Creatine uptake enhances antitumor immunity (cell.com)

131 pointsby lormayna4 hours ago166 comments

rgbrgb 3 hours ago

worth noting that there’s evidence both ways… tumor cells may like it too:

- Loo et al. 2015 found color cancer cells can use it as fuel and blocking the creatine cut metastasis in mice [0]

- zhang et al 20921 found it promoting mouse colon and breast cancer models [1]

not an expert in any way, but i’m guessing it depends on cancer type and there doesn’t seem to be human data either way. as a cautious person w a lot of familial cancer, i cycled off after i looked into it.

[0]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25601461/

[1]: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2021.03.009

rgbrenner 3 hours ago

also https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-74639-z

nsbk 3 hours ago

This is such a crazy substance. I'm 43 and I feel like I have more energy than I have ever had before. I started taking it during recovery from a bad ankle fracture since it helps building muscle mass. Once the ankle was better I took up CrossFit, and kept on taking creatine because why not, it helps replenish ATP so I will be able to give the extra-push when working out, I thought.

What is blowing my mind though is that at $dayjob my team is going through a crazy crunch to deliver a very strategic project and some of us are pushing 10-12h days often. I'm in hour 12 today for the second day in a row, and my head is not tired at all. Turns out the brain also uses a lot of ATP too, specially during demanding cognitive tasks so I guess it is creatine that is keeping the engine running smoothly even after so many hours.

I will like once every week or two have a poor night sleep. These days I take twice the dose and I don't feel like I'm sleep deprived at all. Feels like cheating! And apparently no side effects at all so far. Well, maybe I'm working too much.

suriyaG 3 hours ago

is it possible that this is the bump due to your workouts and not plainly creatine ?

I take creatine daily but when I'm working out more than a couple of weeks, i feel much better than on weeks when I skip working out.

usern20260720 3 hours ago

great question. Can I take creatine and skip the workout hassle?

michelb 3 hours ago

For me, just creatine doesn’t seem to do a whole lot. But heavy workouts (with or without creatine), energize me enormously.

striking 3 hours ago

Going from minimal exercise to light-moderate exercise will do as much for you as creatine would. To me it's almost a no-brainer to try doing both.

coldtea 2 hours ago

You can do the workout and skip creatine and its marginal benefits pushed by gym bros and health influencers beyond reason.

canucker2016 an hour ago

If your body requires more creatine than your diet currently provides, then supplementing with creatine would help, even without exercising.

from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42578920/ (CrM is creatine monohydrate)

  Results: CrM supplementation without exercise training and diet intervention increased lean tissue mass, strength, and muscular endurance while promoting favorable changes in selected blood lipids, HbA1c, and selected markers of cognitive function and memory. Creatine supplementation during an exercise and weight-loss diet intervention increased lean tissue mass, promoted a greater reduction in body fat percentage, and improved muscular strength, endurance, and selected markers of cognitive function and memory. Supplementation was well-tolerated.

  Conclusion: CrM supplementation with and without exercise and diet intervention may help middle-aged and older adults maintain muscle mass and strength while favourably affecting selected markers of health and cognitive function. Individual cognitive and biomarker findings should be interpreted as exploratory.

nsbk 3 hours ago

The overall fitness is going to definitely have a positive effect on the perceived energy levels (my Vo2 max is at its highest ever). On the other hand, I have been very fit at other times in my life but have never experienced this "my head can just go on" feeling before. I used to take conscious breaks, do NSDR between meetings and other energy-replenishing tricks because I __needed__ them. It feels like now I don't

n4r9 3 hours ago

You mentioned that you took up CrossFit after starting creatine. Did your previous fit phases include lifting heavy weights?

nsbk 3 hours ago

No, mostly cycling (~200km+/week with one 100km+ ride) and 30 minutes of daily yoga

torben-friis 3 hours ago

Mind that, while the "creatine high dose to fight drowsiness" hack works and has no side effects (other than upset stomachs), the lost sleep still does it thing. You don't notice day to day but it will catch up to you eventually in many bad ways.

nsbk 3 hours ago

Definitely! I would not recommend it to make up for lack of sleep for extended periods of time.

One of the things I'm trying to do better lately is to have a good sleep hygiene. Sun in the eyes early in the morning, no caffeine for the first 60 waking minutes of the day (adenosine absorption period), no screens 2 hours before bed and whatnot. Still, some nights I will just wake up in the middle of the night and won't be able to get back to sleep, then it's when I feel creatine helps

Edit: Typo

leptons 2 hours ago

>some nights I will just wake up in the middle of the night and won't be able to get back to sleep, then it's when I feel creatine helps

I suspect creatine is responsible for me not being able to get back to sleep easily, because once I'm awake, I'm awake.

OutOfHere 4 minutes ago

Creatine ruins my sleep if I take it late in the day. It most definitely has this conditional side effect for me.

lr4444lr 3 hours ago

Do you take the standard 5g or something else? What's your weight?

nsbk 3 hours ago

~5g most days, ~10g if I didn't sleep well. I'm currently 68kg

eecks an hour ago

height?

striking 3 hours ago

Any tips on GI impact? I pair mine with food and lots of water and it's improved but wondering if there's any more I should be doing

monkpit 2 hours ago

Some people report less GI distress with creatine HCL but it’s much more expensive.

