Thread: Creatine...any issues with heart?

Originally Posted by nkira

Hi,

Just wanted to know if there is any link between creatine and blood pressure.

Nkira

Maybe someone knows more than I do about it, but I would think that there is no correlation as long as its just creatine. If you are talking about preworkout drinks containing creatine,arginine, and caffeine, then I would definitely see it having an effect on blood pressure.

Creatine is linked with heart-health.

There is nothing real that suggest that there is any cardiac problems with Creatine supplementation, this of course being that you have no cardiac problems or specific blood chem that may change that. Best thing is to go to a certified specialist.

Whatever people who work for companies, shops or gyms that sell creatine will tell you (because theyre allowed to tell you because of shitty holes in the law) atleast some people do experience faster heart rates and raised blood pressure due to creatine intake-however lack of evidence in studies(or lack of studies) means that creatine pushers do not have to tell you that it can.

On the subject of the law and creatine, in newzealand by law creatine has to have on the label that if not enough water is consumed during creatine use then the creatine will draw the water from other organs in the body, ask that to any seller in europe or usa and they will laugh at you and try and make you feel stupid for thinking that, then try and tell you why you realy need creatine.

Care to explain to me the mechanism through which increasing cellular CP increases heart rate? Because I have never encountered this in anyone I've known who has used creatine monohydrate.

Originally Posted by Dodge

Whatever people who work for companies, shops or gyms that sell creatine will tell you (because theyre allowed to tell you because of shitty holes in the law) atleast some people do experience faster heart rates and raised blood pressure due to creatine intake-however lack of evidence in studies(or lack of studies) means that creatine pushers do not have to tell you that it can.

Any kind of source available for this?

Nothing comes to mind and a cursory glance over at pubmed doesn't come up with anything about creatine and its effects on blood pressure but as Dodge said, creatine has an osmotic effect by drawing fluid into the muscle cells. By extension i would hypothesize that if a person is somewhat dehydrated the osmotic effect on fluid leading to decreased blood volume might be have an effect on blood pressure (hypotension or possibly orthostatic hypotension). Once again though, there is no evidence and it would be interesting to read a study on this.

There is evidence that it settles down tachycardia:
St. Thomas' Hospital Cardioplegia: Enhanced Protection With Exogenous Creatine Phosphate -- Chambers et al. 61 (1): 67 -- The Annals of Thoracic Surgery

Lots of evidence, actually.

Wow, never thought there would be a connection. I suppose a quick google search may have showed otherwise.

The single, 2005 paper I found on pubmed that linked fibrillation to creatine use was anecdotal - we do not know the type or amount of supplement he was using, and there may easily have been other substances in the product he consumed.

Hardly compelling. "Yeah, there's this guy, and he said he ONLY took creatine, and his heart was racing, so we totally believed it was Teh Creatine and therefore Teh Creatine is Teh Devil!!111!!! lolzors!!!11!!!"

Originally Posted by Built

There is evidence that it settles down tachycardia:
St. Thomas' Hospital Cardioplegia: Enhanced Protection With Exogenous Creatine Phosphate -- Chambers et al. 61 (1): 67 -- The Annals of Thoracic Surgery

Lots of evidence, actually.

Good links. It makes complete sense that in an ischemic myocardium, an increase in an energy producing substrate would aid in contraction thus reducing the need for the body to 'resort' to arrhythmias (specifically tachycardia in this case) to produce adequate cardiac output/tissue perfusion. Although quiet different mechanisms, a medication called Digoxin works much the same way, it decreases heart rate but makes the individual contractions stronger thus increasing CO/perfusion.

Although i would like to see some studies done on healthy individuals (all of those people had some sort of disease process which is not always a situation that can be extrapolated to the general population). It would be interesting for them to shoot people up with creatine and follow a bunch of bio markers (atleast vitals, but maybe some other chemical markers) to get a good overview of effects.

All the stuff i'm saying is not really backed up by evidence just rattling stuff off from the top of my head to make some sense of it, but i really doubt that creatine will cause a noticeable or significant negative impact on cardiovascular status/function, unless, as previously stated, the person is in a dehydrated state which can be potentiated by creatine intake (dehydration -> low blood volume -> low BP -> decreased tissue perfusion -> compensatory tachycardia).

Well i know my body reacts to it......my BP spikes...So the 1st can is the last for me. So i am shying away from creatine.

I have spent more time than I should have on pubmed and cannot find anything that links hypertension and creatine supplementation.

nkira, what type of creatine did this to you, and how did you measure the increase in blood presure?

I used ON's Micronized Creatine..........Can you let me know the link to pubmed publication related to this issue? I would like to read it too.

I am not beginning to take creaine till I read some pubmed articles myself.....but i miss the nice effects of creatine.

Also i was not taking any other supplement with creatine...just to be clear.

Usually took it with ON's Pro Complex APS....In the morning and PWO.

And Built my sincere thanks for your time and effort that you spent on pubmed.....

Just to be sure, I just checked my BP (Have a Home BP Monitor, OMRON Make) Seems its on higher side 135-85-59 Pulse resting.

This is one more issue that bothers me......after working out (Weights + Cardio) for last 8 months i have lost 15lbs and my resting pulse id down to 59 from 83 but still by systolic & diastolic numbers are on higher side.....HATE THIS

I don't disagree the possibility of suffering from HI BP at the time I was on Creatine......Its also possible that i might have checked my BP after a long time & its might be a coincident that i was on creatine too....and my first reaction being "Creatine Increased my BP" as it was the only supplement i was taking at that time. This was around 2-3 months back.

All are welcome to criticize.....

