Creatine Saftey for Wrestlers: A Physicians Prospective

Dr. Lynn Myers is widely regarded as one of the country’s foremost experts on nutrition. He has been interviewed by CNN Sports and on ESPN’s “One On One Sports”. Dr. Myers has addressed the National Wrestling Coaches Association as a special guest speaker on nutrition. Dr. Myers is also the father of four wrestlers. He is Director of Research and Development for NuCare, a company that makes a creatine chewing gum and a chewable creatine wafer for wrestlers.

There is now little doubt, when you study the scientific literature and talk to athletes, that creatine improves certain types of athletic performance. This is especially true in power sports such as wrestling that require short-term explosive muscle contraction. Creatine increases muscle mass, strength, explosive power, and stamina. Because of these effects, this popular supplement is now widely used in the sports such as wrestling, football, and baseball.

A recent study found that 48% of Division 1 NCAA male athletes take or have taken creatine. Last year, an estimated that six to eight million pounds were consumed in the United States. Although creatine has been widely used in the U.S. since 1992, some caution that creatine has not been around long enough to determine the any potential long-term side effects. Others are opposed to creatine supplementation purely for philosophic reasons. Recently, for example, a French food safety expert recently said creatine “is contrary to the rules, spirit and significance of sport.”

As a pathologist with a lifetime of experience in solving medical puzzles, I have been trained to study the scientific facts and ignore rumors and half-truths. Here is what I have discovered about creatine.

Background
Creatine is a protein made from amino acids. Our body makes one gram each day from protein. We also eat about one gram of creatine each day from meats such as beef, chicken or fish. Creatine is not a source of energy in itself, but stores energy you get from your food. Creatine acts like uncharged battery. When it is charged with energy from food, it becomes the major energy source for immediate anaerobic muscle contraction. When extra creatine is taken to increase muscle creatine levels, then more energy is available for muscle contraction. Vegetarians or athletes who don’t consume enough protein may have abnormally low muscle creatine levels. We have learned much of what we know about vitamins by studying what happens when a person has a vitamin deficiency. Two examples help us to understand creatine’s role in the body. In animal studies, researchers have blocked creatine uptake by the muscle cells. The result is a loss of fast-twitch (type two) muscle fibers. This is the type of muscle that is called into action first in power sports such as wrestling.

Secondly, some children have a genetic defect where they can not make creatine in their body. As a result they have muscle loss and weakness. Creatine supplementation strengthens these children. Both these examples show that creatine is necessary for healthy, strong muscle.

High Dietary Intake of Creatine
In times past, hunters such as the American Plains Indians, African Tribes, and Eskimos ate huge amounts of meat. During certain seasons, they consumed almost an all-meat diet. Since meat contains about one gram of creatine per each half pound, these hunters easily consumed 3-5 grams of creatine per day. Remarkably, this creatine dosage is similar to that recommended today by many scientists. Since mankind began and remained a hunter for thousands of years, it seems highly unlikely that heavy consumption of creatine containing meat is dangerous.

Creatine Supplement Use Not New

While creatine is “new” to many here in the U.S., it is not “new” to the rest of the world. The Russians and other Eastern Block countries have used creatine as a sport supplement for at least twenty years. Perhaps this helps explain why the Eastern Block countries beat the West so badly for many years in the Olympics. Recently, I spoke to a Russian Sports scientist who candidly told me that the Russians never found any injurious effects while using creatine.

Creatine Use In the United States

In the West creatine has been manufactured for about nine years. Creatine was first used by successfully in the West in the 1992 Olympics. As creatine began to be readily available in the United States many bodybuilders began taking creatine in massive amounts. Thinking that if a little is good, more must be better they took twenty, forty, and even sixty grams of powder a day, all without injurious effect on their health. If creatine were dangerous, these human “guinea pigs” would have clearly demonstrated these effects over the past nine years.

Creatine Not Implicated in Wrestling Deaths

Two years ago I was invited to speak to the National Wrestling Coaches Association about creatine and other supplements. You may remember that in the fall of 1997 three college wrestlers died. Some of the media and wrestling coaches speculated that nutritional supplements, including creatine, might have played a role in these deaths. As a practicing pathologist, I was able to obtain the final autopsy reports of two of the three wrestlers who died and then spoke to the pathologists who performed the autopsies. Later I spoke to a coach of the third wrestler. Then I spoke to the representative of the Center for Disease Control who investigated the wrestling deaths. Finally, I talked to the person in charge of the Federal Drug Administration’s investigation. This is what I found. Only one of the three wrestlers had ever used creatine. That wrestler stopped using creatine several weeks before his death. By the time of his death creatine his muscle creatine levels would have returned back to normal levels and therefore creatine could not be implicated in his death. Two of the three died of severe dehydration and heat injury. The third probably died of an undiagnosed heart problem. In conclusion I could find no relationship between creatine supplementation and these wrestlers deaths. Since then, more than three years later, I have found no reason to change my mind. No local, state or U.S. government report has implicated creatine in any of the deaths.

The lesson we should learn from these deaths is that using severe dehydration to pull weight not only severely limits wrestling performance but can be extremely dangerous. It killed not only these wrestlers, but may have killed others who did not gain media attention. In the course of my investigation, I learned from wrestling insiders of many other “near death experiences” from dehydration that required medical resuscitation.

Physicians Using Creatine Have Found No Creatine Toxicity

During the past few years medical scientists and physicians have begun experiments to learn if creatine can be used to treat various medical disorders. In these carefully done studies, under close medical supervision, doctors have not reported any injurious creatine effects on the body. On the contrary, many of these studies show promise that creatine can be helpful in preventing or slowing certain disorders such as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, Huntington’s Disease, and Parkinson’s Disease.

Creatine Not Found Injurious By Sports Medicine Roundtable

The American College of Sports Medicine hosted a roundtable discussion by several top scientists interested in creatine. They reported in their abstract that “there is no definitive evidence that creatine supplementation causes gastrointestinal, renal, and/or muscle cramping complications.” 2

Summary

Despite all the rumor and speculation that we all have heard over the past few years, I find no credible evidence that creatine supplementation is harmful in anyway to our 1. Clin J. Sport Med., 1999, Jul. v. 9, (3), p. 167-169 2. Med. Sci. Sports Exerc. 2000 Mar; 32 (3): p. 706-17health. On the contrary, an ample amount of creatine is absolutely necessary for healthy muscle and other cellular function.

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