The GI issues are caused by the creatine absorbing water. This causes your gut to have more water than usual as it follows the creatine through the works… which causes… urgency.

The effect diminishes after you’ve been taking a regular dose for a while, even with just monogydrate (not HCL).

Some people say HCL causes less distress because it doesn’t draw water as much. Others argue that defeats the purpose of taking it.

Monohydrate is studied to death and proven effective, HCL not so much.

kenhwang 2 hours ago

The studies I've seen from HCl claim it's more bioavailable too, so you only need 1/3 the dosage compared to honohydrate. That makes the cost pretty comparable.

But otherwise, I'd agree that monohydrate has significantly more research behind it and I'd default to that if it's tolerable.

leptons 2 hours ago

I took double the dose once and I regretted it. I was in the bathroom pretty often that day.

drop_star 2 hours ago

Anything over 5g is hard on my stomach. I take it in my protein shake in the morning and dont notice any issues.

j45 3 hours ago

It's beyond crazy, lol. How many grams are you doing a day?

It has replaced in some ways caffeine for me.

The part of where creatine wipes out sleep deficit sounded like a stretch, but it definitely helps.

trallnag 2 hours ago

And this is surely thanks to Creatine. Amazing!

leptons 2 hours ago

Have you tried stopping creatine? How do you know it's the creatine?

I've been taking it for almost a month and I plan to stop to see if I notice any change back that would make me want to start taking creatine again.

locallost 2 hours ago

Creatine is one of the few if not the only supplements we actually know work. But with that said, my experience is that the bump is there but not world changing. Although it could be placebo, I don't think so because the first time I started taking it I noticed something but didn't make the connection because I noticed it playing basketball and not as much lifting. I could just sprint a lot easier. I recently started taking it again and again I noticed I can sprint easier and not be as spent. Of course you can improve by simply working out regularly, but IMHO the bump you get is obvious.

meowface 2 hours ago

It has an especially noticeable effect if you're a vegetarian. I'm a lifelong vegetarian, and high doses of it for me are a crazy cognitive enhancer.

nsbk 2 hours ago

Oh I’ve been mostly plant based for years, maybe that helps explaining the difference

mpalczewski an hour ago

That's because creatine is missing in vegetarian diets. It is found in beef. Something to consider if you are thinking about going vegetarian.

coldtea 2 hours ago

>I'm 43 and I feel like I have more energy than I have ever had before. I started taking it during recovery from a bad ankle fracture / Once the ankle was better I took up CrossFit, and kept on taking creatine because why not

And how do you know it's the creatine and not ...taking up CrossFit and the benefits to energy and cognitive function exercize brings?

AaronAPU 2 hours ago

I’m 45 and work out a lot and feel this way without creatine. To the point that this makes me worry it would exacerbate my existing sleep issues (I literally never feel sleepy, I feel exactly the same 24 hours a day).

iamacyborg an hour ago

I take creatine daily, have done for well over a year. I also run 5-6 days a week and lift twice a week.

I’ve previously stopped taking it for a couple months and noticed no real difference in physical or mental ability.

UltraSane an hour ago

The only difference I notice is a small increase in muscle strength after taking it for a month or so.

ffsm8 an hour ago

You may not have taken enough. You need 15-20g/day for mental benefits. And long term, at least 2+ weeks.

iamacyborg 43 minutes ago

Yeah I definitely don’t take that much.

treetalker 37 minutes ago

If you would, please explain or point me to the material where you get your higher dosage recommendation. (I always heard and understood proper dosage to be 5–7.5g/day, 10g/day at the most. I’d like to correct my error if I’m mistaken.)

DenisM 29 minutes ago

Huberman podcast has some coverage

ffsm8 9 minutes ago

<10g is the correct dosage for the non-mental benefits

But inversely, unless you actually go above 10, eg 15... The blood saturation isn't enough for your brain to take advantage of it.

But there is very little studied about sustained use of such a dosage.

It's safe enough for anecdotes of people doing it for years and not having issues - but despite others claiming that it's well studied, it's really not - at least not with dosages above 5g in humans.

Personally I've been doing so for a year now and can unquestionably confirm a strong effect, which goes away if I reduce the dosage below the threshold. So at least my body responds to it.

robotsquidward 4 hours ago

- Enhances ANTI-tumor... sounds good - ANTI-tumor immunity... sounds bad? - Read first few paragraphs as a typical medical rube, got nowhere

So, creatine = good?

gbil 4 hours ago

I mean the summary ends with pretty clear message

> …and support the use of creatine supplementation as a strategy to augment DC-based cancer immunotherapy.

