Creatine

[pelagius]

Bumping this thread from last December.

A guy in my ward takes kre-alkalyn, which he says is a more efficient form of creatine. I kind of zoned out while he was talking about the science behind it. He encouraged me to go buy some for my workouts. I told him to screw off and then I punched him in the nose for trying to sell me drugs. But then at home I started wondering if he was right.

Has anyone here tried kre-alkalyn? Is it similar to creatine in that much of your bulking up is water retention and bloat?

He is wrong about the science. Its not better than monohydrate. See the following abstract to a study from a few years ago:

Kre-alkalyn® supplementation has no beneficial effect on creatine-to-creatinine conversion rates.

Tallon MJ1 and Child R2

1University of Northumbria, Sport Sciences, Northumbria University, Northumberland Building, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom, 2Department of Life Sciences, Kingston University, Penrhyn Rd, Kingston-upon-Thames, United Kingdom. DrTallon@CR-Technologies.net

All American Pharmaceutical and Natural Foods Corp. (Billings, MT, USA) claim that Kre-alkalyn® (KA) a “Buffered” creatine, is 100% stable in stomach acid and does not convert to creatinine. In contrast, they also claim that creatine monohydrate (CM) is highly pH labile with more than 90% of the creatine converting to the degradation product creatinine in stomach acids. To date, no independent or university laboratory has evaluated the stability of KA in stomach acids, assessed its possible conversion to creatinine, or made direct comparisons of acid stability with CM.

This study examined whether KA supplementation reduced the rate of creatine conversion to creatinine, relative to commercially available CM (CreapureÒ). Creatine products were analyzed by an independent commercial laboratory using testing guidelines recommended by the United States Pharmacopeia (USP). Each product was incubated in 900ml of pH 1 HCL at 37± 1oC and samples where drawn at 5, 30 and 120 minutes and immediately analyzed by HPLC (UV) for creatine and creatinine.

In contrast to the claims of All American Pharmaceutical and Natural Foods Corp., the rate of creatinine formation from CM was found to be less than 1% of the initial dose, demonstrating that CM is extremely stable under acidic conditions that replicate those of the stomach. This study also showed that KA supplementation actually resulted in 35% greater conversion of creatine to creatinine than CM. In conclusion the conversion of creatine to creatinine is not a limitation in the delivery of creatine from CM and KA is less stable than CM in the acid conditions of the stomach.


Supported by Cr-Technologies, LLP, London, England

If you are going to use creatine all the evidence I've seen is that you should just stick with creatine monohydrate. Particularly given how cheap it is.

[TripletDaddy]

I am not really sure I want to take any supplements. This isn't some hardcore passion of mine and from what I gather, the supplements can be expensive.

In reading this thread, it seems that most agree that creatine is relatively safe. However, it seems that a bunch of the bulking is due to water retention, so what is the point of that?

I will probably just stick to being all-natural for now. I may consider doing some drugs if I decide to get serious and enter shows or other competitions.