Ep 425 Creatine for the Brain: Separating Fact from Fiction ft. Dr. Boz [Part 1]

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For blisters out there who don't realize

it, our body actually does produce creativity,

a little bit from the liver and a little bit from the brain.

Two to three grams a day, would you say?

Our body is actually making.

Now, why technically, if our body can create it itself,

why doesn't it just make a little bit more for us?

If it knows it's so good.

Yeah, evolution said no to that.

It's going to be in that,

first of all, the muscle will want to hold that

extra, a really big supply of that.

And we can measure it in the blood,

we can measure it inside biopsies

and in both places, much higher concentration inside the muscles.

The body makes it, the body has a place to store it.

It's a valuable commodity.

But it's not, it's difficult to produce extra of it.

So it is a great example of where a supplement should be provided.

We believe that you are strong by design

and you were made in God's image to have a strong body,

mind, and spirit.

You're listening to the number one strength and health authority podcast in the world.

So let's get ready to unlock your potential

and transform your life in today's episode.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to another episode on the strong by design podcast.

So grateful for our return guest.

I think a five time guest now here on the podcast,

which is just unbelievable.

I can't believe that she likes us that much.

She's willing to come back, but you're close enough.

I'm your neighbor.

You're a neighbor.

Chris, I'm going to be hard to get rid of.

I know, I know.

I just realized that it had been since July, late July of last year

that you had been in the building,

and we had so much fun.

We did a whole metabolic workout series

with how it impacts your blood sugar,

and I had my monitor on, and we had, I mean, just so much fun

in the little mini workouts that we made,

and so many great little clips that we got out of.

I'm still sharing these things, by the way,

because we had so many.

And then, plus sometimes you just got to re-share some of the best stuff

because people don't see it, or they forget, or whatever.

And it's always, certain people walk into the building

and the atmosphere changes, the energy is different.

It's just more entertaining.

It's more enjoyable.

I always learned so much from you.

You've been coming in here now for it.

Jesus, I think the first time we met was four and a half years ago.

Four and a half years ago at the summit

that flew Lord of Faith, the leader summit.

Yes, yes, yes.

And you were a speaker, and you were marvelous,

and Mike and I got to talk with you, meet with you,

and we said we would love to have you in for our podcast,

and you did, and you were so gracious.

And then since then, we've just continued these great conversations,

because I always learned so much from you,

and I'm always open to the things that you're doing.

I try to follow what you're doing, and try to say,

well, she talked about this, so probably worth investigating.

And then, you know, I'm just, you know, I'm kind of one of these guys

that just is always seeking, and I find it, you know,

this topic in particular that we're talking about today

is something that I've been using for all the wrong reasons,

apparently, for 20, 30 years.

And so, you know, and it's for the last year,

you can't scroll on YouTube without finding a video

that Todd is touching on this particular topic.

It's blown up.

As a physician, when I would hear about the topic of creatine,

I would be like, oh, these are always the broad gym people say and stuff,

so I'm like, I don't understand half of what they're using it for.

I don't think they do.

They're learning it from the other guy in the gym,

and I am not in the loop.

And of course, that's 20 years ago,

as you march through life, and then I have three sons,

so then they come through their season of wanting to get muscles,

so they come to the same questions, and I'm like, okay.

But even during that time, you couldn't get into the literature

without saying, if you're trying to reach peak brain performance,

if you're trying to repair a brain that's not working well,

creatine comes up, and it should.

It's got really good literature on how it works, why it works,

and dang, the price is right.

It's hard to screw it up.

I mean, there's a few side effects that we're talking about,

but boy, I'm excited to talk about it,

because your people meet my people,

meaning the gym people were schooling me long before I ever said this word,

and keeping up with you has been like the history of this,

until about the last five years where you're like,

oh, I have plenty of studies now saying,

this is the right place to put some energy, yeah.

What's the most studied supplement there is, isn't it?

I mean, or it's right up there at the top.

I mean, it's been around, so geez, I want to say I was entering high school

in, around 1990, and I know right around then,

creatine was already like a thing,

and people were already putting that white scoop in water

or in their protein shakes, because it's supposed to help you feel stronger

in your workout, and the whole thing was like,

well, it's helping your energy resources basically recharge

or work more efficiently in real time.

Like while you're working out, you feel like you have more energy in the workout.