So it seems that from this research the outcome is indeed creatine = good

el_benhameen 4 hours ago

Don’t worry, if you aren’t confused enough there’s also this to send you through another cycle! https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33811821/

goda90 2 hours ago

That link sent me into a neverending redirect and reCAPTCHA loop, so very confused.

ffsm8 an hour ago

He did say it's a cycle after all! Scnr

Title:

> Creatine promotes cancer metastasis through activation of Smad2/3

Tldr is basically that creatine helps body cells (in rats) to grow. Regardless wherever they're bad (cancer) or good (muscle). At least that's how I understood that study the last time I came across it. So probably stop using creatine when you've a cancer that's growing. Or its liable to use the creatine to turbocharge it's growth

readthenotes1 3 hours ago

Original title may be clearer?

Creatine uptake promotes dendritic cell activation and enhances antitumor immunity

lormayna 3 hours ago

Original title is too long, I had to shorten it

HedonicEscal8r 3 hours ago

"Immunity" = "immune system activity." "Anti-tumor immunity" = "immune system activity against tumors."

pinkmuffinere 3 hours ago

Thankyou!! I'm sure if you have experience in the medical space this sort of thing seems obvious, but to me (non-medical), the original phrasing was so confusing. Your explanation makes sense.

adammarples 3 hours ago

Anti-missile shielding

dessimus 3 hours ago

"But you get your choice of toppings." "That's good!" "The toppings contain potassium benzoate... ...that's bad."

pak9rabid 3 hours ago

Can I go now?

MarkusWandel 3 hours ago

I started taking a scoop of the Creatine Hydrate from Costco every afternoon because why not. Wife had bought it and the bag was sitting right there.

I honestly don't know whether it made a difference. Sleep didn't get worse, no noticeable metabolic effects. Possibly the "perma tired muscles" I've been suffering from increasingly since about age 57 (I'm an active cyclist) have gotten a bit better, with <50% of days affected rather than >90% last year, but even that is subjective.

If "taking the stuff" means "more uptake" (does it?) and there are other beneficial effects, bring it on.

BlackRabbit1 3 hours ago

If you start lifting weight at the gym you quickly will feel the difference: your muscles recover much better during the set breaks.

calmbonsai 3 hours ago

I can concur on the short-term benefits for longer sets as well as the shorter recovery. Creatine is just one of those no-brainer supplements.

It's safe, cheap, and long-term-study proven to be extremely effective.

You will want to increase your daily hydration (at least for otherwise healthy men, a good sign is that you're "peeing clear") as Creatine does increase water retention.

peab 2 hours ago

any recommendation for tendon/joint pain? I'm in my early 30s, and try to lift regularly, but my joints/tendons seem to be the limiting factor when lifting, and not really muscle tiredness/soreness

philipp-gayret 2 hours ago

As it's relevant to the sport I practice and just came back from armwrestling training I'd like to randomly comment: Armwrestling clubs have a LOT of people with tendon pain and injuries. The general approach to recovery and building tendon strength (beside lifting heavy) is to do static holds of 10 seconds+ of light to medium weight. Often paired with very large sets (50+ reps) of _extremely light_ weight; lifting almost nothing, just to get the blood through the tendon. You should not feel sore at all in either movement. The idea being that blood gets into tendons through movement. As for static holds; tendons expand during these static holds, so the idea is that they can then absorb more nutrients... Or something like that; I'm no expert by any means!

In the bouldering community there has also been a bit of an uproar where Emil Abrahammsson (find it on Youtube) did very light static holds 2+ times per day for ~30 seconds if I recall correctly for great tendon strength, this also had some influence on how people train for armwrestling. This style was nicknamed "Abrahangs".

b112 2 hours ago

I'm going to get yelled at, but eat bacon. Fat is good for tendons. Obviously don't eat immense amounts, but if you're eating none, try eatong a couple of slices on workout days.

iamacyborg an hour ago

Citation needed

cyphax 2 hours ago

I doubt it, it's not the area where creatine is helpful. It'll influence energy provision which helps your muscles recover, and even be a bit stronger in general. I'm in my 45's but I don't experience tendon or joint pain while lifting (my numbers are not going to impress anybody though, but I do train pretty hard). Were I in your shoes I'd take a trip to the GP to try and find out what the source of your pain is. I am tempted to say I would also start taking creatine, but not if you're increasing your load as a result.

anarticle 2 hours ago

Isometric holds. Tendons grow slow and recover slow, generally not as much circulation as muscle.

Big heavy holds will help encourage blood flow without stretching them / stressing them as hard as big lifts.

It seems weird because it goes again ROM ideas, but it has definitely helped protect my arms for rock climbing as well as less fatigue in my legs for big lifts.

giardini 2 hours ago

Except for old injuries that never completely healed, you should not be suffering joint pain at your age. For starters, you likely should shift to lighter weights.

A general rule is that, after 26, any muscle or joint injury you suffer will never completely heal. So

- avoid injury scrupulously. Don't accept gym challenges (even your own). Be wary of odd exercises, machines, routines. Don't do anything hard at first, always start easy. Be lazy, build up and take your time: you have the rest of your life. Don't work out while under the influence of alcohol, especially when with friends. I avoid certain sports, e.g., any martial arts, soccer, football, even baseball, b/c the variety of situations(and consequent accidents) is so unpredictable as to be uncontrollable. Sprinting, hurdles, gymnastics and high jump are risky too.

