SuppVersity - Nutrition and Exercise Science for Everyone

Illustration 1: There is a bunch of things that could potentially go wrong with creatine uptake: The creatine from dietary sources could be mal-absorbed (1) in the small intestine, (2) not make it into the cell, or (3) be excreted too readily either before or immediately after it was transported into the muscle. Question from Learner (via comments): Do Creatine Transporters behave the same as glucose transporters? (I.e., serum insulin binds to cellular insulin receptors, which causes Transporters to migrate from inside the cell to the plasma membrane - and the Transporters then pull in the external glucose.) Answer Dr. Andro: As you may have noticed, I took the freedom to set Learner's question into a broader context. A context I broached in my dissertations on Athletic Edge Nutrition's new creatine product Creatine RT on Tuesday, Aug 16, 2011. Thus, the questions I will be trying to answer (unfortunately, I have to rely on existing studies and do not have m...

Illustration 1: There is a bunch of things that could potentially go wrong with creatine uptake: The creatine from dietary sources could be mal-absorbed (1) in the small intestine, (2) not make it into the cell, or (3) be excreted too readily either before or immediately after it was transported into the muscle. Question from Lerner (via comments): Do Creatine Transporters behave the same as glucose transporters? (I.e., serum insulin binds to cellular insulin receptors, which causes Transporters to migrate from inside the cell to the plasma membrane - and the Transporters then pull in the external glucose.) Answer Dr. Andro: As you may have noticed, I took the freedom to set Learner's question into a broader context. A context I broached in my dissertations on Athletic Edge Nutrition's new creatine product Creatine RT on Tuesday, Aug 16, 2011. Thus, the questions I will be trying to answer (unfortunately, I have to rely on existing studies and do not have my...

If you put some faith into the marketing campaigns of supp producers, there's a creatine for everyone: one to get lean, one to get strong and one to get big and buffed... bullocks! It has been a while since I've discussed the bioavailability of different forms of creatine . On various supplement sites, the notion that there was one form of creatine that was significantly more bioavailable and would thus allow you to 'load' muscle phosphocreatine (PCr) faster and more efficiently is obviously still a matter of constant debate... a debate of which the latest study by Ralf Jäger et al. (2016) indicates that it may argue based on a fundamentally flawed premise, i.e. that higher serum levels of creatine after the ingestion of a given product would signify an increased efficacy in terms of performance / strength / size gains. How come? Well, the previously mentioned, as of yet unpublished data from a study by Ralf Jäger, Martin Purpura, and Roger C Harris did not just ...

Will a small cup of coffee ruin the benefits you can derive from creatine supplementation? Sounds impossible, but it's a die-hard rumor with surprising scientific backing. Now, a new study could finally settle the debate. As topic for the thesis he submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts at the Department of Exercise and Sport Science (Exercise Physiology), Eric T. Trexler selected the "Effects of Creatine, Coffee, and Caffeine Anhydrous on Strength and Sprint Performance" (Trexler. 2015). This is, as some of you will immediately recognize, at least in parts, a variation of the age-old question, whether the purported diuretic effects of caffeine would impair the proven ergogenic effects of creatine. In that, it's a variation, because the domain of concern is not - as it is for most bros - solely restricted to resistance training, but extends beyond t...

Image 1: Creatine RT by Athletic Edge Nutrition ; cutting edge or overpriced creatine monohydrate? Read the whole analysis! After posting last week's issue of " Ask Dr. Andro ", in which I dessicated the "improvements" in BSN's "new" N.O.-Xplode 2.0 Advanced Strength , several readers asked me to do similar write-ups on a regular basis. Since I do not want to turn the SuppVersity into a pillory for the "revolutionary new" products supplement companies are introducing to an almost (over-)saturated market on a weekly basis, the new column "SuppVersity Supplement Scrutiny" will only deal with products that either hold some promise, are in fact revolutionary or at least new, or are marketed (and this includes the hilarious pimping that is going on on various bulletin boards all over the Internet, lately) as tried and proven must-haves for each and every trainee, dieter or health conscious individual. A Tale of Thousand-and-...