Dr. Darren Candow

Then we're also consuming in the diet anywhere between one to three grams or none.

So a vegan is not getting any dietary creatine.

Those that are on a carnivore diet might be all the way up to about three grams.

And we excrete through the urine a product called creatinine, about two.

So when you do the math, we're in a net surplus anywhere between one to two grams a day.

And we know it's not essential because vegans can live a long, healthy, successful life.

But we consider it conditionally essential because when we see all the evidence, I think there's over 1,000 peer-reviewed papers.

When we take in a little bit more, there is some substantial beneficial effects across the whole board, not just muscle.

We're now looking at bone, brain, and the immune system.

Yeah, it's very interesting.

So on average, vegans have substantially less muscle creatine compared to an omnivore or carnivore diet.

But an elegant study out of Brazil about four years ago, they used sort of an MRI for the brain, and they showed that vegans and omnivores had the same amount of brain creatine stored.

So that's really substantiating that the brain makes its own creatine.

It probably makes enough for the non-stressed individual.

But during times of metabolic stress, the question is,

Well, vegans or omnivores need more, and it's likely that that's true, yeah.

It is, yeah.

Just like our liver is making its own creatine, and it's probably an accelerated rate for brain development, cognitive development.

Again, our brain is small, but it uses 20% of our daily energy.

And, of course, during development, that's when it's very, very precious as well, yeah.