Later on i started googling web to look for links between creatine & high BP, finally started a thread here.


Nkira

I knew I had this around in my library, it just took me a bit to find the real article. So here it is:

From the Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond:

" Creatine offers additional heart-health benefits, namely the ability to reduce blood levels of homocysteine. Homocysteine is an amino acid that has a structure similar to cysteine,although you should't mistake if for that very beneficial amino. Quite the contrary: Homocysteine degrades important structures within blood vessels and is associated with a higher risk of Cardiovascular disease. It also leads to high concentrations of asymetric dimethylarginine, a form of the amino acid arginine that interferes with its ability to produce nitric oxide and, therfore blood vessel dilation." Having elevated homocysteine levels may not only increase your risk of cardiovascular disease but also interfere with blood flow to your muscles during workouts amd minimize your ability to get a pump.

I hope this helps and answers your question.

Creatine dehydrates the body. Be damned sure to drink more water, or you will suffer.

The product seems to work but is totally overhyped, spend your money on something more worthwhile, such as whey powder or maybe real food.....

it did make me bigger when I took it, whether thorough water retention bloat , or imagination, or something else.....I do not know.

A review of performance enhancing drugs/supplements;

Popular Ergogenic Drugs and Supplements in Young Athletes -- Calfee and Fadale 117 (3): e577 -- Pediatrics

nkira, with all due respect your approach seems very far from systematic. It might be a language issue, or maybe you don't feel like typing everything out, but taking a random blood pressure and blaming it on creatine is very big jump in logic. Do you have baseline measurements (before taking creatine)? Were you taking your BP at the same time each day? Same position? How long have you been on the creatine? I as well have spent some time doing research and have come up with nothing. Now thats not to say that there isn't a link, there is just no data as far as i can see. Most research has focused on liver/renal function.

Parkinson's patients and they don't mention BP just renal function;
Long-term creatine supplementation is safe in aged...[Nutr Res. 2008] - PubMed Result

Some more stuff;
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=1 0999421&log$=activity

A review;
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15758854?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez. Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.P ubmed_Discovery_RA&linkpos=1&log$=relatedreviews&l ogdbfrom=pubmed

Once again there is nothing specifically about blood pressure and creatine but you'd think that someone would have caught it if there indeed was such an effect (especially in the CHF studies where it was found to increase positive outcomes, those patients are monitored closely).

EDIT: The last two that aren't working;

Sports Med. 2000 Sep;30(3):155-70.Links
Adverse effects of creatine supplementation: fact or fiction?

Poortmans JR, Francaux M.
Physiological Chemistry, Higher Institute of Physical Education and Readaptation, Free University of Brussels, Bruxelles, Belgium. jrpoortm@ulb.ac.be
The consumption of oral creatine monohydrate has become increasingly common among professional and amateur athletes. Despite numerous publications on the ergogenic effects of this naturally occurring substance, there is little information on the possible adverse effects of this supplement. The objectives of this review are to identify the scientific facts and contrast them with reports in the news media, which have repeatedly emphasised the health risks of creatine supplementation and do not hesitate to draw broad conclusions from individual case reports. Exogenous creatine supplements are often consumed by athletes in amounts of up to 20 g/day for a few days, followed by 1 to 10 g/day for weeks, months and even years. Usually, consumers do not report any adverse effects, but body mass increases. There are few reports that creatine supplementation has protective effects in heart, muscle and neurological diseases. Gastrointestinal disturbances and muscle cramps have been reported occasionally in healthy individuals, but the effects are anecdotal. Liver and kidney dysfunction have also been suggested on the basis of small changes in markers of organ function and of occasional case reports, but well controlled studies on the adverse effects of exogenous creatine supplementation are almost nonexistent. We have investigated liver changes during medium term (4 weeks) creatine supplementation in young athletes. None showed any evidence of dysfunction on the basis of serum enzymes and urea production. Short term (5 days), medium term (9 weeks) and long term (up to 5 years) oral creatine supplementation has been studied in small cohorts of athletes whose kidney function was monitored by clearance methods and urine protein excretion rate. We did not find any adverse effects on renal function. The present review is not intended to reach conclusions on the effect of creatine supplementation on sport performance, but we believe that there is no evidence for deleterious effects in healthy individuals. Nevertheless, idiosyncratic effects may occur when large amounts of an exogenous substance containing an amino group are consumed, with the consequent increased load on the liver and kidneys. Regular monitoring is compulsory to avoid any abnormal reactions during oral creatine supplementation.
PMID: 10999421 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

And;
J Sports Med Phys Fitness. 2004 Dec;44(4):411-6.Links
Is the use of oral creatine supplementation safe?

Bizzarini E, De Angelis L.
School of Sports Medicine, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy.
This review focuses on the potential side effects caused by oral creatine supplementation on gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, renal and liver functions. No strong evidence linking creatine supplementation to deterioration of these functions has been found. In fact, most reports on side effects, such as muscle cramping, gastrointestinal symptoms, changes in renal and hepatic laboratory values, remain anecdotal because the case studies do not represent well-controlled trials, so no causal relationship between creatine supplementation and these side-effects has yet been established. The only documented side effect is an increase in body mass. Furthermore, a possibly unexpected outcome related to creatine monohydrate ingestion is the amount of contaminants present that may be generated during the industrial production. Recently, controlled studies made to integrate the existing knowledge based on anecdotal reports on the side effects of creatine have indicated that, in healthy subjects, oral supplementation with creatine, even with long-term dosage, may be considered an effective and safe ergogenic aid. However, athletes should be educated as to proper dosing or to take creatine under medical supervision.
PMID: 15758854 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]