Creatine Expert: Creatine Is The Secret To Weight Loss

Summary

The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett

Episode: Creatine Expert: Creatine Is The Secret To Weight Loss
Guest: Dr. Darren Kandao
Date: June 15, 2026

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Overview

In this episode, Steven Bartlett dives deep with Dr. Darren Kandao—a leading expert and prolific researcher on creatine—dissecting the science, myths, and practicalities of creatine supplementation. The conversation explores creatine’s role far beyond muscle building: from cognitive enhancement and anti-aging to its potential in disease management and general wellbeing. Dr. Kandao provides evidence-based insights and busts persistent myths about safety, dosing, its relevance for all ages and genders, and why creatine is becoming a cornerstone in the longevity toolkit.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dr. Kandao’s Mission and Research Journey

• Mission: Promote health and longevity, free of disease ("to promote health and make people live longer, free of disease" [02:48]).
• Research Background: Over 120 papers published on creatine, 30–40 studies in his lab. Transitioned from glutamine research, finding it lacked significant effects, while creatine yielded profound improvements ("I started to take creatine... it's now the most research supplement out there" [04:40]).

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2. What is Creatine & Who Is It For?

• Physiological Role: Vital for cellular energy (ATP); most stored in muscle, synthesized in the liver and brain ([06:13]).
  • “Think of your muscle doing work... Creatine comes to the rescue to help maintain your energy currency.” – Dr. Kandao [05:21]
• Who Might Be Deficient:
  • People with rare synthesis disorders
  • Vegans/vegetarians (no dietary creatine; respond best to supplementation) ([06:48])
  • Older adults: natural stores decline with age, benefit significantly from supplementation ([22:06], [51:13])

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3. Mythbusting: Creatine Misconceptions

The Five Biggest Creatine Myths:

1. Kidney Damage:
   • Elevated creatinine is often a false positive and not indicative of damage ([08:29]).
   • “99 out of 100 times, it’s a false positive. There’s been randomized control trials... showing that creatine causes no detrimental effects to the kidneys.” [08:29]
2. Water Retention & ‘Bloating’:
   • Only occurs with loading phase; maintenance or microdosing negates this ([09:47]).
   • “After about the first week, that water’s inside our muscle... Now we’re volumizing the size of our muscle." [09:47]
3. Only for Men:
   • Profound benefits for women: strength, endurance, fat loss, and bone health ([12:05]).
   • “Females respond extremely robustly to creatine supplementation. They get profound benefits...” [12:05]
4. Hair Loss:
   • No credible evidence; older studies misunderstood ([12:44]).
5. Muscle Cramps:
   • In fact, creatine may reduce cramps and improve muscle hydration ([13:43]).

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4. Dosing Strategies: How Much for What?

Muscle

• 3–5g/day increases lean mass, performance, and strength (with consistent resistance training) ([18:54], [22:05])
• Loading phase (20g/day) saturates faster but not necessary
• Microdosing (smaller, split doses) reduces side effects ([23:59])

Bone Health

• 8–12g/day (with exercise) to slow bone mineral density loss, especially in postmenopausal women; no benefit without exercise ([25:44])

Brain and Cognitive Function

• Routine/Low Stress: Brain synthesizes most of its creatine ([29:18])
• Under Stress (sleep deprivation, shift work, exams):
  • 10–20g/day (higher doses may be necessary during acute stress) ([30:21], [32:03])
  • High acute doses (e.g., 20–30g before sleep deprivation) shown to boost performance in demanding tasks ([30:21])
  • “A healthy brain likely doesn’t need any creatine, but a stressed brain likely does. And the more stressed it is, the higher the dose seems to come into play.” [32:03]

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5. Types, Timing, and Quality of Creatine

• Creatine Monohydrate is the gold standard—most researched, safest, and effective ([20:19])
• Third-party tested products (look for “Creapure” and “NSF certified”) to ensure quality ([21:07])
• Timing: Any time of day; splitting dose (e.g., morning and during workout) often tolerated best and prevents GI issues ([23:59], [57:31])

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6. Creatine’s Benefits Across Life Stages & Populations

• Children/Adolescents: Safe at 1g/day or higher; supports bone and muscle development ([01:19], [56:29])
• Females, Incl. Menopause: Supports bone, muscle, and cognitive health during life transitions involving estrogen changes ([55:06])
• Older Adults: Combats age-related muscle and strength decline; aids functional independence ([18:54], [51:15])
• Pregnancy: Preliminary research indicates safety, but more evidence needed ([19:39])

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7. Cognitive Performance and Mental Health

• Improves performance under sleep deprivation and cognitive stress, e.g., exam performance, complex tasks ([36:18])
• Clinical research: Adjunct in depression improves remission rates ([44:20]).
  • “Adding 5 grams of creatine to their daily antidepressant doubled their remission rate over eight weeks.” [44:10]
• Emerging role in Alzheimer’s, concussion recovery, and PTSD ([41:29], [43:39])
• “It doesn’t boost the brain, it likely just brings those levels back up to normal levels before stress, and it might give you a little bit more.” [37:01]

