Just in case anyone is thinking about trying it: 25g seems pretty high. It’s worth it to review what that means for the rest of your body before starting this regime. Kidneys are really useful organs to have working.
However, If you reveal to that doctor that you're supplementing Creatine it will not be concern them.
EDIT: I don't do 25g though... sounds like a lot...
Precisely and correctly as they said, normal eGFR presumes average musculature and average creatine consumption. If either of these out of the norm, eGFR becomes inaccurate and potentially flagging false positives for damage. Creatinine, the waste product of creatine, raises in a way that can get confused with kidney damage, which is precisely how the confusion about it causing kidney damage or being bad if you have a compromised kidney came about.
In some studies, people with CKD actually improved with creatine supplementation, though notably this was not people with PKD where it could increase cyst growth.
Edit: see comment below (i.e. better to stop taking creatine at least a week before a test).
Or more correctly, the myth saved his life.
Perhaps sometimes we should listen to conspiracy theorists. /s
Creatine metabolizes into creatinine which is major indicator of kidney function because not being able to clear creatinine means your kidneys aren’t working. Adding more creatinine to your system decreases your ability to clear it leading to fatigue, edema, high blood pressure etc.
So it isn’t bad for your kidneys: it is bad for everything else.
Creatinine itself doesn't cause fatigue, edema, or high blood pressure. Kidney disease does.
Creatine supplementation will freak out a lot of doctors if they're not warned of it ahead of time, though, and sometimes you'll even need to explain to them that they will see elevated levels of creatinine on the tests and it won't be an accurate predictor of kidney function.
If you're supplementing with creatine and need your kidneys tested it's easiest to stop a couple of weeks before, or ask for a Cystatin C test and make sure they use the relevant adjustments for body mass as well if you e.g. lift weights - I've more than once had doctors imply they were worried I had kidney disease because they were entirely unaware of the effects both creatine and large body pass has on the regular tests.
Going to something that frequently hallucinates or misstates things to the point where it's "trust, but verify by reading the source" means you may as well just read the literature you'd have to verify the summary against anyway.
I think a lot of the anecdata on creatine is probably from people misplacing confounding issues to the creatine use. People in this thread are talking about heart palpitations or trouble sleeping. Stressful days at work are enough to trigger that.
When I first started taking creatine in the late 90s (it had already been heavily studied then as one of the only supplements that improved athletic performance), I would mix it with juice. There were some studies that sugar would help the uptake.
Also the NIH fact sheet for creatine specifically recommends against higher starting doses.
We humans not in studies are generally looking for a health benefit, not max intramuscular creatine concentration as fast as possible at the price of side effects. We are optimizing for something different than study authors. 5 g is fine.
It might take longer to see full effects, but who cares if you’re intending to take it indefinitely.
This is just taking more to optimize performance.
It's not the same.
https://www.google.com/search?q=artificial+creatine+side+eff...
kidney damage. liver damage. kidney stones. weight gain. bloating. dehydration. hair loss. muscle cramps.
The fact that you estimate weed as a drug is correct - the fact that you don't realize that everything is basically a drug depending on the amount an potency is worrying.
You are so right.
Creatine is one of the most studied supplements over the last 30+ years. First, it is proven to work for athletic performance and second, it's relatively safe. The AI overview of your Google link even says no evidence of serious harm. If people have underlying health issues and/or they take way more than recommended there can be side effects - just like anything else we put in our bodies.