- avoid over-stressing muscles and joints. Keep the cardio up - maybe try the gym classes with music (the crowd is better-looking and friendlier).

- See a doctor if you suffer pain unduly.

- Avoid all toe-lift weight machines and weight sleds (sleds that you push as if pushing a truck) like the plague. Never use them, otherwise you may experience pain so severe it will change your "fight or flee" response to 100% "fight" even in a life-threatening situation. Do NOT challenge this suggestion especially if above the age of 40. Explanation: look up the term "plantar fasciitis".

I anticipate "someday soon" cures for tendon/joint pain but I've been waiting too long to expect their arrival before I die!

10xDev an hour ago

Use compression sleeves if you mean knees / elbows. If you mean rotator cuff, do face pulls. This isn't medical advice, just speaking from experience.

iamacyborg an hour ago

No comment on the joint thing.

As far as tendons are concerned, they require proactive rehab and you have to load them. There are various loading strategies that a physio is best placed to advise on. Shockwave therapy has also been found to help.

Some pain during tendon loading during rehab is generally expected and not necessarily a negative sign, somewhere around a 4/10 at most.

Recovery is slow in the order of months, not weeks.

There is some evidence that taking a collagen peptide based protein along with vitamin c an hour before loading the tendon can help.

j45 3 hours ago

Creatine is one of the most studied supplements.

It sounds you have the hardest part of it underway - consistency.

There's lots of studies - if you can get over 20g per day it is noticeable to the brain and energy. Adding a few grams a week until you're up there I found it noticeable. 20-30g seems to be a noticeable range.

Supplements aren't always like a coffee spike, they build up and sustain quite well.

Yajirobe 3 hours ago

I thought around 5g is the recommended daily dose?

kenhwang 2 hours ago

20g is a loading dose (typically for a week), then it's 3-5g daily for maintenance. But I've seen studies that 5g daily catches up to the 20g loading dose after about a month.

swozey 2 hours ago

I've taken creatine for 20+ years, nobody does the "loading" dose anymore, or shouldn't be if they still do. Maybe it stills says it on the jars but there was tons of information a decade or more ago that it was deemed as a way to get you to blast through your jug faster. 5g is the normal dose. You're always taking in creatine eating normal meat added meals.

This is giving me flashbacks to using bodybuilding.com forums.. man, long time ago.

It is my 100% always buy supplement. I only have 2 of those now, protein the other. It absolutely helps me think better and feel better throughout the day. Noticeable when I stop taking it. And its dirt cheap. If I had more disposable income I'd have a few others but I went from tons of supplements to basically nothing. I never use PWOs or anything now, even when I do have money.

kenhwang 2 hours ago

I haven't seen the 20g loading dose recommendation on anything recently either. Everything I've seen just recommends 5g/daily.

My regular supplements that I've noticed made any difference is: creatine, vitamin D, and fiber. With vitamin C and protein being situational as needed.

j45 40 minutes ago

I feel the same way about creatine (and increasingly protein).

One thing that might help me notice creatine more is that I haven't drank much caffeine for some reason.. and the longer I've been able to put it off or minimize it, the more of an unfair advantage it has become when I've started.

sh-run 2 hours ago

Yeah pretty much this. I took creatine back in high school/college to build muscle mass. In those days we would load with 20g for a week -> then do 5g for 8 weeks -> cycle off for two weeks -> repeat.

I'm back on it now for endurance sports (trail running + cycling) and the advice is to just take 5g a day and don't worry about cycling off. At 5g/day it takes 4-6 weeks to saturate your muscles.

It does have a noticeable impact on water retention, so this year I cycled off six weeks away from my "A" race and lost 5lbs of water weight. It was a 100 mile mountain ultra so I thought the extra pop on the climbs probably wasn't worth the extra weight over the entire course (but probably was worth it while doing hill reps in training). Next year I'm sticking to shorter stuff where I'll run up more climbs. For those I don't plan to cycle off.

ffsm8 an hour ago

You need sustained 15-20g/day for mental benefits.

If you're only after the lifting benefits, 3-5g/day is sufficient.

j45 2 hours ago

Not a typo, 20g+ a day.

Dosing for gym exercise is different than dosing for excess creatine to reach the brain.

Well studied, checked with my doctor, including for TBI. Obviously everyone should check for themselves.

j45 an hour ago

I'm looking for the pile of studies I had come across, here's a few to help link to more.

Cerebral Creatine levels seem to be a different thing.

Creatine and TBI:

https://health.mil/Reference-Center/Publications/2025/09/25/...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK209321/

Creatine supplementation for naturally declining creatine levels:

https://jpbs.hapres.com/htmls/JPBS_1766_Detail.html

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10526554/

j45 2 hours ago

I thought it was too, then I started learning about how so many studies about Creatine were only in the body, and not the brain..

And then there were the discoveries of creatine in the brain in studies.

samuelknight 2 hours ago

It has a noticeable effect if you lift.

jeffybefffy519 42 minutes ago

Heres a question, this threat is interesting and OpenAI is saying they are at AGI with Astra.... so can we give Astra all the papers on creatine, and all the anecdotal evidence in this thread and get it to produce any new insights to answer why people have different experiences, and why theres some reports of it being cancer fighting and why theres some that arent...?