I can remember the first bodybuilder who came to me saying,

I'm getting ready for this thing, I'm trying to do these extended fast,

I think I need some labs done, and as he's talking about creatine,

I'm thinking, you know, why, why are you using it?

And his words back to me where this is how you grow your muscles better,

and he would, he explained it in a way that was totally wrong,

but I was the first time I'd heard it,

and he seemed to be way more knowledgeable.

So for about 10 years, I just kept thinking,

yeah, these gym guys use it to make stronger muscles, stronger muscles.

No, no, no, no, that's not it at all.

That's not it at all.

It's not what happens in the brain either.

So you're a lot closer to the right answer of,

oh, it's an energy supply option.

It's an ATP to ADP back to ATP process enhancer, correct?

So yeah, you got to love chemistry in order to follow this, right?

Yeah, you do.

ATP to ADP.

What are you doing there?

Okay, you've spent some energy that ATP is how we, how we feel energy.

Well, where do you usually get it from?

Glucose or fat or a ketone?

And it goes through the mitochondria and outcomes ATP.

That's common, right?

There's a few things involved that you might need to have as cofactors,

but I don't hear about creatine, you know, at all,

until you look a really close in the fine print that says,

if you have, let's do brain cells,

because there are a lot easier for me to talk about.

You got a brain that's doing its normal day,

but it runs out of fuel.

It's going low on fuel.

The glucose is settled down, which means you're kind of

that afternoon slump of, I just can't concentrate.

I'm about to hit it in 10 minutes.

And you think, okay, what's the fastest way to get somebody to feel better?

Swallow some sugar, deliver it to the brain, you feel better.

The reason you're feeling better is the production of ATP.

But it takes time to do that.

The glucose wasn't available.

And in today's world, most of my patients, if they try to add glucose,

it's not really increasing their glucose in the brain,

because they have so much insulin weighing down that reward.

You got to take it a bunch of sugar.

Yes.

So, yeah.

So then you say, okay, you could be in a ketogenic state,

and that's another place of fuel.

But you and I have played this game.

It's hard to be in a ketogenic.

I'm ketogenic.

I teach this.

But do I appreciate that I'm weird,

most of the people that are looking for persistent ketosis,

they're going to dabble in it to say,

I'm having a brain slump right now.

Let's get fat burning in your brain better.

We'll get you there like three days, okay?

That's not going to be something where most people can't turn on the ketogenic state like that.

Right.

But creatine.

It is, think of it as a way to park and hold a phosphate.

So that ADP, the DSDI phosphate, ATP, triphosphate.

And of course, when you can get that triphosphate available,

that's ADP to ATP is going to be,

the energy is back, your brain feels fuel.

Okay.

So what does creatine do?

It holds the phosphate in its parked position.

And it's sitting right there next to the mitochondria,

right next to the inside the astrosite,

and ready to donate its phosphate instantly when you need it.

The danger, not danger.

The harder part is, how do you get enough in your brain?

Right.

Because the muscles, we're going to talk about, right?

The muscles are greedy.

Yes.

And they want it.

Yes.

And so you have to, your dosing has to be of a certain...

Right.

It is not an accident when you see creatine.

You should get a big bucket of it.

Yeah.

That's not fake news.

It's actually not that expensive.

Right.

I mean, if you only put five grams in in a day, your muscles will see it.

And when you take it and you look at the scans, they go into the muscle.

It kind of parks there.

It pulls in some water with that muscle, which is nice for the muscle.

But you'll hear the naysayers say, I took creatine and I gained four pounds or something.

And it's water weight, which is not bad to have your muscles having that little bit of water in them.

But expect that.

And then know that you have a bunch of muscles to satisfy before your brain gets it.

Yes.

It gets to that muscle.

It holds on to their much quicker.

So it was about a year ago where I bring things home to my husband and say, we should do this.

And he's like...

This is about a year ago.

Yeah.

And that's right.

He's a little test dummy.

Yeah.

You're...

Unfortunately, I brought home two things at once, where I was looking at a lot of things on social media.

But things I'd heard of that I thought, yeah, I should try that.

Yeah, maybe that's a good idea.

The science was good enough, but I just never pulled the lever.

Like, okay, that's a distraction.

Stay in the lane, I'm in.

I brought home methylene blue and a big bottle of creatine.

And I thought it would be a good idea to just take the two of those at once, first thing in the morning.

Oh, boy.

So 10 grams in there are two scoops, which is a pretty good dose.

Yeah, yeah.

Especially you...

