Creatine: A Hack To Get Jacked?

Speaker 1 Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman and you're listening to Science Versus.

Speaker 2 Today on the show, we're pitting facts against fitness buffs.

Speaker 4 Want to work out harder? Increase your stamina, endurance? Scientifically formulate it to get results. Expect more from workouts.

Speaker 4 Aim for greatness.

Speaker 6 And you know how we're going to get that that greatness from our workouts?

Speaker 8 With one supplement that everyone is talking about.

Speaker 9 This is creatine.

Speaker 4 Take creatine. How important creatine supplementation is.

Speaker 8 A wonderful, wonderful supplement.

Speaker 11 It's the best thing ever.

Speaker 7 Creatine.

Speaker 11 It's huge if you want to get huge.

Speaker 13 People are saying that if you want to build muscles, you have to take this.

Speaker 4 Here's how to use creatine to get bigger and stronger.

Speaker 15 You're a gym girly with a flat ass.

Speaker 16 I have a supplement that will help.

Speaker 4 Creatine, creatine.

Speaker 17 Girl, creatine made that booty grow.

Speaker 18 But it's not just about your booty and muscles.

Speaker 13 More and more, we're hearing that creatine can also boost your brain power, too.

Speaker 19 There's a lot of like cognitive benefits, and one of the big ones that they've found recently is performance when sleep deprived.

Speaker 20 The data is unbelievable and it improves mood and memory. That's extraordinary.
Mary, Mary, Mary, Mary, Mary.

Speaker 17 Over and over again, influencers, podcasters are saying that the studies on creatine are amazing.

Speaker 11 You'll hear things like, there's 50 years of data to show that it works and it's safe.

Speaker 1 And some folks on our team actually got so excited about the hyper that they have started to give it a go.

Speaker 23 But then, more recently, there's been some not so exciting headlines about this supplement.

Speaker 22 Like, quote, creatine may not build more muscle after all, study suggests. Another one: shocking new study challenges muscle-building hype.

Speaker 14 So, what's going on here?

Speaker 24 Should you take creatine or not?

Speaker 12 Will it boost your brawn and your brain?

Speaker 14 That is on today's show.

Speaker 4 When it comes to creatine, there's a lot of girl creatine made that booty grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow.

Speaker 23 But then, there's science.

Speaker 1 Science versus creatine is coming up just after the break.

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Speaker 18 Welcome back today on the show.

Speaker 1 Creatin', can it help you get that big booty, those big muscles, and that big brain?

Speaker 14 That's what we're asking today. Producer Michelle Dang is here to tell us all about it.

Speaker 31 Hey, Michelle.

Speaker 26 Hey, Wendy.

Speaker 12 So what got you so excited about learning all the facts on creatin?

Speaker 26 Well, I want to build muscle. Yeah.
And I just kept hearing that creatine is like the supplement to take.

Speaker 26 And I figured like research is me search.

Speaker 26 So let's find out if the hype is real love it okay so first up just very very basic question what exactly is creatin some people think it's a steroid but it's not it's actually something our body naturally makes from food when you eat things like meat or fish your body pulls together amino acids from it to actually create creatine but people take supplements like that white powder you buy in the store because they want more of this stuff so let's jump into the claims.

Speaker 12 And I want to start with the muscles. Because online, you see these folks with these huge muscles.

Speaker 24 Is created doing the heavy lifting here?

Speaker 26 Yeah.

Speaker 26 Speaking of huge muscles, we got to go talk to Darren Willoughby, who's a professor of anatomy at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas.

Speaker 26 Not just any exercise nerd. Darren's also a former bodybuilder, which means lots of skimpy outfits.
What's it like to be up there with no clothes on?

Speaker 4 Actually, it wasn't stressful for me at all. I've always been a pretty modest, humble individual.
But when it comes time to come on stage, the fact that, you know,

Speaker 4 I've got these next-to-nothing posing trunks on, I mean, because I've worked so hard, you know, and you just, you want to show it off.

Speaker 26 Let me show you what he looked like last time he won a competition. This was back in 2018.

Speaker 24 Wow, I mean, he's huge.

Speaker 32 He's huge.

Speaker 28 I mean, he looks like those classic images of Adol Schwarzenegger.