Just feel if we are at AGI, and its amazing then we should be able to do our own research with it on these topics...

macbem 40 minutes ago

what's stopping you?

wetwater 2 hours ago

With so much publishing fraud, low quality of publishing and bogus peer review, I am hard pressed to believe anything that comes out of these journals. I was highly disappointed after reading about Dana-Farber Cancer Institute publishing fraud that endangered so many people lives. Specially papers with 'dietary' research, which are even more bogus. So if someone says, eat X to reduce chance of cancer, I'd ask them to take X put it back where the sun don’t shine.

comrade1234 an hour ago

Cell is not one of "these journals". Publishing to Cell, Nature, Science used to guarantee tenure track for a young professor although I'm not sure if that's still the case.

wetwater an hour ago

I know that used to be the case. But its unfortunately not anymore. I am currently In RF and working on some resonators and waveguides. Recently I had the displeasure of reading some papers from top journals to survey what are some new designs that are being pursued. I was highly disappointed by the low bar of publishing. No characterisation of design, no repeatability study, no comsol files, no fringe field study. Most of the papers read like "we came up with design, tested it with the lowest hanging usecase and there are the results attached with a basic smith chart we made". How am I supposed to have any confidence in anything that is being published like this . The point of public funded research is so I don’t have to research and I can take that research and use/engineer it. But If this is the output then I am not going to spend money and time to do studies to figure out if someone else's research is viable or not because the peer review is broken and publishing bar is in the grave.

fy20 3 hours ago

Note that they gave the mice 10mg per day, which is around 3g per day for a 70kg human - i.e. a normal dose.

herbertgreen 2 hours ago

I take creatine almost daily for close to 20 years now. Blood work is always perfect. Hours of strength training, cycling and running every week, though.

This might be the best supplement. People over 40 needs CoQ10 (ubiquinol) as well. The energy boost is crazy (I also combine with PQQ, but it's not really proven). Lugol iodine is also the cheapest best supplement ever.

ThouYS 3 hours ago

The whole creatine craze reminds me of Vitamin D a couple of years ago. Which also sounded harmless, but can go very wrong if not careful

BugsJustFindMe 3 hours ago

> but can go very wrong if not careful

This is vague and doesn't explain anything. Can you share any references that communicate what you're thinking about?

nkozyra 3 hours ago

They're talking about vitamin D, which accumulates due to being fat soluble and is indeed toxic at a certain level[1]

It became something of a panacea nutrient, recently around COVID.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D_toxicity

drop_star 3 hours ago

I've also heard about it 'hardening' in the bloodstream and that you should really be taking it with K2 as well. This is anecdotal so someone please do more research than basing anything from this comment

nick__m an hour ago

Roughly, Vitamine D3 make the body effective at extracting calcium from food and dumping it into the bloodstream; vitamin k2 make it easier for the body to use that calcium. Too D3 without K2 can cause hypercalcemia; K2 make it less likely but there is still a point where too much D3 is too much!

And too much D3 without calcium supplements make the body use the calcium from it's bones !

nomel 3 hours ago

And, if you drink a glass of carrot juice a day, you'll receive toxic levels of vitamin A!

~40% of people don't get enough vitamin D [1]. It's not useful to categorize it as some trend, based on people just not following general recommended dosing (with more precise dosing depending entirely on personal sun exposure and skin color).

edit: As an office worker, I take 10k IU per day when I'm entirely indoors (most of the time), but vary it based on sun exposure. I based this on recent studies, and have my doctors approval with an exactly center-of-the-nominal-range vitamin D serum level.

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9573946/

_puk 3 hours ago

You'll also go orange [0]

0: https://drink4good.com/can-drinking-too-much-carrot-juice-tu...

xnickb 3 hours ago

> severe VDD was defined as serum 25(OH)D levels of <25 nmol/L, moderate deficiency as 25–50 nmol/L, insufficiency as 50–75 nmol/L, and sufficiency as >75 nmol/L.

These numbers seem high to me. The 75 nmol/L (30ng/L) is not really a reliable value. It was published in a research that raises many questions due to conflict of interests.

Hence the

> ~40% of people don't get enough vitamin D

becomes:

> ~40% of people in the USA don't get enough vitamin D according to Dr. Holick

Where I live the norm is 20 ng/L and if we apply that, then the shocking 40% becomes more reasonable 10-15%

kenhwang 3 hours ago

My doctor added vitamin D test to his patients recurring blood work since the start of COVID, and found out just about all his patients was deficient or near it.

If you don't have a primarily fish based diet or spend hours under direct overhead sunlight every day without a shirt on, you're probably deficient as well.

hungryhobbit 3 hours ago

That's a bit of an exaggeration, Vitamin D does not require hours in the sun:

> Recommendations to Obtain Adequate Amount of Vitamin D.