Maybe it's a double dose, basically, yeah.

And there are some GI systems that could handle that.

But at first, most are not going to handle that very well.

And then I would...

So I'd mix it in the morning and I'd put...

I mean, if you look at methylene blue, you're going to need like...

18 droppers to get some of the advanced neuroscience stuff.

And I'm like, wow.

You'll have blue teeth and blue tongue for a week.

So I would start with like two droppers of this methylene blue.

It's a super baby dose, but I was like, hmm, we'll try it.

And methylene blue tastes terrible.

So I'd stir it up and then I'd...

You know, take a shot at the first thing in the morning.

And I did this for at least two weeks straight without missing a dose.

And I definitely could feel improvement in my brain function.

And I wasn't sure who to give credit to.

Oh, okay.

But I also had this side effect that most people when you haven't taken creatinine

if you just shot it down the hatch, you're going to have some...

You're running to the bathroom.

Yeah.

So I think most of that I did not absorb.

But I was just trying to say, let's see if I noticed a difference.

Do I notice a difference?

I ran out of methylene blue after about a three week process

and then just kept the creatine because I had this big jug of it

and learned, oh, if I take a five gram in the morning

and then put five grams in for my coffee,

and then say, if I just swirl that in there

and drink that over the next couple of hours,

okay, the GI side effects went away.

And recently I went to Iceland,

which is not too far of a time shift, but enough that my 54-year-old brain

does not like that.

And so I prepared that, all right, I'm going to have creatine along

because it really is the delivery of fuel when it's slumping.

Yeah.

And if you watch, like, what is the problem with the time shift?

Is your circadian rhythm is off.

It's pumping in energy when you used to get up and now it's the time.

Yeah.

So it takes...

It's a real thing.

It's a very real thing.

Fastest reset I've ever had.

Really?

Wow.

Now I bumped up to 20 grams and I did that.

And that's what I took this morning.

Cognitively, I feel good.

I usually only get like six hours of sleep

because I stay up too late.

Oops.

That's my trouble.

I'm consistently getting up early in the morning.

You know, I get up by 6.30, 6.40 each day.

But I have a tendency sometimes I will manipulate my bedtime

to enjoy solo time.

Right.

Kids are asleep.

I can clean the kitchen by myself.

I can watch a YouTube video while I'm doing this.

I can watch Fox News.

I can do whatever I want.

I'm like a bachelor in my own house for like two hours.

So the sleep deprivation thing I feel like for me is navigated

by my creatine intake to some degree.

And I don't know how sustainable that is.

But I do cognitively feel I've been taking creatine myself now

I usually stay in the five to 10 gram range daily.

But this morning I did I doubled dose.

I went I did two, two, no, how many scoops did that be?

Four, basically four scoops.

Any diarrhea?

Any dry stuff?

Yeah, I think.

So that doesn't maybe because my system's so used to

having it and I'm a larger person.

So maybe that helps a little bit.

I don't know.

I don't think I've ever had any any bowel issues

with my creatine intake.

But like I say, usually hover between five to 10.

Today's the only day I've ever gone to 20.

But all the signs seem to point to that's the magic range

if you really want to feel it up here.

Because to get it in the brain, especially your muscle mass

is the large that process of it will soak right into the muscles.

You take it and you do the scan and you're like,

it's not a brain supplement.

Yes.

Until you satisfy the nourishment of...

And there's some loss probably getting into it.

Into it, yep.

Right?

The blood brain barrier or whatever,

you're going to have some...

It's picky.

It's picky what it's going to let in there.

But I also think when you look at...

So let's just take, you know, Chris sleep deprived.

Six hours wakes up in the morning, hoping to use a focused brain

for the business until what, three o'clock in the afternoon,

four o'clock in the afternoon.

Yeah, four.

Okay, so in those hours, the amount of energy that your brain

is 20% of the body's energy is going to the brain.

And when you look at the power needed to sustain

what you're asking your brain to do,

it would be equivalent to what your brain needed supply for

for a week, 150 years ago.

Oh, my gosh.

So you take today's intensity, right,

with the lights that are up all night,

the cars, the process, the way our brains are really...

I mean, you're successful today if you can manage all of this.

And then that's the great thing that happens

during the peak years of life.

What's the danger is what happens...

What's the expense you're paying for those later years of life?

Right, yes.

Okay, so let's do before creatine,

the best way to prevent that is you're asking this churn,

this energy, this brain production, brain function to be a high-output.

