a recent study is challenging everything we thought we knew about creatine supplements so have we been wasting our money all this time creatine has been used since the '9s and one of the study results that you'll often see talked about is it's linked to muscle mass gains so for example a meta analysis in 2022 pulled together data from 35 trials and the analysis revealed that creatine supplementation increased lean body mass by 1.1 kg when combined with resistance training and notice something important about the results of this analysis creatine was found to increase lean body mass but that's not the same as muscle mass so lean body mass is the weight of everything in your body apart from fat so muscle mass is a key part of that but it also includes things like bones organs and water weight and a few other things so if we assume that all of these factors are staying relatively constant then lean body mass can be a good proxy for muscle mass so when we find that creatine boosts lean body mass it seems like a reasonable assumption that what we're seeing is a gain in muscle tissue but this brand new study suggests that we've been interpreting the results of that earlier research all wrong the researchers wanted to figure out if creatine was indeed helping to increase muscle mass or if it was just water weight so here's how the study was set up researchers randomly assigned participants to one of two groups the first group got a creatine supplement of 5 g a day and the other group took nothing now for the first week of the study the creatine group took the supplement but neither group exercised they only started exercising from week two where both groups began a carefully supervised workout program that lasted for the remaining 12 weeks and they took measurements of lean body mass for all of the participants at three times so the first one was before the study began then again once the first week of the trial had completed so remember that was just when the creatine group was taking creatine supplements but they weren't exercising and then once again they did the measurements at the end of the trial now there have been lots of studies before looking at the effects of creatine on lean body mass and they almost look exactly like this one but this study introduced a unique twist so in the past studies always started the exercise program at the same time that creatine supplements were started but in this study the creatine was started alone for the first week so why was this well again the researchers were curious about something though the evidence is mixed we've got some indicators that creatine increases the amount of water in our bodies in the short term so recall that water is part of our lean body mass so they wondered if part of the gains due to creatine were actually because of the increase in water rather than increased muscle mass that's what the first week of the trial was all about those who were taking the creatine they weren't exercising at all during that time so if they had increases in lean body mass that must have been because of increased water uptake so what did they discover well they initially did the measurements before the study began and then they rechecked lean body mass after the first week as expected there was a significant difference between the two groups those who were taking creatine gained about half a kilogram of lean body mass but those in the control group showed no difference so this first result was interesting it confirmed some earlier evidence that found that creatine boosts water uptake that wasn't a big shocker the really interesting question though was would creatine cause any significant benefits during the exercise phase of the trial to find out they tested lean body mass again after 12 weeks of resistance exercise they worked hard to ensure that both groups were exercising in the same way this is the part that's been getting all of the attention the creatine group didn't see any benefit in terms of lean body mass gains during the 12 weeks of exercise compared to the control group when we compare the change in lean body mass after the first week to the end of the study both groups gained about the same amount it was around 2 kg so the authors drew a startling conclusion that creatine doesn't offer any further benefits to lean body mass beyond the initial boost in that first week and that likely doesn't have anything to do with muscle gains so do these results mean that creatine use is all built on a mistake well let's unpack this look again at the numbers that they report in the gains during the 12-week exercise period there actually is a difference between the groups the supplement group gains a bit more on average and you see this on the graph here so when they say no difference technically what they mean is not statistically different so it's possible that the difference that creatine makes here is too small for this particular study setup so in other words what I mean is that there's not enough people in the study to adequately power the study to detect that small difference the study only involved 60 participants which is a relatively small group and the duration was only 12 weeks so ideally we want a larger longerterm trial to get a clearer picture more data equals more precision but also if we compare the baseline to the end of study differences the creatine group still does have an overall greater change in lean body mass i also want to point out something that's easy to miss the study didn't address the main benefit of creatine so the main benefit that I'm going to discuss is the reason why I personally take creatine so even if the conclusion in the study is right that creatine doesn't boost lean body mass gains it doesn't mean that creatine is worthless so let me explain why so think about what the main benefit of creatine is creatine helps to restore ATP that's the primary energy source for our cells it's particularly important when we do highintensity short bursts of muscle movement think of it like an emergency battery pack for our muscles our muscles can store a certain amount of creatine and taking creatine supplements increases the amount of creatine available to our muscles it's like filling that battery pack to 100% and this results in measurable performance gains when it comes to exercise so studies have found benefits ranging from increased power and endurance to strength training to enhanced recovery and since we can push a bit harder during strength training with creatine we see gains faster so a meta analysis of studies in adults under 50 years old backs up this effect when compared to placebo those taking creatine saw their strength grow more quickly a separate meta analysis focused on studies of older adults the results were the same creatine supplementation increased chest press and leg press one rep max and a report from the International Society of Sports Nutrition summarized the evidence this way hundreds of peer-reviewed studies have evaluated the impact of creatine supplements on exercise performance about 70% of them found a significant improvement in exercise capacity so this is a really important distinction the new trial casts doubt about the effects of creatine on lean body mass but it did not measure muscle performance so creatine lets us exercise with more intensity and this translate to greater strength gains but one natural question to ask is if our strength is growing shouldn't our muscles be growing as well and wouldn't that show up as gains in lean muscle mass again this recent study raises a question the simple answer is it isn't that simple we might assume that our strength grows because our muscles are getting bigger but the reality is more complex consider these fascinating examples bodybuilders and weightlifters both engage in rigorous resistance training and both gain a lot of muscle but the relationship between their muscles and their strength is different so in one analysis researchers measured the size of tricep muscles with its power in their sample bodybuilders had on average larger muscles but for a given amount of muscle weightlifterss were stronger so strength gains and muscle gains they aren't identical one study found a group of young healthy people had an average strength gain of 21% during the study period but that corresponded to only 7% gains in muscle size and incredibly several people in that study increased their leg strength without any gains in muscle size at all so what explains all of this well yes strength gains they're partly driven by muscle mass but they're also driven by other changes in things like nerve activity in other words we get stronger in part because our body gets better at using what we've already got and research suggests that our early strength gains have more to do with neural adaptations later gains are more connected with muscle growth and this raises an intriguing possibility could those taking creatine in this recent study have seen benefits in terms of strength gains well we've got no way to know since it wasn't measured but it's certainly likely earlier studies have consistently shown this effect in other words maybe the participants didn't add any extra lean body mass because of creatine but they probably added extra strength and muscle performance like the mountains of existing trial data suggests overall the new study raises an important question about whether earlier trials may have overstated muscle mass gains for reasons that we've looked at here though I don't think it casts doubt about the usefulness of creatine we've still got very good evidence that it boosts exercise performance and strength gains to emphasize the new study did not measure muscle performance at all it was just lean body mass and it's the muscle performance effects that are the main reasons why I personally take creatine monohydrate 5 g as part of microvitamin plus we're on formula version 6 of the overall microvitamin package and I'm working on formula version 7 at the time of recording this video and for me I want to continue receiving the muscle performance benefits of creatine and the study does not change that nor compel me to remove creatine from formula version 7 but just because I take a supplement does not in any way mean that you should as well and there's actually some emerging areas of interest for creatine that have got nothing to do with exercise so to see why it's becoming a top choice for longevity researchers make sure to check out this next video