> Sun exposure to the face, arms, hands, and legs without sunscreen for 5 to 30 minutes at least twice a week or more between the hours of 10 am and 4 pm

Source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8299926/

Now that's for most people: if you live in Alaska then during the winter maybe you need a litle more or something ... but the point is most people just need a little sun, < 30 minutes twice a week.

kenhwang 2 hours ago

I'll say track and test yourself, since it depends highly on skin tone and weather.

That study also claims 12-20ng/mL 25-hydroxyvitamin D is sufficient. My doctor says the post-COVID studies suggest 75ng/mL is closer to optimal, and <30ng/mL had been considered deficient for about a decade before COVID.

Personally I had no problem hitting 20ng/mL through sunlight alone and I'm pretty fair skinned but live somewhere sunny. But I haven't been able to get anywhere near 75ng/mL even when I've made an effort to increase vitamin D through supplements and exposure to the sun.

srveale 2 hours ago

For several months of the year, vitamin D synthesis is near zero in latitudes as low as like 40° or 45°. Boston is 42°.

In Calgary, it's almost half the year that you basically cannot rely on the sun at all for vitamin D.

mhurron 3 hours ago

Your own link shows that what is considered toxic levels are far higher than most people would expect. Vitamin D toxicity is not that easy to accidentally hit.

Overdose has been observed at 1,925 μg/d (77,000 IU per day). Acute overdose requires between 15,000 μg/d (600,000 IU per day) and 42,000 μg/d (1,680,000 IU per day) over several days to months.

nkozyra an hour ago

> Your own link shows that what is considered toxic levels are far higher than most people would expect.

Unless, as mentioned, it had some traction as a cure all around the time of COVID.

This happens periodically and is again happening with vitamin C (which, whatever, getting to any dangerous amount might be physically impossible).

mhurron an hour ago

Would you mind providing some examples? I can't say that I'm really up on a lot of psudoscience.

A pretty standard bottle of Vitamin D at 10k IU is 60 capsules/pills/whatever. That's a 2 month supply.

To hit the toxic eventually (77k IU) you would be going through a 2 month supply every ~7 days. To hit the acute toxicity in days or weeks (low end 600k), your going through that bottle every day.

However, every single time that someone mentions Vitamin D, people jump out of the woodwork about toxicity without ever actually bringing up just how much you have to take as if if you take the 400 IU capsule, going one IU over is going to kill you. I'm also pretty sure that a specific group of denialists shouldn't be counted as a reason to scream warnings from the mountaintops every time someone thinks about Vitamin D.

nkozyra 25 minutes ago

> Would you mind providing some examples?

Sure. This is only going to be anecdotal and sparse examples, but this became a thing post-Covid, primarily as a "natural alternative" to vaccination.

Not just random people on random forums, Joe Rogan several times espoused the value of D along with other usual suspects:

"Rogan said he started feeling ill on Aug. 28 and tested positive the next day. He added he began taking his regimen the same day, which apparently included ivermectin, IV drips of vitamins D and C, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) that helps repair cells, and monoclonal antibodies. He said he felt fine the next day."

"Man Vomits For Months After Taking Vitamin D at Almost 400x Daily Recommended Dose"

https://www.news-medical.net/news/20220706/e28098Hypervitami...

https://www.sciencealert.com/man-overdoses-vomits-for-months...

Also unsurprisingly happened more often around this time with infants:

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/pediatrics/articles/10....

nkozyra 3 hours ago

Unless you have specific issues, creatine is pretty easily excreted in excess, unlike fat-soluble vitamin D.

This doesn't mean you can just pound it, but for the most part it just becomes waste product.

tedggh 3 hours ago

You definitely want to take breaks from Creatine. It’s not something people should take year around.

happyopossum 3 hours ago

Citation please? Creatine is one of the most studied modern supplements, and I have yet to see anything that says to you'd need to 'take breaks' from it...

hbn 3 hours ago

I understood the idea that you need to cycle creatine to be a myth.

patternMachine 3 hours ago

Craze? People have been taking creatine for decades. It's really well studied and is quite safe.

oxidant 2 hours ago

I saw someone handing out samples of creatine at Costco the other day, spouting all sorts of stuff like it's a wonder drug.

It's definitely becoming mainstream.

I've taken it off and on for the past 15 years, the most noticeable effect is about 5lbs of weight gain. I do think it helps gym performance and the increased water retention mames for better muscle definition.

goda90 an hour ago

Can we really call it a drug when it's something the body synthesizes for regular function?

ortusdux 3 hours ago

Are there risks to creatine?

asdff 3 hours ago

It can make you hold more water weight so you should drink more water in response.

shawnwall 3 hours ago

i personally have problems with tinnitus and hearing loss, and creatine use tends to trigger it due to water retention so i stay off the stuff.

asdff 3 hours ago

Interesting, I wonder how that is related? Do you believe you are getting hearing loss because you are retaining more water, or because you are dehydrated from retaining more water elsewhere in the body with the same intake rate? Does this go away if you were taking creatine and drinking more water? Or does it come up if you simply drink more water?

pow_ext 3 hours ago

None

HedonicEscal8r 3 hours ago

Essentially none. Creatine supplementation is a good idea for most people, especially vegans/vegetarians.

flossly 3 hours ago

Why especially those?

eknkc 3 hours ago

Nobody gets fired for supplementing vegans.

hobo123 3 hours ago

Because they lack all kinds of substances that meateaters get plenty of.