Not for one day, you do work Monday through Friday

and then you got kids in life after Saturday.

So that high peak performance is most days of the week,

most days of the year.

Yeah.

And when you sleep, as you do that output,

you make some trash in the brain.

That's normal.

Every cell has this trash.

To sweep it out, it is that depth of sleep in that,

you know, third, fourth, and fifth hour of sleep.

And without that super depth of sleep,

the trash just stays there.

I had that client talk to me about his father this past week

and said, yeah, he's doing great.

This lean man in his late 30s,

but my dad at 65, I don't see it, I don't believe it,

but they say he's got memory problems.

And he's like, he keeps trying...

He downs plays.

This is, you know, this is not really...

It's not that bad.

I don't notice it.

It's not that bad.

He's really smart.

He runs a...

I mean, 25 years of seeing patients,

I know without ever meeting that dad

that he's insulin resistant,

the trash has been building up for years.

Yes.

And he has got a multi-million dollar company

because he's got high peak brain performance,

not for a day or a week,

but for consistent time over these last few decades.

Yes.

And the price you pay is,

if you don't take out the trash,

there's, I mean, 65.

That's really young for the wife, the family,

to say he's not normal.

And then a couple of...

We can tell better than we've been able to in the past,

who's headed for Alzheimer's,

he's got Alzheimer's.

He's got Alzheimer's.

He's got Alzheimer's.

And to back away from the edge is a conversation I would have

with somebody in your season of life,

where, oh, peak performance,

he's able to, you know, function on those six hours,

and then things like creating come along

and they say, I can even boost that performance

by delivering the energy that it needs and do well.

Again, I think you're going to need that 10 to 20.

Yes.

Reach for 15.

If you get that half the time,

I think you're really delivering that phosphate holder

into the brain, but not at the expense of that sleep

and recovery.

Yes, you would say that's more important

than me overdosing or upping my dose on creatine.

I mean, I do it too.

So I'm telling you this bike.

Oh, it's a great hack.

It's got really good science behind it.

And I'm running one of those companies too,

where you're like, oh, there's a lot of decisions

I got to make in the day.

And by three o'clock, you should erase all of the ones

I made after three o'clock yesterday.

My brain was not doing a good job.

But welcome to America and run lives that are full of intensity

and our respect for how much downtime it takes

to recover from that high peak function

and how we can make it better with meddling blue.

Yes, we can make it better with creatine.

And the evidence is really strong,

but it's at an expense that I'm still going to continue

to use creatine.

I'm still going to force my husband to use it

because it's really powerful in that delivery.

I mean, if you go back to the guy who has Alzheimer's

at a young age, he didn't use creatine.

I'm sure of it.

So if you would say, if in the last 20 years,

we bridged that energy gap because he was missing ATP

at a time when he was really asking his brain to work hard.

If he would have thrown creatine into the equation,

he could have delivered on the energy.

But he should have also done the other things

that were lowering the trash in his brain.

And I contend that's all about decreasing that insulin.

You know, the workout we did, I had people say, you know,

do you do that every day?

I'm like, no, but I do it often enough

that my muscles get that workout.

And from now to the time, God lets me age to,

hopefully 90s.

Right.

That the brain stays functional because the muscle was stressed.

And that whole equation of, I want peak brain performance

and when I take out the trash in my brain,

which I think about frequently, I teach about this frequently,

creatine doesn't stop you from doing it.

It increases the delivery of those marginal cells

that are hungry for a little more energy.

And you like that intense life, so do I.

But if you live that intense life like this guy did,

it's at a cellular level adding to the trash

and there's apoptosis, there's cell death

so there's atrophy of their brain

when you chronically under-deliver the energy.

So the creatine doesn't, I mean,

again, there's not long-term human studies on this high a dose,

but I'm very encouraged by looking at the brain volume preservation,

the output of energy that you can ask from some of the mammal models

that are really good at saying this did help bridge them.

Like, if I was going to tell this man what to do,

he's got insulin resistance.

I want him to be on a ketogenic diet for the next couple of years.

I consistently to take out the trash and really back away

from the edge of what a 65-year-old with Alzheimer's would do.

Okay, that's hard.

That's going to take your wife, your family's going to be on board

to help you not eat carbs and sugar and all the stuff

and he's 65 with borderline dementia.

Okay, so that's going to, he's going to,

he's going to screw it up a few times before we get there.

