Hacker News Reader

Comment by somenameforme | Hacker News Reader

I think this is quite different because (1) creatine has been proven to be completely harmless for people of all ages absent some rare thing like a kidney disorder and (2) it has a bunch of clearly measurable positive effects.

So this is more like trying to determine whether ginseng is good at keeping away colds or whatever. Maybe it does (actually quickly searching this, it definitely does but let's pretend it's as folksy as it sounds for a minute) but even if it doesn't then it's harmless and has a bunch of other effects, so when one takes it - the whole possible cold prophylaxis can just be seen as an added perk.

View on HN

Issue being that if you took everything that's "probably harmless" at once, cramming your body full of supplements, you might just end up harming yourself with substances that are toxic above certain amounts (acute iron toxicity etc.). Also the more random stuff you take, the more likely it is that something you took actually does turn out to have been harmful later.

So no, you should not take something merely because it's "probably harmless".

You are strawmanning what he said. What he said is much better summarized as if a substance has other beneficial effects and there is one that is potentially just placebo, then it is ok. That is completely different than your paraphrase.

> So no, you should not take something merely because it's "probably harmless"

You and I should not. But I'm also not going to bother correcting someneone taking homeopathy for a cold. It doesn't do anything. But unless it contains heavy metals, it also isn't hurting.

When I found ivermectin in my father's fridge, on the other hand, I absolutely asked him what he was taking it for. When I confirmed he's also taking real medicine, I dropped it provided he told his doctor in case there are drug interactions. (There aren't. Ivermectin is pretty safe. That's why the nutters congregate around it.)

But as you hint at in your second paragraph, people do take them instead of real medicine. So in that sense, it can be harmful.

Is there a particular rare kidney disorder that creatine is contraindicated for? Because kidney disease is not rare, something like 14% of US adults have kidney disease.

My lay person understanding is that supplemental creatine screws with a common lab test to screen for kidney problems. Let your physician know if you are taking any supplements so they can interpret your lab test results appropriately or order different tests.

https://www.kidney.org/kidney-topics/creatinine

I don't know the specifics beyond the fact that your kidneys play a key role in both synthesizing natural creatine and filtering out creatine from your body, and as thus is generally not recommended as a supplement if you have any sort of kidney disorder.

Creatine raises creatinine in kidney function tests. For a healthy person, this isn't a problem, but if you already have high creatinine (from a kidney problem), it makes it harder to interpret test results.

This is basically "wanting" it to be true then it actually being there are so many variables and so many other things that even the minuscule benefit you gain from this heavily marketed science backed supplement could get completely offset by your other lifestyle problem like poor inconsistent sleep. I at one point was deep in this "optimizing" phase listening to all these pseduo-intellectual channels like "What I've Learned" and articles like the one linked and they always overblow the finding to support some conclusion. I tried creatine for full year and didn't felt any different no extra 20% energy nothing still fatigued after work same with fish oils all this stuff is at best either placebo or in case of creatine only tiny benefits that might only be felt by someone really at peak of their training.

The actual things that I now swear by and actually help is consistent sleep of whatever hours that doesn't make you feel sleepy in the day/night (depending on shift) since actual consistency matters more then timing and also in case of workouts really balancing the fatigue to intensity ratio. I understood this late and thought one should always push hard but there needs to be a balance. It's kind of like how cheetah can run really fast but only for 20-30 seconds and then it needs a 30 minute reset period or something. So if you go to failure or always at very high intensity it affects later sets and increases recovery period and in a way driving down overall weekly sets/volume which is main hypertrophy factor.

It’s not completely harmless, for me it causes heart palpitations that are so bad my watch tells me I’m in atrial fibrillation. Yes I know this sounds crazy. I’ve ruled everything else out. No, it is not creatine mixed with caffeine or whatever. Just pure creatine. No, I don’t have any other heart issues. I can give myself an irregular heartbeat just by having some creatine. It doesn’t happen otherwise. I have seen a cardiologist, he said it’s rare but it is theoretically possible.

Given creatine is present in several foods, do you have an intolerance to those as well as creatine in supplement form? Curious if it's a simple allergy or the dosage.

Creatine breaks when cooked, so for the most part he's not gonna get too much from eating a steak or whatever. Taking 5g/day of pure creatine to satiate your stores might be too much for this particular individual. Anyway, the parent produces its own creatine as well!

> Creatine breaks when cooked

Into what?

Smaller pieces, probably

Have you ruled out your supply is contaminated with something that causes your side effects?

That might be relatively likely.

Scientifically interesting, but it's kind of the same problem whether supplements are dangerous on their own or from contamination. Given how little value an unnecessary medication is it makes no sense to test it to eliminate a risk that is also eliminated by not taking it.

No, I haven’t, I could theoretically try a new brand and see what happens

> (2) it has a bunch of clearly measurable positive effects.

Clearly measurably neutrally and scientifically -- or clearly measurable as measured by supplement company funding studies or cherry-picked by health influencers?

and the thing people seem to not understand: how exactly do you _expect_ to be able to notice this change? Its something that happens after you take it for a prolonged period of time (>7days) and only has a minor/medium effect.

It doesn't make you a genius. I think a better view on it is that it may mitigate some of the adhs symptoms (at least for me).

I can keep on track for a significantly longer time since ive started supplementing with it at ~15g/day - and while i dont feel a difference, i can observe it when actually paying attention to what i do / how often i drift off etc.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com