Dr. Darren Candow

I just, you know, 20 minutes ago said that the loading phase wasn't needed for muscle.

The best studies for the brain look at 20 grams a day for at least a week.

So now you're in a conundrum.

I'm looking at muscle, bone, and brain.

And the theory here is that since the blood-brain barrier is very resistant to creatine, and unfortunately, we have this really important glial cell called astrocytes, which are the biggest in our central nervous system.

It sort of acts as a filter from our blood into our cells, and it really determines what gets in.

And it says, hey, foreign pathogens, no, you're not getting into the neuron or the cell.

So unfortunately, they don't have the creatine transporter or doorway.

So that's why uptake into the brain is very blunted.

So the thought is to get an improvement in brain creatine stores, you need longer duration of supplementation or higher dosages.

So the best lines of evidence using MRS have shown that higher 20 grams a day seem to be the most viable.

There's been a single study looking at about four grams a day, but it took three months to accumulate in the brain.

And unlike our muscle, which acts as like a vacuum, it sucks in all the creatine from our blood.

Our brain says, no, no, no, I'm only going to take what's in our blood, i.e.

supplementation when need be.

So that's why sleep deprivation seems to have the best lines of evidence or mental fatiguing challenges.

that's enough time for it to eventually accumulate into the brain presumably yeah like that low dose remember you need about two to three grams now i'm not sure about your diet but you're going to need that just to maintain your muscle and then comes down to your genetics what's more in jeopardy is it your bones or brain so again the five percent that's remaining throughout the body is in your testes heart uh bone uh and brain so for me as a

But my hope is, wait a minute, let's go a bit higher.

So we're sort of checking off all the boxes.

My guess is five grams, you'd have a small increase in brain creatine content.