But a supplement will bridge the energy

and so add that into that cognitive decline,

put that inconsistently, figure out how to put the 20,

15 to 20 grams in, at least 15 for somebody in his situation

in hopes that you, those cells on the edge

that are not getting the energy they need,

because of insulin resistance,

because of the pathology that's going to take a while to undo,

I would say that's the best answer for somebody in that setting.

And then of course the best answer for you is to go to bed.

I know, I know, I know it's very simple.

Usually the simple, the simpler the answer,

the better it is, and for me it is,

just go to bed when you're tired.

Right.

And I can't tell you how many times I'll be,

you know, my family and I were pretty tight,

we're pretty close.

We'll all be, you know, we got dogs, we got cats,

we got kids, you know, we'll all be together

on the sofa sometimes, my, you know, my,

even my son will sit next to my 14 year old son

who's, you know, is tall as I am now.

He'll sit next to me or whatever and be like,

can you rub my calf, you know, he's an athlete,

so it's something like bugging him or hurting,

but I'll be like fall asleep, it'll be 9.30, you know?

And everybody's, you know, my daughter has to get up

and go brush her teeth and I'm, I can tell my body is like,

tired.

Go to bed.

Right.

And then I'll get up and I'm starting to get the coffee

ready for the next morning.

I make sure the pots, you know,

put stuff in the dishwasher.

Now I'm up and moving around.

Now I reach, I'm recharged now.

I'm waking up now when I should just be drifting off

and doing the same thing everybody else is doing.

I want to make sure they do what they need to do.

My wife's a sleeper.

She needs her sleep.

She's, she'll take naps.

She doesn't care if she's the first one to go to bed

in the house.

She's great, she's a great sleeper.

And she doesn't function well if she doesn't get her sleep.

Whereas I, any other hand, for some reason,

have convinced myself subconsciously that I'm okay

as long as I get my six hours kind of thing.

But I know I, getting seven to eight

would be a huge benefit to me.

Yeah, I mean, one of the tells I always,

what does midnight mean to you?

Mmm.

Look in the mirror for a second.

Not at your hairline.

Not at the gray.

Not at the wrinkles.

Look at your energy.

Look at your drive.

Look at the fire.

If you're being honest, is it the same?

A lot of men don't realize what's happening.

They're tired earlier.

Workouts feel heavier.

Motivation feels forced.

And patience gets thinner.

They think, maybe this is just aging,

or worse, they jump straight to injections.

But before you go medical,

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Don't accept decline.

Take control.

Midnight means,

it's time.

Right?

Midnight means, like, brush your teeth.

It's time.

It's tomorrow.

Tomorrow is arrived.

What I tell patients when they say that,

because that answer is, Midnight means to them is,

oh, I'm pushing it.

I need to get to bed.

Right.

And I tell them that Midnight is supposed to be in the middle of the night.

Now, some people will take it.

I have a funny side story.

We'll come right back to this.

I have a mentor of mine, Dr. Ron Eckles,

who's a dear friend.

And as you get older,

you have this thing that happens,

where the early riser,

you know, mentality kind of really takes its own,

and grows into its own thing.

So it's now, now it's not, I don't get up at five.

I don't get up at four.

I get up at three.

And I'm like, well, when are you going to bed?

He's like, I'm like, are you going to bed?

And he's like, well, I start getting kind of by seven.

Like, I'm winding down.

And I want to be in bed by eight.

And I'm like, holy crap.

And he's your people.

So this is you.

Is this what you're at?

No, it's quite seven o'clock.

It's hilarious though, because he's like,

it's gotten worse, if you will,

or better.

I guess depends on which way you look at it.

Over the last four or five years,

because I've known him for about ten.

And I remember he used to always brag about kind of being up

by like five between five and six.

And then it became four.

Now it's three.

I'm like, I'm like, run.

We're getting close to like, going to bed at six,

getting up at two.

What are you, a police officer?

He got some weird hours going on.

That's not circadian rhythm at all anymore.

No, he's going too far.

Right.

So I do get it though.

Midnight does mean it's middle of the night.

Right.

Ideally, yeah, at nine o'clock,

that's kind of like, you know, especially in Florida,

you know, nine o'clock, it's dark.

Right.

Finally, you know, for eight months out of the year,

when the sun is up until like eightish or after eight.

By nine, your body is telling you like,

it's dark out now.

