Thoughts on Creatine

[Guest guest]

Hi, I'm a newbie post, so I hope my post is in compliance with your

guidelines. Thanks for your patience.

I'm wondering if Creatine could be used to help anti-aging?

Let's consider the mitochondria for a moment -- they are what creates

ATP for your body in the first place. And we know that the very

respiration process that they use to make the ATP can also fry the

genes floating around in the mitochondria. This gradual self-damage to

the mitochondria is considered to be a significant source of aging.

The Reactive Oxidative Species (ROS) produced by the normal operation

of your mitochondria gradually damage not only the mitochondria

themselves, but as damage becomes sufficient, the ROS can even leak

out into the rest of your cell and damage it too.

But suppose you were to regularly take an external supplement of ATP,

in the form of Creatine. Then your mitochondria might not have to work

so hard to make it. This means less mitochondrial respiration, and

thus likely less damage to mitochondrial genes over time.

People are used to only thinking of taking Creatine for workouts,

track meets, swim meets, sports games, dance class, etc, where sudden

bursts of energy demand are required.

But what if you were to just take small amounts of Creatine on a

regular basis, independent of any workout considerations. Will it help

you to make your mitochondria last longer?

Wouldn't taking Creatine still be consistent with Calorie Restriction,

since you're bypassing your whole metabolism to get your ATP directly

from external intake? The whole point of Caloric Restriction is to

deprive your metabolism of work, since that work causes wear and tear

on your cells.

We've all heard about the animal studies on CR and their superior

life-extending results. What if the same tests were to be done under

CR but also including the intake of Creatine as a supplement to the

regular CR diet?

I began thinking about this after my thoughts on Chondroitin/GAGs.

After all, if you ingest pre-made complex/energetic molecules through

your diet, rather than forcing your own metabolic processes to

generate them, then you are creating less work for your metabolism.

Less work for your metabolism means less production of ROS. And less

production of ROS means less damage to your genome and cellular

components.

Comments, please?