Speaker 1 All right, I trust that this guy knows how to build some muscles.

Speaker 26 Yeah, so Darren's been studying creatine for a while.

Speaker 26 It was back in the 90s. He started hearing whispers about creatine's powers.

Speaker 4 Obviously, I'm going to be interested in that.

Speaker 26 So, Darren wanted to know: does creatine actually work? Does it build muscle?

Speaker 26 So, to find out, he got 22 men, split them into two groups. One got creatine and one got placebo.
And for three months, every few days, they did this lower body workout, lots of leg presses.

Speaker 26 But they took it a step further and looked inside the muscles themselves by grabbing a giant needle and ramming it into their upper thigh.

Speaker 26 He showed me what one of these looked like.

Speaker 4 It's hollow, but it's very sharp on the end. And then this thing is just a chopper.
So I would just take it and just

Speaker 4 push it down two or three, two or three times.

Speaker 26 It's kind of like a plunger?

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 4 A piece of muscle will actually pooch into that window and that chopper just then just cuts it right off and saves it.

Speaker 26 They use an anesthetic, but Darren says that this basically feels like getting punched in the thigh.

Speaker 33 So when he got the muscle biopsies, did he see a difference between the people who were taking creatin and those who weren't?

Speaker 26 Yes, he did see a difference

Speaker 26 so he took out a bit of muscle from them did this chemical analysis and found more of these muscle proteins one called myosin heavy chain and another one called myofibr protein

Speaker 26 and there was more of this stuff in the people that took creatine meaning that their muscles had grown indeed grown more.

Speaker 3 Oh, that's cool.

Speaker 22 He could see the actual muscle was getting bigger.

Speaker 26 Yeah, like the density of the muscles growing. You have more units of this

Speaker 26 microscopic muscle that's actually being grown and built. And the people in the study were feeling a bit stronger, too.

Speaker 4 The creatin group actually got stronger.

Speaker 4 It wasn't dramatic, but it was enough that it was certainly of impact.

Speaker 22 So how is creatin actually doing this?

Speaker 16 Is it building the muscle for you?

Speaker 26 Well, Darren said it's not physically building muscle for you. Instead, it works by getting you extra energy during your workout.

Speaker 26 So like as you're working out, you're rapidly using up fuel in your body, which is ATP or adenosine triphosphate. Uh-huh.

Speaker 26 And your body like eats it up really quickly, runs out of ATP, and then needs to recycle it to use it again.

Speaker 26 And what creatine does is help that recycling process happen faster.

Speaker 27 Interesting.

Speaker 26 Yeah. And another really interesting thing that Darren's study tried to sort out is this question of whether creatine actually helped grow muscles or if maybe it just kind of makes them look bigger.

Speaker 27 What do you mean?

Speaker 26 It's because of this other thing creatine can do in our bodies. So when we bring a bunch of creatine into our muscles, it can bring water in with it.
Here's Darren.

Speaker 4 It pulls water out of the bloodstream into the muscle cell.

Speaker 26 Which would mean maybe your muscles get plumped up, but you're sort of tricked into thinking it's muscle gain when it's really just this water that's hanging around in there.

Speaker 34 Oh, okay.

Speaker 22 But Darren's study showed, no, it's not just that.

Speaker 16 Actual muscle was growing, right?

Speaker 26 Exactly. It looked like at least some of the gain was real muscle.
And some studies in older folks have also found that creatine really can help build muscle too.

Speaker 1 But then there's been these headlines lately saying that creatine might not help build muscle.

Speaker 12 So what is going on here?

Speaker 26 Well, this new study came out suggesting that the question of how much of the gains you see with creatine are water weight versus actual muscle growth hasn't been fully solved.

Speaker 26 But, you know, we spoke to the author of the study and he basically told us that when you zoom out and look at the bulk of studies on creatine, it shows creatine can help build muscle.

Speaker 26 But the question is, how much?

Speaker 26 So did you notice that Darren said that even in his study when creatine made people stronger, it wasn't a dramatic difference?

Speaker 33 Yes.

Speaker 26 That's what a lot of these studies find. Creatine can work, but it's not this huge change.
Like it's not a night and day difference from how you were working out before.