It's time to like, you know, slow down,

wind down, go lie down, go, you know,

get horizontal and just, you know,

and then wake up at six with the birdies.

Right.

You know, it's kind of the way nature,

you know, designed us.

I'm still still be there in the morning.

All those dishes are still there in the morning.

They will.

And you know what, I can have as just as much pleasure

getting up early and doing that.

Right.

And listening to maybe some worship music

or a podcast or something when no one's up yet.

I could do that.

I could just reverse it.

And your brain would reward you.

It really does.

I know it would.

Huge deal.

I wish when people come and ask,

I did this.

One of my favorite little things on my resume

was the Department of Defense asked me to do a workshop

throughout.

Yes.

And it's, how do you heal brains?

And of course, I'm trying to teach all the stuff

you don't need to be a doctor to do.

And so the first, like, two modules are all on.

Why?

Why and what sleep is doing to the brain?

And what happens when you chronically don't get it?

But the whole world is hypnotized into saying,

just push harder and do more.

No.

Exactly.

And I've been there and I'm not perfect, but boy,

I, especially when you flip

times on this little trip to Iceland, we did.

Yeah.

It was like at least four days of me being a crabby.

Oh.

Because I did the creativity when I left.

Yes.

For some reason when I got back, I just,

I don't know, I wanted my brain to work on vacation,

but when I got home, I just, I wasn't taking it.

And it took me out the fourth day.

I'm like, well, that was stupid.

Haha.

Should have been, yeah, should have been high-dose in it

when you got back.

Since Monday, I was back on the creativity and I'm like,

oh, my brain totally works.

Now, I don't know if it was time or if it was the creatine,

but it was definitely measurable.

I did it a lot better with the supplement.

I want to, at the end, I want to actually get to types of creatine

and certified and then create pure and germany.

And I want to talk about that a little bit,

at least get your feedback on that.

But before we get to that, because there's a lot of other

questions.

Yeah, these are good things.

For listeners out there who don't realize that our body

actually does produce creatine, a little bit from the liver

and a little bit from the brain, right?

Two to three grams a day, would you say?

Our body is actually making.

Now, why technically, like, if our body can create it itself,

why doesn't it just make a little bit more for us?

Is it?

If it knows, it's so good.

Yeah, evolution said no to that, didn't it?

Yeah, it did.

It's going to be in that, first of all, the muscle will want

to hold that, a really big supply of that.

And, you know, we can measure it in the blood,

we can measure it inside biopsies and in both places,

much higher concentration inside the muscles.

And the waste product of getting it out of your body is also

part of how we assess kidney functions.

So you'll notice that the body makes it,

the body has a place to store it.

It's a valuable commodity.

But it's not, it's difficult to produce extra of it.

So it is a great example of where a supplement should be

provided.

Yes.

I mean, I go back to that 150 years ago versus now,

that brain requirement to succeed is real.

Yes.

And there's not a way to eat to do that.

You really do need to supplement.

Yeah, you're not going to be able to eat enough animal products.

Right.

You know, fish or whatever, with other options out there

to get the amount that we need.

Right.

20 grams.

Yes.

You just think how much meat you have to eat to do that.

There's like, I couldn't do that.

I would do with everything.

That successful day would be spent eating.

Like, no, no, that's a lot of volume of food.

Yeah.

So for that reason, you can't, you can make it, yes.

But it is just, if you're looking at the massive production needed

for enhancing brain function, you're going to need a supplement.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, it's, because we forget sometimes,

based on what our familiarity with this supplement,

there could be people listening right now that have never used this,

don't know much about it.

Only have maybe heard it in whispers as something

that a bunch of stinky muscle meathead gym guys take, right?

They have no idea that it has all these other benefits to it.

So, as we've been saying, the traditional dosage for creatine,

monohydrate, mostly what we're talking about here,

is a five grams per day.

But like Dr. Baza is saying, your muscles are saying,

I want all of that, all of it.

Muscles are greedy.

Some is lost crossing the blood brain barrier anyway.

So that's where everything, all the science seems to point to this

like extra dosage of going not just double,

but even triple or quadruple.

I think that's also where, yeah, where I lost,

that this was even something you could do for a brain.

For ever, when those muscle gym say,

oh, can I do this?

And they're taking it, but they're about the five grams as well.

And everything says, yeah, fine for muscles.

I didn't even understand that you could get into the brain

until about five years ago saying, oh, you can.

And as much as you've known and worked, you've done on the brain.