SmasherEpilepti 3 hours ago

I'm a vegan, and I'm surprised this is downvoted, because it's true. There are plenty of things that you need to be careful to not become deficient in on a vegan diet: protein (in appropriate amino acid balances), creatine, b12, the good Omega 3s (from algae preferably; flax is missing DHA entirely), calcium, iron, to name a few.

You're fine if you take daily algae oil, multivitamin, iron supplement, calcium, and creatine (without going overboard on any of it) and making sure to get lots of protein from balanced sources (eating a ton of soy is actually not a bad idea, because it's a balanced protein), but I wouldn't recommend somebody who doesn't want to have to worry about their nutrition to go vegan. Enough omnivores are already deficient in vitamins and minerals, and veganism only makes it harder.

unethical_ban 3 hours ago

Not vouching for creatine, but in general, humans get some vital nutrients from animal consumption. Vegans have to take some B-vitamins for best health due to what they don't get from meat. I assume creatine is the same.

the_gastropod an hour ago

Where do those animals get their B12 from, do you think? (Hint: they don't synthesize it either, they get it from their diet)

Today, because our food / water are so sterilized (good thing!), we don't typically get much bacterial B12 from unclean root vegetables, drinking from streams, etc. So yes, we need to supplement today. Because of advances in cleanliness.

iamdev 3 hours ago

Because meat is the best source of creatine from diet.

hagbard_c 3 hours ago

Well, if vegetarians and those of the Vegan religion don't get enough creatine it is most likely related to them not partaking of an important source of the substance: meat.

dgacmu 3 hours ago

Your body can synthesize creatine, so it's not essential, but meat is a source of exogenous creatine and eating it results in higher stored creatine levels, which is slightly good for muscle power endurance in the ~5-15 second effort range. Supplementing produces slightly higher relative improvements in creatine levels in vegetarians and vegans than it does in people who eat meat.

luke5441 3 hours ago

I get severe cramping from it (reproducible). All I can find are papers about this being a myth and some reddit threads about other people having this.

andy_ppp 3 hours ago

Did you try different sources I do not trust some of the stuff out there and often wonder if these supplements aren’t just generic white powder…

luke5441 3 hours ago

That would be an argument against trying a different source

er4hn 3 hours ago

I get this unless I drink a lot of water. About 48 fl oz seems to be the right amount for 10g creatine. Sometimes this needs to be combined with a light snack, like a handful of nuts.

kenhwang 3 hours ago

I get it too if I don't drink a lot more water. So did many people on my sports team.

Creatine binds to water (making less water available to your muscles) and allows your muscles to work harder (which makes them need more water). So if you're not drinking a lot more water when you're taking creatine, you will get cramps from either dehydration and/or muscle overuse.

But once you're past the loading phase for creatine and getting sufficient hydration, it's supposed to lessen cramps because the water bound to creatine also becomes available for use again as the creatine is used by the body.

kelseyfrog 3 hours ago

How much water can 3g of creatine bind to? Is it like orbeez?

kenhwang 3 hours ago

My understanding is it's a bit of a bind and release process that moves the water from outside of the muscle cell to inside of it until the cell is saturated or the creatine is consumed.

So the amount of creatine changes the rate as which water is loaded into the cell, but the total amount of water needed is calculated based on your muscle mass. The figures I've seen is 2L extra water (spread evenly, not all at once) for a normally recommended 5g daily creatine intake during loading (which typically takes a month at 5g/day dosage).

luke5441 3 hours ago

Yeah, of course I tried to drink more water. I also tried to ramp up the dose slower.

But the cramps are really debilitating, as in random back muscle locks up debilitating, so I thought it best to just give up on this.

kenhwang 2 hours ago

I don't think dosing affects much, as long as you have excess creatine, the extra water requirements are determined by your muscle mass.

colechristensen 3 hours ago

Excessively large doses make your stomach and perhaps your kidneys unhappy and supplements being lightly regulated there may be purity issues where the risk is what else is in it.

But it's pretty safe at recommended doses.

ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 3 hours ago

Maybe

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3...

dilyevsky 3 hours ago

Worse beach looks

nkozyra 3 hours ago

Creatine causes intramuscular water increases, not subcutaneous. Doesn't actually have a negative impact here.

BunsanSpace 3 hours ago

Generally no, it's expensively studied and has had daily consumption to be safe for upto 5 years at least (studies haven't generally gone longer).

That being said some people do have adverse effects to supplementation, e.g. excessive water retention, bloating, stomach discomfort, &c.