Speaker 26 Darren told me maybe I'll help you do like two to three extra reps, like a few extra push-ups or lifts per set at the gym.

Speaker 4 Maybe just a meathead in the gym like me, and you get a couple of extra reps per set.

Speaker 26 And one review of 10 studies that followed people for different times, about a week all the way up to a year, imaged their muscles and found that creatine compared to placebo increased the thickness of their muscles by about a tenth of a centimeter.

Speaker 22 A tenth of a centimeter more muscle.

Speaker 25 That's like

Speaker 12 a tenth of a belly button.

Speaker 26 Right, so these differences are not huge. And, you know, these extra reps you can do thanks to creatine, it might add up for some people.
Darren reckons it's worth trying. Right.

Speaker 26 But big picture here. Let me tell you about the Olympics.
They have this huge list of banned substances. You can't use steroids or this and that,

Speaker 26 but you can use creatine. It is not a banned substance.

Speaker 5 Oh,

Speaker 24 it is not a banned substance.

Speaker 26 Yeah, it's not a banned substance. And some have suggested that this is because it's a naturally occurring substance that the body makes from food.

Speaker 26 However, we also reached out to the World Anti-Doping Agency and asked them, like, why isn't this stuff banned? And they told us there's this criteria for banning substances.

Speaker 26 One is, quote, it has the potential to enhance sport performance.

Speaker 6 Yes, which you would think if it's building muscle, it obviously has the potential to enhance your sport performance.

Speaker 26 Yes. Yes.
And they told us that creatine does not satisfy that.

Speaker 34 Criteria.

Speaker 3 Interesting.

Speaker 26 We followed up and said, you know, triple checking here.

Speaker 26 Are you sure creatine does not have the potential to enhance sport performance? And they wrote back, it is not considered sufficiently performance enhancing.

Speaker 6 That is

Speaker 12 very interesting because if creatine did,

Speaker 11 what the internet really makes it sound like it does, which is you take it and you become the Hulk in a few months.

Speaker 31 There's no way the Olympics would allow it.

Speaker 12 But the fact that they're saying not sufficiently performance enhancing, right?

Speaker 33 So, you know, maybe it helps a little, but we don't care.

Speaker 7 Go for it.

Speaker 26 Exactly. Even the U.S.
Anti-Doping Agency, which also doesn't ban creatine, says,

Speaker 26 quote, although creatine can have a small effect on performance, the effects are not guaranteed, end quote.

Speaker 26 And this takes us to another really important point about creatine. The reason those effects are not guaranteed

Speaker 26 is that we know from the research, there are some people who don't respond to creatine. So people who don't even get those small benefits that we talked about earlier.

Speaker 26 For example, there was one small study that found about one in four men didn't respond. And we think it might be even worse for women.

Speaker 3 Oh, how come?

Speaker 26 Maybe because the hormone fluctuations with the menstrual cycle affect our uptake of creatine, but we're not really sure yet. And well, Wendy.

Speaker 26 I've been taking creatine and Blythe, our editor, has also been taking creatine. And speaking of all this like booty growing, she's been doing this workout program called the Brazilian Booty Lift.

Speaker 31 Okay.

Speaker 14 And so is

Speaker 34 dare I ask how's Vlad's booty going?

Speaker 26 Yeah.

Speaker 26 Here's a snippet of how it's going.

Speaker 26 Do you feel any differently at the gym? Five weeks in.

Speaker 29 No.

Speaker 26 Oh.

Speaker 29 Yeah, I totally log it and I was like, let me see if I'm lifting any more weight for the exact same workout than I was in January or even February, right?

Speaker 29 Well, if creatine is doing anything, you know, I would think I would be like putting more weight or being feeling stronger.

Speaker 8 And I looked at the pounds and it's like basically the same.

Speaker 29 I was like, ah, can I, can I do more weight on this inclined press, like pushing my arms above my head? And I just like,

Speaker 26 no.

Speaker 17 No, I just can't. I really can't push the weight up there.

Speaker 26 Michelle, it's not working.

Speaker 26 And, you know, I've been taking it too. And me and Blythe were were just an NF2.

Speaker 26 But I haven't noticed a difference either while taking creatine.

