Caffeine Negate Creatine?

Diet and Nutrition
1

I’m new here, coworker of mine loves this site. Anyway, i tried searching the forums for this and didnt see anything directly relevant, so if this has been asked and answered before I apologize.

Found this tonight:

Not amazingly comforting considering ive been taking EE-Cr, l-glutamine, and, heres the kicker… met-rx’s amped. Amped of course contains more caffeine than a Starbucks warehouse.

So now my question… what do you guys know of caffeine screwing up the intake of suppliments in general? What about suppliments other than creatine? I’ve read l-glutamine uses the same transports as creatine, so it stands to reason it’d be effected as well right?

Does the form (ethyl ester, micronized, etc) play a role at all here?

2

[quote]eclypse wrote:
I’m new here, coworker of mine loves this site. Anyway, i tried searching the forums for this and didnt see anything directly relevant, so if this has been asked and answered before I apologize.

Found this tonight:

Not amazingly comforting considering ive been taking EE-Cr, l-glutamine, and, heres the kicker… met-rx’s amped. Amped of course contains more caffeine than a Starbucks warehouse.

So now my question… what do you guys know of caffeine screwing up the intake of suppliments in general? What about suppliments other than creatine? I’ve read l-glutamine uses the same transports as creatine, so it stands to reason it’d be effected as well right?

Does the form (ethyl ester, micronized, etc) play a role at all here?[/quote]

There was a study done in 1998 by Vanakoski et al that showed that caffeine does not affect the uptake of Creatine into the muscle.

The problem with Creatine is getting it to your muscle before it converts to Creatinine, which cannot be used by the muscle cells. This begins the moment Creatine Monohydrate is added to a liquid, and it is this conversion that causes a lot of people to experience bloating and diarrhoea when using Creatine. And the form does not help either. Creatine EE, Creatine Titrate, Creatine Malate, Creatine Alpha-Ketoglutarate are all useless as the actual process of making them pretty much converts them to Creatinine. Micronized just describes the milling process that makes the Creatine into a fine powder, so that plays no role.

I hope this has helped,

Tone

3

[quote]TONEdef wrote:
eclypse wrote:
I’m new here, coworker of mine loves this site. Anyway, i tried searching the forums for this and didnt see anything directly relevant, so if this has been asked and answered before I apologize.

Found this tonight:

Not amazingly comforting considering ive been taking EE-Cr, l-glutamine, and, heres the kicker… met-rx’s amped. Amped of course contains more caffeine than a Starbucks warehouse.

So now my question… what do you guys know of caffeine screwing up the intake of suppliments in general? What about suppliments other than creatine? I’ve read l-glutamine uses the same transports as creatine, so it stands to reason it’d be effected as well right?

Does the form (ethyl ester, micronized, etc) play a role at all here?

There was a study done in 1998 by Vanakoski et al that showed that caffeine does not affect the uptake of Creatine into the muscle.

The problem with Creatine is getting it to your muscle before it converts to Creatinine, which cannot be used by the muscle cells. This begins the moment Creatine Monohydrate is added to a liquid, and it is this conversion that causes a lot of people to experience bloating and diarrhoea when using Creatine. And the form does not help either. Creatine EE, Creatine Titrate, Creatine Malate, Creatine Alpha-Ketoglutarate are all useless as the actual process of making them pretty much converts them to Creatinine. Micronized just describes the milling process that makes the Creatine into a fine powder, so that plays no role.

I hope this has helped,

Tone
[/quote]

I could have this completely wrong since I’m going from memory, but I thought I remembered from something I read (awhile back) that the caffeine-creatine “thing” wasn’t an issue of uptake into the cell, but of caffeine possibly interfering with the reaction in which creatine gives up a phosphate in order for ADP to be converted back to ATP.

I’ll have to look for the site where I read that (or something like that, since I can’t remember the specific details). I don’t even remember if it referenced a study. Coulda been someone just talkin’ out their ass. Possibly like I may be doing.

4

Reading through this material from the link given…

I get the impression that caffeine isn’t interfering with uptake but instead with the ability of the creatine to exert an effect.

To me, it is saying the muscles still load up on creatine, but that no benefit is realized from the creatine while you are amped on caffeine during your workout.

5

[quote]Rykker wrote:
I could have this completely wrong since I’m going from memory, but I thought I remembered from something I read (awhile back) that the caffeine-creatine “thing” wasn’t an issue of uptake into the cell, but of caffeine possibly interfering with the reaction in which creatine gives up a phosphate in order for ADP to be converted back to ATP.