So try it, if you have a bad reaction stop.

ddoolin 3 hours ago

Potentially lots poopies.

mkotlikov 3 hours ago

As it was mentioned elsewhere it might make existing cancers worse, and decrease survivability. Cancer seems to love it.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25601461/ https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2021.03.009

More accessible video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcMgHncZVIw

littlecranky67 2 hours ago

Not risks but sideeffects that might affect you. I just decided to cut creatine out during summer months, as I sweat significantly more when on creatine (and pee of course, but that is manageable). Now I already sweat more than average joe based on my genetics (yes, I had that checked out by a doctor) but on creatine it became really annoying during hot season. Since creatine definitely allows me to lift heavier and progress, I will just plan around that and put cutting/maintenance phases into the hot season off-creatine, and go back to supplementing it the rest of the year.

delecti an hour ago

Anecdotally, it makes me feel like crap and significantly increased hair shedding. I've seen attestations of both side effects online as well. No idea how or why it could cause either, and the crumminess at least significantly improved very quickly after stopping it. Neither side effect seems to be especially common though.

jcmeyrignac 9 minutes ago

If you have kidney problems, it's very dangerous. My friend's son took creatine to build muscles, but got Berger disease. Be careful!

mbil 2 hours ago

Before you get scooping, see also "Caffeine and progression of Parkinson’s disease: A deleterious interaction with creatine" https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4573899/

shevy-java an hour ago

So, creatine and creatine-phosphate are used in particular by muscle cells for quick energy re-supply.

I would be highly sceptical of the claim "antitumor immunity". It sounds like an ad.

Mr_Eri_Atlov 2 hours ago

Real question, if Creatine is actually this good, what product specifically are people using?

MrJagil 3 hours ago

(I regret posting that blog post, but the study and discussion is interesting)

dyauspitr 3 hours ago

So what’s the latest? That everyone should take creatine and GLP-1s?

solumos 3 hours ago

Adverse side effects of creatine are generally less severe than GLP-1s

creaturemachine 3 hours ago

With a peptide chaser.

dyauspitr 3 hours ago

I wasn’t being facetious. I seriously am asking if everyone should actually take creatinine and GLP-1.

steinvakt2 3 hours ago

Any reason someone at a healthy BMI should take GLP-1?

criddell 2 hours ago

I'd like to try a low dose GLP-1 for inflammation benefits but I'm not overweight (5'-9" 162 lbs) so I don't think I could buy it.

That said, a little appetite suppression would be nice. I spend too much of my day thinking about food and that's annoying... For the past couple of years (I'm 56) my cravings for food have skyrocketed and if I ate as often or as much as I want to, I'd pack on weight fast.

A few years ago I did start taking 300 mg of nicotinamide riboside daily and that has helped quite a bit with inflammation.

graboy 3 hours ago

That and everyone should be taking a statin.

irl_zebra 2 hours ago

Near as I can parse it, as a very, very anti-woo person, is as follows:

In a healthy individual with a balanced diet and no deficiencies, there are essentially zero supplements that do anything whatsoever to a measurable degree. Essentially the entire supplement aisle at Whole Foods or whatever is completely woo and useless, and any advertisements are someone trying to make money from you, or some mindless viral craze with no evidence. The exception to this general rule is omega 3s (fish oil is great for this, algae oil is even better given potential heavy metals in fish), protein supplementation if you're weightlifting, and creatine. GLP-1s are a wonder drug that are great if you are not a healthy individual and wish to be.

EA-3167 4 hours ago

Please remember that this is a study not the ads and pop-sci articles usually posted here. That means it’s meant to elucidate at most some biological pathways and not to present an overall recommendation. Maybe creatine has strong anti-tumor activity through one pathway and strongly tumor-promoting impacts elsewhere.

Please… just read it as the isolated and interesting insight into biology that it is. It’s a fascinating in vitro result that shows a potentially important role for creatinine in a certain immune response.

deadbabe 4 hours ago

There’s just so much evidence that creatine is something people should take daily, and now this?

carrja99 4 hours ago

I’ve taken to snorting it. Straight to the brain it goes!

ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 4 hours ago

you joke, but that is a real issue for some

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_creatine_deficiency

asdff 3 hours ago

I've been smoking mine

gkhartman 4 hours ago

...in mice.

embedding-shape 4 hours ago

Imagine how healthy mice in general could live, if they were able to read all these research papers about themselves.

zafka 3 hours ago

Now I am imagining a 501-C where school children are encouraged to read studies to mice. Children get better at reading technical papers, mice learn more about their options! Win Win!

rzzzt 3 hours ago

I, for one, welcome our future inmice overlords.

hagbard_c 3 hours ago

They already do in their own dimension, all that dying and running down the wrong track in those mazes is just to befuddle us silly hominids.

Source: https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Mice

gbil 4 hours ago

Did you read it at all?

> Notably, creatine uptake similarly boosted the activation and immunostimulatory function of human monocyte-derived DCs.

gkhartman 3 hours ago

Fair. Missed that bit tbh.

asdff 3 hours ago

As it turns out, no one lets you generate mutant human embryos with deficient creatine receptors, grow them up into adult humans, inject them with melanoma, euthanize them and harvest the tumor cell mass and bone marrow for analysis.

bayesic 2 hours ago

Unhelpful. Sure, we can't do the same study in humans, but that doesn't mean the results are inherently applicable to humans