Use Creatine Supplements with Care

Creatine is a substance in protein foods that has found application as a dietary supplement in sports training, particularly the weight training sports. It builds bulk and allows for more consistent high-intensity training. Creatine is not an anabolic steroid or anything like it.

Parents worry that their kids are using this stuff to make the football or track team and that it might do them some harm. While the overwhelming evidence is that creatine supplements are safe to use in the recommended amounts (about 2-3 grams/day), occasionally an adverse report is published. It's worth keeping an eye on the status of any supplement that you or your family take. Things change with new information over time.

Supplements, or ergogenic aids as they are called in the sports community, are usually not reviewed and controlled at government level with the vigor that pharmaceuticals are. Don't assume that someone up there watches over all supplements.

With any supplement, even vitamins, you need to ask these six questions:

1. Does it provide benefit?
2. Is it safe; now or in the longer term?
3. What is the amount that works, the dose? (Never take more than the prescribed dose.)
4. Does your supplement recommend that efficacious dose on the label?
5. Can you trust the supplement company to always deliver that amount in its product?
6. Can you trust the supplement company not to include unsafe or illegal additional products intentionally or unintentionally in the product?

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Reference
Thorsteinsdottir B, Grande JP, Garovic VD. Acute renal failure in a young weight lifter taking multiple food supplements, including creatine monohydrate. J Ren Nutr. 2006 Oct;16(4):341-5.