Speaker 26 But just because we haven't experienced a difference doesn't mean like you, listener, won't. So.

Speaker 1 But then, I mean, just one more question on this muscle thing. What do you make of these videos where people

Speaker 3 get

Speaker 12 so huge? Like they'll have this before and after.

Speaker 22 And they say the only thing that's changed is creatine.

Speaker 3 why are they so swole all of a sudden?

Speaker 26 Well, one, they could be exaggerating like how, how fast it took them, but it's also possible that some people like are responding really well to creatine, but kind of in a psychological way too.

Speaker 26 Darren told me that when you go to workout, you could be physically working harder because you think like, oh my God, this creatine is amazing. Here's Darren.

Speaker 4 A lot of times that's because they're actually training harder or working harder, hoping that they're really going to get an impact from the supplement.

Speaker 4 So in the end, they have improved performance, period. That's all that matters, right? Whether it's a placebo effect or where it comes from creatin.

Speaker 30 Game on.

Speaker 24 All right, so here's where we're at with creatine and building muscle.

Speaker 12 It does have the potential to help you build muscle through either giving you more energy to do more reps because you have more ATP to play with

Speaker 12 or because it's working on your mind.

Speaker 35 But it's not magic.

Speaker 24 Some people don't respond at all.

Speaker 12 And even if you do respond, for most of us, it's not going to make us shredded.

Speaker 26 Exactly.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 1 After the break, forget brawn.

Speaker 21 It's time to look at the brain.

Speaker 7 People are saying that creatin can do remarkable things to boost your brain power. Could they be right?

Speaker 26 Yes, scientists are getting excited here.

Speaker 36 Whoa, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 36 Most for me, totally amazing.

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Speaker 24 Welcome back.

Speaker 1 We're looking at the supplement creatine and we're going to find out if it can help our brain, which I'm seeing a lot of buzz about right now that, you know, creatine is going to help with your cognition and memory, particularly when you're sleep deprived.

Speaker 26 Yeah. Now, this idea isn't totally wild.

Speaker 26 Remember how creatine works to help you build muscle because you're better at recycling that fuel, ATP?

Speaker 35 Yes, that's right.

Speaker 1 You have more fuel, then you have more energy, you can do more reps, yes.

Speaker 26 Yeah, well, the brain also uses ATP.

Speaker 26 So Ali Gorgian Ajad, a physicist from the Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine, Germany, figured.

Speaker 36 We thought, okay, when that is working for the muscles, why not for the brain?

Speaker 26 So Ali wanted to know if creatine could really boost your brain power. And for this study, he wanted to get the brain when it's at its worst and really needs that fuel.

Speaker 36 When it is totally exhausted, totally stressed.

Speaker 26 And the totally exhausted, totally stressed state that he studied was the sleep-deprived brain.

Speaker 24 Ugh, this study is, this, it's going to get rough.

Speaker 3 Uh-huh.

Speaker 26 And so one evening, Ali brought 15 people into the lab. and ran a bunch of tests on them.
In one of these tests, he's looking at reaction times.

Speaker 26 So a green dot lights up on a screen, and you have to press a clicker as soon as you see it.

Speaker 30 But you get tired and more tired, and you get really crappy at this.

Speaker 2 Yes, I know.

Speaker 22 I've done this test actually while sleep deprived, and you'd think it would be easy because you just see this damn green dot, but you're just, you know, missing the clicker at points.

Speaker 26 Yeah.

Speaker 26 So there's also memory tests he did,

Speaker 26 stuff like that. And then Ali had to make sure that these folks didn't sleep.
And for those who were struggling to stay awake, he had a cheeky trick.

Speaker 36 I find out what controversial thematic issues are, and I take the opposite position.

Speaker 26 You debated about politics.

Speaker 36 Yeah, about politics, exactly.

Speaker 3 Oh my gosh, I couldn't imagine anything worse than having political discussions with someone at three, four, five in the morning where everyone's just going bonkers at that point.

Speaker 26 On top of the annoying chats throughout the night, Ollie's taking MRI scans and repeating those cognitive tests once at midnight, at 2 a.m. and at 4 a.m.

Speaker 26 And, you know, these people are really dedicated. They all came into the lab to do this on a second night again.

