Creatine found to improve cognitive performance during sleep deprivation

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-04-creatine-cognitive-deprivation.html

by XzetaU8 • 2 years ago

73 56 2 years ago

pitched3• 2 years ago

I’ve been taking 5mg daily of Creatine for about 6 months now. It gives me a surprising amount of energy that is still very noticeable if I miss a day, even with a full 8 hours of sleep.

A big surprise I got early on was that my previous coffee habit of 5+ cups per day just kind of disappeared. No longer needed to keep going, I think.

blacksmith_tb• 2 years ago

5mg? That seems like a very small dose... the linked study says they administered 0.35g per kg - for me that'd be about 24g, which seems like a lot, though I guess people who are lifting weights might do that much daily for a week or two and then switch down to 5g/day.

xenospn2• 2 years ago

The recommended dose is 5g per day. You can front-load creatine if you are deficient, but taking over 5g daily won’t do much.

Edit: it’s 5g, not mg.

TeaBrain3• 2 years ago

They have to mean 5g, as does the guy who responded to you who seems to have made the same mistake. The recommended dose on most creatine containers is around 5 grams. 5mg is so little that it would be impossible to measure without a mg scale.

Knufen• 2 years ago

5 mg? We get about 1 gram of creatine through a varied diet and the body synthesize the rest. I would guess it to be purely placebo for you? All lifter recommend 3-5 g of supplementation daily.

wtk• 2 years ago

Is it just creatine? I've had some good results - improved mental clarity, just to discover it has taurine added.

pitched3• 2 years ago

It is pure Creatine. This is definitely an above average result from the supplement, from what I understand. Probably from some sort of deficiency in the long chain of reactions that make it. My bet is that the sleep deficiency measured in this study is also impacting when of the reactions too. I wish it was easier to measure these things to actually know for sure.

pitched3• 2 years ago

I did mean 5g, not 5mg. Thanks to everyone who pointed out the error.

felsokning• 2 years ago

https://archive.is/TvpRr

Although, I could see this being beneficial in fields where labour is scarce (e.g.: the medical field), I fear it could lend towards a "sleep deprivation is okay, just take creatine" rationale in other fields.

HeatrayEnjoyer• 2 years ago

Why does medical get an exception for poor treatment

kadoban3• 2 years ago

It shouldn't in general, but there are restricted cases where it's literally life and death and difficult/impossible to plan around.

austhrow743• 2 years ago

It's impossible for doctors and nurses to pass on everything they know about a patient during shift changes, which can be seen in the form of spikes in deaths and other bad outcomes right after care is handed over to a new team. Hence why they tend to do longer shifts.

That effect is eventually balanced out by exhaustion, sleep deprivation, etc taking the same toll they do on everyone. Theoretically If you could reduce the impact of sleep deprivation, we could push shift lengths further, reduce the amount of turnover in carers a patient sees even more, and receive even further benefits in health outcomes.

spr-alex• 2 years ago

Other consumables from meat with notable effects here are carnosine and taurine. Carnosine in particular helps with janitorial processes that happen during sleep.

HuShifang• 2 years ago

I'd just add, these three can be obtained from veg-friendly supplements too.

paulddraper• 2 years ago

Yes, AFAIK all three are reasonable simple molecules with synthetic formulations.

pcthrowaway3• 2 years ago

I think Choline belongs in that list also.

The difficulty of getting these on a vegan diet is the reason I started consuming bivalves

adrian_b2• 2 years ago

After switching to a vegan diet and after some experimentation with other variants, I have eventually settled on adding to the food small amounts of creatine monohydrate, taurine and choline bitartrate in pure powder form, exactly like you would add table salt.

For me it has worked fine.

However, among the nutritional supplements for a vegan diet I make a temporary exception for cod liver oil (or other fish oil). Even if there is an adequate vegan substitute (Schizochytrium oil, which is produced by a cultivated fungus-like organism, despite being marketed as "algae" oil), for now it is still too expensive. Its price has been slowly decreasing, so I expect that in a few years its price will become no greater than double in comparison with fish oil, when I would consider switching to it as acceptable.

teyc• 2 years ago

There was another small study looking at similar dosages of creatine for traumatic brain injury. Time spent in ICU was halved.

fluffyfe• 2 years ago

I am wary of Creatine, it is bad for kidneys if you take it regularly. No long term study exists yet.

AliceWong• 2 years ago

Do you have a source for this? I haven't heard of any evidence for kidney damage long term from regular creatine intake in a healthy adult.

user3939382• 2 years ago

I was hyped on it until I read there was some controversy about it making your hair fall out. Nope.

ehnto• 2 years ago

There's been no studies that verify that claim as far as I know.

ulrikrasmussen• 2 years ago

Found this review which backs up what you said:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7871530/

achillesheels• 2 years ago

I love creatine for the amplified neural oscillations produced by the greater efficiencies in the ATP metabolism. I experience more "deep work", or the ability for me to focus for longer periods/stretches of time.

ikekkdcjkfke• 2 years ago

So instead of that shallow caffeine buzz, and relying on a stress hormone for extra energy, why haven't I thought of this before..

burjui3• 2 years ago

Taking creatine cured my lightheadedness that occurs when standing up after squatting for a few minutes, which happens a lot at my job (plumbing). It also reduced other negative effects of sleep deprivation, such as impaired cognition, but to a lesser degree.

edgineer• 2 years ago

Orthostatic hypotension

mckirk• 2 years ago

I don't know if you know this yet, but what greatly helps me when I've stood up too fast and am on the verge of 'seeing stars' is tensing up my abdominal muscles, which essentially helps push back the blood towards the brain.

I figured, if it's good enough for fighter pilots pulling 8g maneuvers, it should be good enough for me accidentally getting out of bed too quickly. And turns out it works!

az226• 2 years ago

How much do you take? How often?

verticalscaler• 2 years ago

1.5g-3g a day is fine. Powder form comes with little dosing spoon.. just do a little reading its very accessible.

burjui3• 2 years ago

5g once a day, standard gym goer protocol.

bijant• 2 years ago

Same though I'm sadly not qualified for plumbing and had spent a lot of money for plumbing issues. Is that how you got into the business ? Your Profile states that you are "just another programmer". This is BTW what I love about HN, intelligent people from all walks of life, South American Neuroscientists, Pakistani Particle Physicists, Australian Professors of European Philosophy, Chinese Poets, NY Musicians designing their own Guitar pedals, Radical GNU/OS Evangelists from Kazakhstan commingling with Italian Plumbers and Nevada Hippies that worship the Sun Gods by running their website on the power that the heavens giveth.

burjui3• 2 years ago

My dad is a plumber, and I learned a bit while working with him. I was in software development for about 8 years, intermittently (casual games and microcontrollers in C++, Java/Kotlin for Android), and at the last job (the Android one) I burnt out so bad I got clinical depression which took years to manage. Plumbing to me is a fallback that is going on for too long. Pays the bills and meds until I get fit for demanding mental work. By the way, my lower back is demanding some mental work, for a change, after 3 weeks of carving out grooves for pipes in walls and floors with a big perforator

unaindz2• 2 years ago

Other studies already proved those effects with creatine with a normal dose schedule, what they were testing is if a single high dose would have a beneficial effect too, which it did.

A normal schedule is 3-5g per day with an optional loading phase of 10-20g per day during 7 days.

In the study they used a single dose of 0.35g/kg which means 20-40g per dose. How do they not get diarrhea? The loading phase is usually split into several doses to avoid diarrhea and I can personally attest to that being a good idea.

Creatine found to improve cognitive performance during sleep deprivation

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