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8. Inflammation, Recovery, & Weight Management

• Anti-inflammatory: Reduces exercise-induced and systemic inflammation, especially in endurance sports ([41:24])
• Weight loss/fat reduction: Indirect; by increasing lean mass and metabolic rate ([62:54])
• Sleep quality: May increase sleep duration in athletes ([45:09])
• Rehabilitation/Recovery: Accelerates rehab post-injury ([16:15])

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9. Practical Tips for Supplementation and Consistency

• Adherence: Put creatine where you see it daily (desk, next to coffee machine), select the form you’ll use (powder, gummies, mixed in drinks/food) ([63:21])
• Slow onset: Muscle benefits in weeks; cognitive effects noticeable acutely only at high/stress-driven doses ([64:58])
• Spreading dose: Small, frequent dosages improve retention and reduce side-effects ([57:45])

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10. Weight Training, Cardiovascular Exercise, and Nutrition

• Weight Training: Most important lifestyle habit for healthy aging; minimal dose: 2–3x/week, full-body ([46:46], [49:59])
  • “If you were to choose one thing to do today, it’s exercise. And the only form... that really maintains muscle is weight-bearing or resistance training.” [52:15]
• Cardio Still Matters: But not a substitute for strength maintenance ([48:56])
• Diet: Protein is critical, especially with creatine for muscle/performance ([53:03])
• Toolbox Analogy: Weight training is the “hammer,” sleep/cardio the “screwdriver,” creatine is the multitool ([46:41])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On stress and cognitive load:

  • "Most people fall into this stressed environment, and if they're not getting enough creatine... that's why this big explosion on let's take more to check off all the boxes." – Dr. Kandao [32:03]

• On creatine safety:

  • "The safety profile is exceptional. Over 25,000 cases... even over 10 grams a day for many years has been very, very safe and effective." – Dr. Kandao [56:48]

• On aging:

  • "Biological aging is kind of the deterioration of the human body. We need to... come up with ways to stop the deterioration and, if anything, maintain that ability to live longer, free of disease." – Dr. Kandao [70:46]

• On the ‘toolbox’ of health:

  • "I like to think of creatine as the multifactorial wrench or screwdriver, because creatine has profound benefits for muscle, a little bit for bone, of course, brain and other areas of the body." – Dr. Kandao [47:03]

• Challenging the “only for bodybuilders” myth:

  • “Older individuals and women stand to benefit just as much, if not more, from creatine.” [12:05], [62:12]

• On habit formation:

  • “Whatever vehicle allows you to be consistent is the best—coffee, yogurt, gummies—just find a way.” [63:21]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Timestamps | |--------------------------------------------------------------|------------------| | Creatine basics and physiology | 05:12–07:45 | | Who benefits: kids, vegans, stressed individuals | 06:48–08:17 | | Creatine myths busted | 08:29–14:21 | | Dosing, muscle, bone, brain & stress | 18:08–34:16 | | The Stroop test: Cognitive performance study | 34:41–36:41 | | Creatine, neurodegeneration, and mental health | 41:24–44:20 | | Food sources/can creatine replace supplementation? | 44:36–44:59 | | Creatine for sleep | 45:09–45:55 | | Weight training vs cardio for healthy aging | 46:16–51:15 | | Supplements and routines | 60:41–67:28 | | Aging, motivation, and the fear of death | 70:43–74:31 |

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Final Takeaways

• Creatine is safe, cheap, and effective for nearly all ages and lifestyles.
• Beyond muscle, creatine is emerging as a powerful tool for brain health, recovery, healthy aging, and stress adaptation.
• Quality, consistency, and science-backed dosing (3–5g for muscle, higher for bone/stress/brain) matter most.
• For best lifelong results, combine creatine with regular resistance exercise, adequate protein, and a balanced routine.

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(For in-depth scientific detail or to reference the specific studies cited, please review Dr. Kandao’s publications or consult the full episode transcript.)

Transcript

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

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[Podcast Host]

And is there anyone that shouldn't take creatine?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Well, I publish over 120 papers just on creatine alone. We've done at least 30 to 40 studies in our lab and I can't find anybody that can't or shouldn't take creatine. So for example, at recommended dosages, creatine can not only have potential anti cancer properties, but really speed up rehabilitation. And there's a lot of hope, especially around Alzheimer's.

[Podcast Host]

And what about kids?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

The current body of evidence suggests they want to get at least one gram per day because in children they want to have optimization for bone health as well as muscle development. And so I'm fascinated that this nutrient discovered in 1832, like, boring for the longest time. It's having these profound benefits we never even thought would happen. And so your viewers today will be surprised about some of the things I'm going to talk about, including microdosing.

[Podcast Host]

And we've got this thing here in front of us. This is the dosing dilemma. And I want to talk about how much I need to take for all these things. And I want to talk about nutrition, protein, weight training, et cetera. But before that, you've got five myths in front of you. Can you reveal one by one what they are?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

So this is, oh, I can't believe you did this one to me. Creatine causes hair loss. I was going bald Before I started taking creatine Myth number two. Oh. So this is by far the biggest myth, and that is.