Speaker 26 So each person got one night on creatine, another on placebo. They didn't know which they were getting each time.

Speaker 11 Okay, it is time to find out.

Speaker 1 Did they do better at the cognitive tests with creatine?

Speaker 26 Well, very on theme. It was late at night when Ali tallied up the results and he got so excited.

Speaker 26 Creatine was actually doing something.

Speaker 36 And that is a totally amazing moment. Yes, okay, wow, cool.
Yeah, just imagine it was about 1 a.m. or something like that.
2 a.m.

Speaker 36 And I saw, wow, well, I didn't know

Speaker 36 all the people were sleeping here. I didn't know

Speaker 36 whom to say. So it was for me totally amazing, but I have to keep the celebration for myself for the first time.

Speaker 36 But next day, I told it to the colleagues and there we celebrated that.

Speaker 26 Those taking creatine on average did significantly better at both the memory test and the clicker test.

Speaker 36 Surprising was the speed in processing time. They were all extremely faster.

Speaker 39 Wow, extremely faster.

Speaker 26 Through those MRI scans, Ali was also able to see that brain creatine levels increased and went up over time,

Speaker 26 and that the brain was using them up throughout the night.

Speaker 12 That's so cool that they could see it in the...

Speaker 39 in the brain scanners.

Speaker 26 Yeah, so he had total proof that this is what was happening.

Speaker 26 But you have to know that Ali gave the people in the study a huge dose. Most people suggest that you need to take around like five grams a day.
He gave them around five times that.

Speaker 36 Yeah, this is about 20 to 30 grams. Just imagine.
This is like a half, half glass

Speaker 5 of this white powder.

Speaker 36 It's a lot. It tastes also not good.

Speaker 3 Yeah. But hey, it worked.

Speaker 26 And Ali's study has created this huge buzz online. You've got folks like Joe Rogan talking about it, but it is a small study.

Speaker 26 And so before I started smashing half a glass of white powder, I went hunting for other studies looking into creatine in the brain and came across this very interesting one by Julia Fabian Sankuler.

Speaker 40 I'm Fabien, and I'm a psychology researcher.

Speaker 26 At the University of Bonn, also in Germany. So Fabian and her team recruited 123 healthy people and had them take creatine for six weeks.

Speaker 26 She also had those same people take placebo for six weeks to compare. And Fabian thinks this is the largest study on creatine supplementation and the brain that we have so far.

Speaker 26 She did a bunch of cognitive tests on them, stuff like you heard before, things that look at memory, but also intelligence and reasoning.

Speaker 26 For example, they did this one test called the backward digit span test.

Speaker 40 I tell you a few numbers. I start with two, just two, and then you have to say them back in reverse order.

Speaker 26 Would you like to try it out, Wendy?

Speaker 24 Sure, sure.

Speaker 26 Okay, I'm going to give you digits. You have to repeat it back to me, but backwards.
Okay.

Speaker 26 And I'm going to add a digit until you mess up.

Speaker 27 Okay, okay.

Speaker 3 Two.

Speaker 31 Two.

Speaker 26 Two, six.

Speaker 7 Six, two.

Speaker 26 Two, six, three.

Speaker 7 Three, six, two.

Speaker 26 Two, six, three, one.

Speaker 7 One, six, three, two.

Speaker 26 Okay, you messed up.

Speaker 31 Two, three.

Speaker 24 It was two, three, wasn't it?

Speaker 26 So you did almost average. On average, people can do about five digits pretty well.

Speaker 30 Uh-huh.

Speaker 32 So if I took creatine, according to Fabian's study, would I do better?

Speaker 26 So Fabian looked at the results before and after creatine.

Speaker 26 And on average, no, it didn't help. Some people got a little boost compared to when they were on the placebo, but overall, it wasn't statistically significant.

Speaker 5 Aww.

Speaker 26 Yeah.

Speaker 26 So people online say it's amazing, brings you this giant boost in mental clarity and energy.

Speaker 26 Fabian says you should know it's not anywhere near that big of a jump. Like suddenly they can do like quantum physics.

Speaker 40 No, definitely not quantum physics. I'm not sure how easy it would be to notice.