But the studies necessarily weren't talking about creatine and brain.

They left it to the muscles.

Everything was looking at the muscles.

And now you look at the explosion of brain information

over the last two decades starts with how we image it,

how we can see it, how we can measure what's functioning,

what's not functioning.

So to get to the level that we're at saying,

what can creatine do for the chronic aging of that?

I think that's the place where why is this so powerful?

We now can map out, do you have a risk for Alzheimer's?

Do you have a double risk for Alzheimer's?

You know, the genetic predictors.

And then when people have that, they come to their physician saying,

what is it I could do to mitigate that?

To say, okay, so I got these nasty genes.

I'm at risk for Alzheimer's.

Is it mean stay skinny?

There's more to it.

And I think that it was the advent of that real understanding

where I saw the connection of, wow, we really could supplement this

at a higher level.

And almost like you couldn't awaken the function

of what that creatine was going to do for the brain

until it got to those higher doses.

So it goes right into those muscles,

not going to do much more when you trickle five.

I mean, I keep thinking when I was doing that two weeks of 10 grams

and then I'd be on the toilet an hour later,

I think I probably wasn't doing anything for my brain then

because it was all going off the toilet.

That's right.

It was kind of wasted, yeah.

Right.

So yeah, would you recommend then for people,

people ladies like yourself smaller in stature, right?

There's a hundred pound weight difference,

more or less between the two of us.

So the way you ingest something versus me

or the dosage you're receiving versus me

probably should look a little bit different, right?

Maybe five grams per serving for you is best case scenario

where I can obviously handle maybe 10 or 15 or 20 at one time.

Muscle mass has a lot to do with that.

So I do agree with you that when I look at the,

what would I take it for?

It's brain function all day long, right?

Yes.

10 milligrams is a minimum,

and I would put that in a place where I get it over a few hours

so the absorption is more guaranteed.

But I wouldn't go under 15 if you're saying,

the reason you're taking it is brain enhancement.

Start at 15 with the muscle mass you've got.

They're just so greedy.

You don't get to count that first.

That's right.

Well, I definitely have to be better at that

because I bet you I've been only living in the five to 10 gram.

I do like a heaping scoop and maybe sometimes it's two.

So maybe at most I'm getting 10.

And so I'm probably kind of under-dosing it

if I'm really looking for the cognitive side of that.

And do you go on and off of it just because of?

So I used to for years.

I would be on and off of it, like cycling it.

I heard this from many patients.

It's so kind of weird, right?

I don't think we did it because that's what we heard from somebody else.

I could never find out.

You don't have to always take it.

Your body gets used to it and it adapts.

All these weird things that we would all convince ourselves.

I think it's the water way they were doing it for.

I think so too.

I think so too.

I really could answer to that.

I guess for ladies maybe that would be more of a concern

like the extra water that's in the cell

because of the added creatine.

I would still not give it that much credit.

Yeah, so I don't know.

So many things that we do in our lives are just conditional things.

Yeah, the mimicking.

Yeah, mimicking.

So in the last let's say six months,

have you had times where you're without this

and then you get back on it?

I would say maybe just days of the time

maybe because if I was traveling I didn't bring any with me

or but no, I would say consistently six to seven days a week.

I'm having my creatine.

That's great.

But again, I don't feel like my dosing

and it's only because I would say too,

it's been probably just the last six months

I've been paying more attention to this as a brain.

I was not looking at this at all a year ago

and I was preparing for my TED Talk and all that stuff.

I wasn't looking into creatine for brain at all.

I probably would have made its way into my talk a little bit

or something.

I don't know.

I don't know.

But it would have influenced my thinking about this topic

a long time ago.

So it's been everything I've been seeing.

So travel days can be tough because you're going if you're going in an airplane

but on the travel days when you didn't have it,

do you notice the weight change?

Oh, no.

Not at all.

That's where I was going with that.

Not at all.

I would say I'm not a lean enough type of guy

where I would even notice it.

Now maybe competitive bodybuilders.

Right.

But just not my audience.

Six to 10% body fat can pick up on that stuff.

Like a little bloated today.

You know, like that's not me.

I don't live in that space.

So that's where I would park that.

When you say, oh, I wouldn't a lady have more of this.

Look, in the most people, that insulin resistance,

that aging of life still has so many other factors

that if they slightly notice,

I mean, if they're the kind of person who's weighing every morning,

I've had patients say, oh, I was up about a pound and a half

and I'm like, who checks it that often?

