For this week’s edition of Dear Mark, I’m answering a Q&A to my previous post on teens and creatine use. Should Women Take Creatine? Is there any difference in creatine metabolism between men and women? Does creatine work the same way in women? And, an age-old question, does creatine make women bloated?
Let’s dig inside.
Hi Mark,
I’m wondering if creatine is as helpful for women as it is for men. You don’t really hear much about it out there in regards to women. What do you think?
In the end, we are all human. We all produce the same hormones, process the same three macronutrients, use the same micronutrients, and require the same nutrients regardless of whether we are male or female.
However, there are objective, measurable differences between the average man and the average woman. For example, we know that even individual cells can be “male” or “female”. Women’s kidney cells have a different shape and function than men’s kidney cells. The kidneys still perform the same role in the body regardless of gender, but with marginal differences. Subtle nuances have an impact.
So it’s natural to wonder if creatine has the same beneficial effects in women as it does in men. Well, isn’t it?
Creatine for women
To answer your question: yes, creatine is very useful for women. Just like men’s muscles, creatine helps fuel women’s muscles in the form of ATP, or adenosine triphosphate. For short, intense bursts of speed or power — for example, if you’re lifting a car away from children, sprint to avoid a giant rock rolling in your path, or do a few extra reps at the end of the set — expect you to be able to generate more ATP quickly, for example. Creatine facilitates that.
What effect does creatine have on women?
Studies have shown that creatine has many of the same effects in women as it does in men:
- It improves muscle endurance.
- It improves muscle strength.
- It improves strength.
- It can increase muscle hypertrophy.
- It can improve both aerobic and anaerobic performance.
- It increases performance in repeated sprints (though not so much in single sprints).
- Combined with resistance training, it can improve bone health.
Plus, creatine doesn’t just enhance physical performance. Creatine is also found in the brain, where it maintains cognitive function by recycling ATP to maintain energy stores:
- Creatine can improve mood, memory, and cognitive function, and women may get a brain energy boost especially from creatine.
- Creatine reduces the effects of sleep deprivation, a condition that women are prone to.
Are there any sex differences in creatine production, storage or metabolism?
There are differences in how men and women process and store creatine.
- Women tend to have 70 to 80% lower endogenous creatine stores than men. Muscle tissue is the largest storehouse of creatine, and women typically have less muscle tissue.
- Women tend to get less creatine from their diets, but that’s mainly due to their lower meat intake.. Of course, this doesn’t apply to every woman. It depends on how much red meat (and to a lesser extent fish) you eat.
- Women have higher resting intramuscular creatine concentrations than men. Their muscles are smaller, but contain more creatine.
Since women have less room to store creatine and the stores they have are “fuller,” some researchers have theorized that women may not respond as strongly to creatine supplements. However, the evidence doesn’t really support this. Creatine still works in women, as I discussed in the previous section.
Will menopause, menstrual cycle or pregnancy change creatine metabolism or dosage?
Menopause, menstruation, and pregnancy are three distinct physiological processes or states of women. How does creatine affect them?
Creatine during pregnancy
Pregnancy reduces creatine stores, not because the body is activating a defense mechanism that reduces “dangerous” creatine or whatever, but because it is used during growth and development. of the fetus. You need extra creatine during pregnancy. A woman can get it through food sources, like red meat or lean white fish, or she can get a little bit through supplementation.
The supplement has not been studied in pregnant women, but in animal models, creatine supplementation protects the fetus from certain types of brain damage. Human studies show that low creatine levels during pregnancy cause low birth weight babies, so I think it’s pretty safe (and possibly important). As always, talk to your doctor before taking any supplements during pregnancy.
Creatine and the menstrual cycle
During the follicular phase, creatine is at its lowest along with estrogen. This is also when most perimenopausal women report not sleeping well. Since creatine is known to improve a person’s mental resilience to sleep deprivation, supplementing with creatine is probably a good idea for perimenopausal women — and not just leading up to and during pregnancy. follicular phase.
After menopause
Combined with resistance training, creatine supplementation is a promising strategy for countering some of the negative effects that menopause can have on muscle tissue, strength, physical performance and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Does creatine make women “bulky”?
Probably not a problem. While creatine has repeatedly been shown to increase the hypertrophic response during resistance training in men, the same has not actually been the case in women taking creatine. They don’t gain muscle weight with water like men do, and they don’t increase muscle size — at least not more than they do lifting weights alone. One study in women showed that using creatine in combination with resistance training increased fat-free mass without changing actual body weight.
Women still get a lot of performance benefits from using creatine, they see an increase in strength and power without a huge change in size.
How Much Creatine Should Women Take?
Dosage instructions are the same as for men: 5 grams a day.
If you want to speed up the absorption of creatine in your muscles, you can do a “load phase” of 20 grams per day (split into four doses) for a week before dropping to 5 grams a day.
Remember to drink extra water, as creatine needs water for muscle storage, although not as much in women.
For all the women out there, have you ever tried creatine? You may want not?
Thank you all for reading and be sure to answer any questions you may have below.
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