me). It does cause water retention though and for racing I like to be light. I take it in cycles with a 1 week loading phase followed by 3 weeks of maintenance. I then stop use for a month to allow my body to resume its own creatine production.

I've experienced no detriment to my health that is apparent yet. Unfortunately, no studies have been done on long-term (20+ years) creatine use, though, most researchers agree that there appears to be no long-term risk assuming adequate hydration and nutrition, and proper dosing.

(a repeat of a previous post) Creatine supplementation was developed by a Soviet PhD named Nilolai Volkov in 1962, over 40 years ago!!! The US researchers did not develop creatine supplementation until 1992. The Soviets and Russians have performed more study on creatine than we have studied multiple vitamins!! No adverse conditions nor symptoms have ever been documented.