Supplements

Creatine *Does Not* Effect Muscle?

Following a study published in the journal Nutrients in April 2025, headlines are leading with catchy shorts like:

“Creatine shows no additional muscle growth”
“Creatine has no effect on muscle”
“Creatine doesn’t boost muscle growth”

Those are not safe conclusions to draw from the study. It did have some great features. It enrolled similar numbers of females & males, which is rare. It also included a phase of creatine supplementation *prior* to resistance training. The intention was to enable observation of the effects of beginning creatine supplementation separate from the effects of beginning resistance training.

However, insights & utility are limited, because:

1. The people selected for the study were non-exercisers or infrequent exercisers prior to the study intervention. Hence the results cannot be extrapolated to experienced, committed exercisers.

2. The intervention group receiving creatine *did* accrue greater lean body mass during the 12 week resistance training intervention than the control group not receiving creatine, but the delta was not sufficient to reach statistical significance.

3. Females gained an average 2 kg of lean body mass & males an average 3 kg by the end of the 12 week resistance training period.

Those are *incredible* gains of the kind possible only for people either (a) entirely new to resistance training or (b) drug assisted.

Very few natural exercisers resistance training for months or years could possibly hope to gain at anything like that rate. Extend it to a year and it would be 24-36 kg of lean body mass, which is more than most dedicated exercisers can expect to gain within a lifetime of regular, intense training.

Hence what this study observed is that people entirely new to resistance training can initially gain lean body mass at an incredible rate. The more modest effect of creatine supplementation could easily have been entirely eclipsed by the hyper-responsiveness of the untrained participants.

Given the fantastic evidence for safety, exercise performance & lean body mass benefits, and growing evidence for brain health and bone health benefits, I will continue to suggest creatine supplementation for many of my clients.

Linking to the full text study
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/17/6/1081?

The link button goes to a bigger image and a post on Instagram - where you are welcome to ask me anything.

Collagen vs Collagen Peptides

Both collagen & collagen peptides are readily available as supplements, and are frequently being featured front of pack as value adding ingredients in other foods, and drinks.

What is good to know?

Collagen protein is a relatively poor source of dietary protein, with no or scarce evidence that it has any specific benefits

Collagen protein is made of 19 amino acids, but the composition of amino acids is not as favourable as alternatives such as animal sourced proteins and higher quality plant-based proteins, such as soy and mycoprotein.

Dietary collagen is fully broken down into amino acids before absorption so it is unsurprising that consuming collagen is not found to have any effect on skin or joint health - by the time we absorb it, it is just amino acids, very useful, but not specific to any purpose.

Collagen peptides do appear to support improved skin and joint health

In contrast to collagen protein, collagen peptides, which are smaller chains of amino acids, can be absorbed intact. This may be why consumption of collagen peptides is shown to have positive effects on skin and joint health - the peptides can retain or stimulate different function, and not just contribute to the overall amino acid pool

So, if you seek the skin and joint health benefits, make sure you source collagen peptides. If you want more protein in your diet from a concentrated source, collagen is a relatively poor choice, and whey, casein and vegan blends such as rice, pea and hemp would be better. That is unless you *enjoy* collagen in your coffee, in which case, go for it!

The effects of collagen peptide supplementation on body composition, collagen synthesis, and recovery from joint injury and exercise: a systematic review
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8521576/

Daily oral supplementation with collagen peptides combined with vitamins and other bioactive compounds improves skin elasticity and has a beneficial effect on joint and general wellbeing
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30122200/

Significant Amounts of Functional Collagen Peptides Can Be Incorporated in the Diet While Maintaining Indispensable Amino Acid Balance
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8521576/

Creatine for Health and Performance

Keeping it simple with 7 key points about creatine.

1. Supplemental creatine can improve exercise capacity via increasing phosphocreatine stored within muscle cells. This is of great benefit for exercise emphasising higher intensity activity, such as weight lifting, bodybuilding, cross-fit and sprinting.

For lower intensity exercise and activity, such as walking, endurance running and yoga, creatine may offer no performance benefit, and the modest additional bodyweight may even be unhelpful.

2. Creatine Monohydrate is a solid choice. There are many alternative forms of creatine, but negligible evidence, distinct from extensive marketing, than any offer advantages over creatine monohydrate.

3. Creatine loading, meaning taking a high initial dose, is unnecessary and potentially unpleasant. It serves only to reach your saturation point more swiftly than you will on a lower dose, with high risk of digestive distress and dehydration.

4. Creatine does not need to be combined with sugary sports drinks or anything else to improve absorption. These may have some marginal effect, but creatine is absorbed well enough without them, so the additional cost and calories and sugar can be skipped.

5. In addition to the extensively evidenced benefits for higher intensity exercise, there is some evidence that creatine may contribute to brain health, better sleep and hormonal regulation.

6. A simple, effective, dosing regimen is 3-5 grams daily, taken anytime you like, split throughout the day or in one go. There may be some marginal benefit in taking your creatine in the evening if you are interested in the potential sleep benefits, but that timing is not for certain. In other words, there is no finesse needed, whatever works for you is good enough for creatine too.

7. My personal pick are the Bulk Creatine Tablets. At 1g each, they make it very simple to take a 3-5g daily dose, with no measuring or stirring or blending. Caveat that the pill sizes are relatively large, so if swallowing such pills is a challenge a powder may be the better choice.

Link goes to the Bulk Creatine Tablets shop page. I have no affiliation.