Dear Mark: Creatine for Women

For this week’s version of Dear Mark, I’m answering a query that got here in response to my earlier put up on teenagers and creatine utilization. Should ladies take creatine? Are there any variations in creatine metabolism between women and men? Does creatine work the identical in ladies? And, the age-old query, will creatine make ladies cumbersome?

Let’s dig in.

Hi Mark,

I’m questioning if creatine is as useful for ladies as it’s for males. You don’t actually hear a lot about it on the market relating to ladies. What do you suppose?

Ultimately, we’re all people. We all produce the identical hormones, course of the identical three macronutrients, make the most of the identical micronutrients, and require the identical nourishment no matter whether or not we’re males or ladies.

However, there are measurable, goal variations between the common man and the common girl. We know, for example, that even particular person cells could be “male” or “female.” A kidney cell from a feminine appears to be like and features in a different way than a kidney cell from a male. The kidney nonetheless performs the identical position within the physique no matter intercourse, however there are variations within the margins. Subtle nuances that have an impact.

So it’s pure to wonder if creatine has the identical useful impact in ladies that it does in males. Well, does it?

Creatine for Women

To reply your query: sure, creatine is useful for ladies. Just prefer it does in males’s muscle tissue, creatine helps present power for ladies’s muscle tissue within the type of ATP, or adenosine triphosphate.  For brief, intense bursts of velocity or power—should you’re going to be lifting automobiles off youngsters, sprinting to keep away from an enormous boulder rolling your method, or eking out a couple of further reps on the finish of the set, for instance—it behooves you to have the ability to generate extra ATP rapidly. Creatine facilitates that.

What Does Creatine Do for Women?

Studies have proven that creatine has most of the similar results in ladies as in males:

• It improves muscular endurance.
• It improves muscular energy.
• It improves power.
• It can improve muscle hypertrophy.
• It can enhance each cardio and anaerobic efficiency.
• It will increase efficiency in repeated sprinting (although not a lot single sprints).
• Combined with resistance coaching, it might enhance bone well being.

Plus, creatine doesn’t simply improve bodily efficiency. Creatine can also be discovered within the mind, the place it maintains cognitive operate by recycling ATP to take care of power shops:

• Creatine can enhance temper, reminiscence, and cognitive operate, and ladies might get an particularly useful increase to mind power from creatine.
• Creatine reduces the consequences of sleep deprivation, a situation from which ladies usually tend to undergo.

Are There Any Sex Differences in Creatine Production, Storage, or Metabolism?

There are variations in how women and men course of and retailer creatine.

• Women are likely to have 70 to 80 % decrease ranges of endogenous creatine storage than males. Muscle tissue represents the most important storage depot for creatine, and ladies normally have much less muscle tissue.
• Women are likely to get much less creatine from their food plan, however that’s largely as a result of their decrease meat intakes. This doesn’t apply to each girl, in fact. It depends upon the quantity of pink meat (and to a lesser extent fish) you eat.
• Women have greater resting concentrations of intramuscular creatine than males. Their muscle tissue are smaller, however extra closely laden with creatine.

Since ladies have much less room to retailer creatine, and the storage depots they do have are “fuller,” some researchers have hypothesized that girls might not reply as strongly to creatine supplementation. The proof doesn’t actually help this, although. Creatine nonetheless works in ladies, as I mentioned within the earlier part.

Do Menopause, Menstrual Cycles, or Pregnancy Change Creatine Metabolism or Dosing?

Menopause, menstruation, and being pregnant are three uniquely feminine physiological processes or states. How does creatine have an effect on them?

 

Creatine in Pregnancy

Pregnancy reduces creatine shops, not as a result of the physique is triggering a self-defense mechanism that sheds “dangerous” creatine or something, however as a result of it’s utilized in progress and growth of the fetus. You want further creatine throughout being pregnant. A girl can get it by way of dietary sources, like pink meat or lean white fish, or she will take just a little further by way of supplementation.

Supplementation hasn’t been studied in pregnant human ladies, however in animal fashions, creatine supplementation protects the fetus from sure varieties of mind injury. Human research present that low creatine ranges throughout being pregnant predispose infants to low start weights, so I’d think about it’s fairly protected (and probably vital). As at all times, discuss to your physician earlier than including any dietary supplements throughout being pregnant.

Creatine and the Menstrual Cycle

During the follicular part, creatine is at its lowest together with estrogen. This can also be when most premenopausal ladies report sleeping poorly. Since creatine is thought to enhance one’s psychological resilience to sleep deprivation, taking further creatine might be a good suggestion for premenopausal ladies—and never simply main as much as and through the follicular part.

Post-menopause

Combined with resistance coaching, creatine supplementation is a promising technique for counteracting a number of the damaging results menopause can have on muscle tissue, power, bodily efficiency, and muscle atrophy.

Will Creatine Make Women “Bulky”?

Probably not a problem. Whereas creatine has constantly been proven to extend the muscle hypertrophy response to resistance coaching in males, the identical factor doesn’t actually occur in ladies who take creatine. They don’t acquire the muscle water weight that males do, they usually don’t get the increase in muscle measurement—not less than not any greater than they’d acquire from simply lifting weights. One examine in ladies discovered that creatine utilization mixed with resistance coaching elevated fat-free mass with out altering precise body weight.

Women nonetheless derive plenty of efficiency advantages from creatine utilization, seeing boosts to each power and energy and not using a huge change in measurement.

How Much Creatine Should Women Take?

Dosing pointers are the identical as males’s: 5 grams a day.

If you wish to velocity creatine uptake within the muscle tissue, you are able to do a “loading phase” of 20 grams a day (break up up into 4 doses) for every week earlier than dropping down to five grams a day.

Make positive to drink further water, as creatine requires water for storage within the muscle, albeit not as a lot in ladies.

For all the ladies on the market, have you ever ever tried creatine? Would you?

Thanks for studying, everybody, and remember to throw in any questions you might need down beneath.

About the Author

Mark Sisson is the founding father of Mark’s Daily Apple, godfather to the Primal meals and life-style motion, and the New York Times bestselling creator of The Keto Reset Diet. His newest ebook is Keto for Life, the place he discusses how he combines the keto food plan with a Primal life-style for optimum well being and longevity. Mark is the creator of quite a few different books as nicely, together with The Primal Blueprint, which was credited with turbocharging the expansion of the primal/paleo motion again in 2009. After spending three a long time researching and educating people on why meals is the important thing element to reaching and sustaining optimum wellness, Mark launched Primal Kitchen, a real-food firm that creates Primal/paleo, keto, and Whole30-friendly kitchen staples.

Post navigation

If you want so as to add an avatar to your entire feedback click on right here!