That's right.

I don't do that.

But when you, you know, if you were on a wrestling team

and you said I had to weigh in,

okay, we'll then get off it for the two days before weigh in.

Right.

But that performance for good energy to the muscle

of creatine is going to be your friend.

But that's a different lean body mass.

The people we're talking to that are trying to use it for brain

do not major in the minor leagues there.

Yes, there's some water shifting.

It's not bad water shifting.

Forget about it.

Just focus on, did you get that?

Forget about it.

Did you get that?

And for you, I would push to 15.

And then have it in a way that your body can absorb well.

I mean, the other part of any supplement

that I think patients need to pay really a close attention to

is how well does your body absorb anything?

Yeah.

If you've got that irritable bowel story that, you know,

they can get the diarrhea from a little spice of this

or they're very sensitive, they add creatine

and they have increased stools that don't always go away.

Every time they get the diarrhea

and that's why it's all over every, you know, blog saying,

here's what you should do for that.

And what I would focus on is fix that absorption problem

with putting your supplement right out the toilet.

As I went back on to creatine after that two week sprint

or I never really stopped the creatine but said,

okay, let's figure out how to do this in a way

that isn't such a shot down the hatch.

And putting the five grams in in the morning,

going into a coffee, it doesn't have a flavor.

It's got a chalkiness.

It's a chalkiness to it.

And obviously, if you're doing the substantial dosing

of like 15 or 20, you're going to want to maybe

probably have it in something where it hides it

a little bit better.

Or putting the five three to four times a day.

Yes, or just spread it out like that.

Just have it with you.

Or, you know, if you have one at the house

and have one at your work or whatever

and then it's probably pretty easy,

we're very habitual, right?

So if you just are always doing it with your around

the time when you have your coffee in the morning at home

or around lunch time when you have your lunch

and you have a drink and you just do it then.

At first, I thought, oh, it's terrible to have it in water.

And I just thought it was very, and now I'm like,

there's no taste to it.

There's no real taste.

And the more I read about it, the more I'm like,

well, this is worth whatever, you know, that pallet thing

that I had at first, too, saying, oh, I just am going to shoot it down

with the lovely blue.

So I like it.

My perfect day is five in the morning, five in the coffee.

And I do have some at the office that I'll probably supplement

maybe three times a week, but it's not consistent enough

that I do it that well.

Yeah.

Ten is my goal.

And I've heard, I think I've heard you speak on this

and definitely some other people that when it's mixed

with other things like caffeine or coffee, does it degrade it

or does it impact or affect the absorption of it

or the, you know, whatever?

And it seems based on everything that I heard,

it's maybe, but minimal.

And I maybe don't mix it right into the hottest coffee

and let it sit there and boil it or something afterwards.

But I mean, I think if you put it in an iced coffee

or if it's in coffee for what, all of five to ten minutes,

how is that going to really have too much impact on it?

Right.

It is the exposure to heat that, so even the hottest of coffees

you're still not going to have hours of it being clean.

Right.

That's where it all changed the absorption.

Right.

On say, body temperature, it's going to be the same absorption process

for creatine.

Yeah.

And it's impact.

And here's the other part about when their gut is healthy.

And so they, I don't care what you're putting in it,

that you've got, think of the patient who has irritable bowel syndrome.

Yeah.

So they have stools that do things.

They're very sensitive to it.

They know who they are.

And when I see people really graduate into a less inflammatory state,

almost always a persistent state of ketosis,

that they're hitting a good ketogenic state three to four,

five days a week, those symptoms of bowel get way less.

Yeah.

Now that supplement goes in and really does have,

so the impact that heat would have on a creatine supplement

or several other things is so nominal compared to the impact

you'll have when you establish a thick gut biome,

a nice thick mucus layer that lines your gut and helps with that absorption,

helps that gut biome to grow in a place that's really healthy.

That's a good place to put the focus.

Yeah.

People know who they are.

I mean, they walk in and they're like, I think I have irritable bowel.

Here's what I think you should do.

And you're like, before you do all those tests,

I think you should try to fix the problem,

because it is fixable, but it turns into a shift of the chemistry

not being inflamed, not for a day,

but you're going to have to do that for six to eight weeks

to really see that this is fixable.

Yeah.

Be sure to come back for part two of our conversation with Dr. Boss

in the next episode of Strong by Design.

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