Speaker 7 She's saying, I'm not sure how easy it would be to notice.

Speaker 26 Right. And I've been taking it.
Blife has been taking it. We've been exercising and we haven't really noticed much of anything.
Here's Blythe. How do you feel mentally? Do you feel any different

Speaker 26 from before, before you took creatine to now?

Speaker 29 No, not whatsoever. Not remotely.
Yeah, no, I feel no different.

Speaker 29 Zero, zero, zero across the board on increased memory, cognition, energy.

Speaker 12 I'm not noticing that.

Speaker 35 So does this mean this claim about creatine?

Speaker 33 I mean, you have Ali's study that said yes,

Speaker 33 then Fabian's larger study that says no.

Speaker 24 What do we make of this?

Speaker 26 So Ali's study was really when the brain was at its worst, right?

Speaker 3 Right. Everyone was sleep deprived.

Speaker 26 And maybe that's where creatine does its best work for the brain, because there's been other studies showing that creatine can help with the brain and other stressed out states, like helping with recovery after a stroke or concussion, and maybe even depression.

Speaker 26 A study published just this year on 100 folks with pretty nasty depression found that taking creatine along with cognitive behavioral therapy helped folks more than just CBT and a placebo.

Speaker 18 Huh, interesting.

Speaker 26 And even just for older folks, a recent review suggested that maybe it's more effective in boosting the memory of older adults compared to younger adults.

Speaker 26 But as for those online influencers who are like, everybody take this, everybody boost your brain, do a better job at work, that's probably overstated.

Speaker 28 I guess, even though it's not going to turn you into a quantum physicist,

Speaker 28 just the fact that, you know, maybe if you're sleep deprived, it could help your brain, or if you have depression, maybe it could help early research suggesting it's exciting.

Speaker 33 Plus those small benefits that you see to your muscles.

Speaker 11 I mean, I'm not kicking this supplement out of bed just yet, but

Speaker 24 the last question is, what are the risks of taking it?

Speaker 26 So we know from the hundreds of studies on creatine that it's safe on the recommended dose, three to five grams a day.

Speaker 26 One thing on the internet I hear a lot that people are worried about is putting on weight and bloating.

Speaker 26 We think this sometimes happens because, as you heard before, creatine does this thing where it brings water into muscle cells.

Speaker 26 So muscles around your body are holding on to a bit more water than it normally would. This can lead to that bloaty feeling.
And that water retention might lead to a bit of weight gain on the scales.

Speaker 31 Aha, okay.

Speaker 26 But if this happens to you, you should feel back to normal pretty quickly.

Speaker 31 Okay.

Speaker 26 There's also this big idea that you'll get dehydrated from creatine. So people online say like drink tons of water to make up for this.

Speaker 26 But Darren, our bodybuilder, says you don't have to worry about this.

Speaker 4 There's no concerns with any types of ongoing dehydration. And there have been a number of studies that have shown that also to be true.

Speaker 26 Just quickly, some people don't seem to digest creatine very well.

Speaker 26 You can get a bit of diarrhea or feel uncomfortable in your gut. Darren is actually one of these people.

Speaker 26 He said he gets gassy on creatine and he's tried all kinds of different forms of creatine to help, but nothing did.

Speaker 26 And also, if you're someone who has any kind of kidney conditions, you should maybe, you maybe shouldn't take creatine. because it's going to give your kidneys a lot of extra work.

Speaker 26 But if your kidneys are healthy, that three to five gram dose should be perfectly fine for you.

Speaker 25 That's great.

Speaker 26 And if you do want to try this for your muscles, there's no need to be taking more than the recommended dose.

Speaker 22 Oh, because people talk about taking a ton of this stuff when you first start, that loading phase.

Speaker 26 Yeah, people claim you should take this loading phase of 20 to 25 grams of creatine a day for a week. so that you saturate your muscles faster.

Speaker 26 And then you drop down to that lower dose. But Darren's actually said you don't need to do this.
It's not necessary.

Speaker 26 He did a study on this looking at how much creatine came out of people's P when they started their creatine measurements with a loading phase.

Speaker 4 So after like four days, the subjects were urinating out large amounts of their creatine dose. After about four days, the muscle is saturated.