I’ll have to look for the site where I read that (or something like that, since I can’t remember the specific details). I don’t even remember if it referenced a study. Coulda been someone just talkin’ out their ass. Possibly like I may be doing.
[/quote]

I’d be interested to read this if you can find it Rykker.

6

[quote]TONEdef wrote:

I’d be interested to read this if you can find it Rykker.
[/quote]

Ah-HA! Yep – talkin’ out my ass. Kinda.
It wasn’t the ADP → ATP reaction; it was calcium levels within the cell.

Here’s the article:
http://www.creatinemonohydrate.net/creatine_newsletter_7.html

7

great answers so far, i appreciate the info guys.

on the same note, here’s another one:
any of you educated enough to know about l-arginine and caffeine? maybe if there’s no direct studies on it, if it uses the same transports/processes described by tonedef the same logic would apply.

those are really the two primary suppliments i stick with other than the glutamine, so i’d love to hear what you guys know on the subject.

8

Along the same lines of negating the effects of creatine, why does citrus juices have a negative effect upon the absorbtion of creatine?

9

[quote]jbodzin wrote:
Along the same lines of negating the effects of creatine, why does citrus juices have a negative effect upon the absorbtion of creatine?[/quote]

i thought it was just the citric acid that killed or interferred with it? i never sought much more info than that. i dont drink anything acidic around the time of taking suppliments… not SURE if thats right, but i figured in case it was i’d do it anywya.

10

Reacting Creatine Monohydrate with any acid will give you Creatinine (in the case of Citric acid it would be Creatinine Citrate), which as I mentioned earlier cannot be used by the muscle. Creatine Monohydrate is even unstable in water.

As soon as Creatine Monohydrate hits your stomach it reacts with the stomach acid and converts to Creatinine. Due to this you have to ingest large amounts to get the small amount required by your muscles. Depending on body weight, your muscles only require between 1 and 3g of Creatine Monohydrate in total, but in order to get this you have to consume five to ten times this amount.

I hope this has helped.

Tone

11

[quote]TONEdef wrote:
As soon as Creatine Monohydrate hits your stomach it reacts with the stomach acid and converts to Creatinine. Due to this you have to ingest large amounts to get the small amount required by your muscles.[/quote]

Dumb question time. So, if I have a bottle of Tums sitting around the house… ?

12

[quote]vroom wrote:
TONEdef wrote:
As soon as Creatine Monohydrate hits your stomach it reacts with the stomach acid and converts to Creatinine. Due to this you have to ingest large amounts to get the small amount required by your muscles.

Dumb question time. So, if I have a bottle of Tums sitting around the house… ?

[/quote]

Your guess is as good as mine. There are buffered versions of Creatine that have come on the market, which claim to help neutralise the conversion of Creatine to Creatinine in the gut, but I’ve never tried them. I stopped using Creatine a while back as I every time I used it I got an upset stomach, but I’m up for trying it again if these new versions work as claimed. The All American EFX Creatine looks good so I’ve ordered a bottle to see how I get on.

13

[quote]TONEdef wrote:
vroom wrote:
TONEdef wrote:
As soon as Creatine Monohydrate hits your stomach it reacts with the stomach acid and converts to Creatinine. Due to this you have to ingest large amounts to get the small amount required by your muscles.

Dumb question time. So, if I have a bottle of Tums sitting around the house… ?

Your guess is as good as mine. There are buffered versions of Creatine that have come on the market, which claim to help neutralise the conversion of Creatine to Creatinine in the gut, but I’ve never tried them. I stopped using Creatine a while back as I every time I used it I got an upset stomach, but I’m up for trying it again if these new versions work as claimed. The All American EFX Creatine looks good so I’ve ordered a bottle to see how I get on.
[/quote]

unfortunately the pH is maintained through a regulation pathway that negates even the effects of tums. the parietal respond by just secreting more HCl.

i dont htink buffered creatine would help very much as the pH of the stomach vs the pH you want to maintain (7) and pKa of the buffer are so many orders of magnitude apart the buffer would be fully protonated.

remember that the cyclization of creatine to creatnine can also be base catalyzed.

14

[quote]consumer wrote:
unfortunately the pH is maintained through a regulation pathway that negates even the effects of tums. the parietal respond by just secreting more HCl.[/quote]

As a sometimes acid reflux sufferer I can assure you that there is a time delay…