Speaker 26 So that

Speaker 26 convention that it takes like like weeks to become saturated?

Speaker 4 No, that's not true.

Speaker 30 Not true at all.

Speaker 25 Oh, okay.

Speaker 1 So forget the loading phase. You're just going to pee it out.
Pee out all this excess creatine. Your muscles don't need it.

Speaker 26 Yeah. But bottom line, capping off this episode here, having done the research,

Speaker 26 for me, creatine isn't mind-blowing, but it's safe and it might boost some muscle. So I think it might be a helpful tool in the gym.

Speaker 23 I plan to keep trying it out and see if it works for me.

Speaker 33 Huh. Okay.

Speaker 7 I mean, even though some of the benefits are definitely overstated,

Speaker 12 I will say, Michelle,

Speaker 1 it's probably the most optimistic conclusion we've had about a supplement in a long time.

Speaker 3 So thank you.

Speaker 26 Thanks, Bundy.

Speaker 22 So how many citations are in this week's episode?

Speaker 26 Bundy, there are 65 citations.

Speaker 12 65 citations. Yes.

Speaker 33 And if people want to see them in all of their glory, where should they go?

Speaker 26 Please check out our transcript in the show notes.

Speaker 33 Michelle, happy birthday.

Speaker 26 Happy birthday to

Speaker 3 science versus

Speaker 32 science versus science versus 10 years old.

Speaker 24 Crazy. This show's been going for 10 years.

Speaker 3 It's bonkers.

Speaker 26 Well, you've been here for all those 10 years.

Speaker 3 How are you feeling?

Speaker 7 What is most funny to me is how things have changed a lot in the world and in the world of misinformation and in social media, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 35 But at the same time, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Speaker 33 And I love that the very first pilot episode of Science Versus, which in the future, I reckon we should put it down the feed because it's so funny.

Speaker 1 It's about the paleo diet.

Speaker 34 Ooh.

Speaker 1 And next week, our episode is about the carnivore diet.

Speaker 30 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 12 Yeah, that is very nice symmetry to me.

Speaker 26 Oh, and there's something that you wanted to ask the audience about, right? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, if

Speaker 24 you guys want to send us a message or feels weird to do you want to do you want to send me a happy birthday message?

Speaker 7 No, but you know, in a future episode, we're going to kind of be pulling together some fun birthday stuff.

Speaker 7 And we would love to hear from you about

Speaker 33 how you felt about listening to Sites Versus over these years.

Speaker 24 If there was like an episode that changed what you do

Speaker 31 or

Speaker 24 a pun that still makes you laugh.

Speaker 35 That seems unlikely.

Speaker 1 But we would just love to hear from you.

Speaker 26 Yeah, so people should send us a voicemail or even a video to our email at scienceversteam at gmail.com. Or if you're in the U.S., you can call us and leave a voicemail at 774-481-1238.

Speaker 26 Those two things will be in our show notes. So head over there and send us a message.

Speaker 31 All right.

Speaker 1 See you soon, Michelle.

Speaker 26 See ya. Bye.
Boy.

Speaker 1 This episode was produced by Michelle Dang with help from me, Wendy Zuckerman, Meryl Horn, Rose Rimmler, and Aketi Foster Keys.

Speaker 7 We're edited by Blythe Terrell.

Speaker 16 Fact-checking by Marlow Starling.

Speaker 27 Mix and sound design by Bobby Lorde.

Speaker 16 Music written by Emma Munger, So Wiley, Peter Leonard, Bumi Hidaka, and Bobby Lorde.

Speaker 1 A special thanks to all of the researchers that we reached out to, including Dr.

Speaker 2 Imtiaz Desai and Professor Phil Chilibeck.

Speaker 28 Thanks to Larry Lee and Lee Physical Therapy and Wellness.

Speaker 1 Science Versus is a Spotify Studios original.

Speaker 21 Listen to us for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 33 We are everywhere.

Speaker 1 But if you are listening on Spotify, you could follow us and tap the bell icon so you get notifications when new episodes come out.

Speaker 1 And on whatever app you are listening on, please give us a five-star review if you like what we're doing because it helps people find the show. I'm Wendy Zuckerman.

Speaker 16 Back to you next time.