[Podcast Host]

Guys, I've got a favor to ask. Before this episode begins, the algorithm, if you follow a show, will deliver you the best episodes from that show very prominently in your feed. So when we have our best episodes on this show, the most shared episodes, the most rated episodes, I would love you to know. And the simple way for you to know that is to hit that follow button. But also it's the simple, easy, free thing that you can do to help us make this show better. And I would be hugely grateful if you could take a minute on the app you're listening to this on right now and hit that follow button. Thank you so, so, so much. Doctor Darren Kandao, what is the mission that you're on in your life?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

I think right now it would be to promote health and make people live longer, free of disease. It's fascinating how we've transcended our understanding of weight training, and now weight is seeming to have these profound effects that cardiovascular exercise has, and it gives you a bit more. So really focusing now on the benefits of lifting things around the house and how exercise and then, of course, nutrition. We're going to talk about creatine, but also how other macronutrients, especially protein, come into play. And then when you combine those two, are we doing enough to optimize longevity? And we hope that we are, yeah.

[Podcast Host]

And so what are the reference points you're drawing on? How do you know the things you know? Are you doing your own research?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yeah. So I did my graduate school in Canada, cell biology, Degr. And then I moved into my master's and PhD looking in kinesiology. So it's interesting that I fell into creatine supplementation research by accident. I was doing my master's on an amino acid called glutamine. And at the time, about 20, 30 years ago, glutamine was the biggest rage. Everybody was taking this non essential amino acid and hoping that it would have body composition improvements. And I sort of determined it was worthless in young, healthy individuals from a body composition standpoint. And at the same time, a good colleague of mine was doing creatine, and I started to know that these young biological males were getting bigger, stronger, faster. And then another study. Bigger, stronger, faster. And then when you go to the research on creatine, it was very stimulating in a sense that we're now improving things that we know with aging go down. So then I turn my focus completely to healthy aging. And trying to get, you know, grandparents and great grandparents and your parents to live longer free of disease. But wait, let's start young. Start as early as you can and move forward. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

And so you got really compelled by creatine. I want to talk about all these things. Nutrition, protein, weight training, et cetera. But on this subject of creatine, what was it that compelled you so much to start? You did start doing your own research on creatine.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

I did, and I started to take creatine. So, you know, it was this natural metabolite that we're synthesizing in the liver and brain. If you take a little bit more, not a lot, just a little bit more than what we're probably taking in from the food sources, such as red meat and seafood, can it have benefits? And sure enough, it's now the most research supplement out there. It's overtaken protein and caffeine from an ergogenic perspective. And it's gone global, not just for males, but, of course, females and centurions and elderly. So it's very fascinating, the explosion in this research project.

[Podcast Host]

What is this sort of not evolutionary backdrop, but, I guess, physiological backdrop of why humans need creatine, but also why they might not be getting optimal amounts?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yeah, that's a great question. So adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, is the energy currency of all our cells. And think of your muscle doing work, shoveling the driveway or walking. You're using your muscles, and you need to maintain that level of energy to maintain exercise. Well, creatine comes to the rescue to help maintain your energy currency. So if Batman, which gets all the press, is ATP, Robin is creatine. Creatine comes to the rescue. It's his best friend to help maintain these levels. Now, when you exercise at a high intensity, you know, sprinting, weightlifting, those ATP stores do become jeopardized. And that's why creatine sort of sacrifices itself to come to the rescue. So that's why anaerobic sports, the World cup just started. These individuals will be using a lot of creatine stores in their muscle. The question is, do they have enough? And if they had more, could they play better?

[Podcast Host]

And so our body makes creatine naturally?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

That's correct. It's making about one to three grams a day, but only in two areas. So this will be quite shocking for people. We're only actually making it in the liver and the brain. We don't make it in skeletal muscle, but you store 95% inner muscle. So when it's being made in the liver or brain, the brain will keep it there, but in the liver it will get transported in the blood up to your skeletal muscle. The question is, well, what if we need more? And that's where dietary creatine from red meat or seafood or supplementation comes into play.

[Podcast Host]

So are we deficient in creatine?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

There are small populations with, unfortunately they were born with the inability to synthesize creatine. They would have a deficient and they are required to take supplementation. The other unique population is vegans and vegetarians. So vegan and vegetarian diet is extremely healthy. The downfall though is they're not getting any dietary creatine because creatine is only found in animal based flesh. So red meat, seafood and poultry, they're naturally synthesizing about 1 to 2, maybe even 3 grams a day through amino acids in their food. But vegans and vegetarians respond literally the best on the planet because now they're taking in a supplement to allow that in.

[Podcast Host]

And is it thought that historically we would naturally have consumed more creatine?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

That's a good point. So back, you know, hunter and gatherer age a lot of meat, they were consuming quite a bit through dietary products. Just say if you only wanted to get 3 grams of creatine through food, you'd have to eat quite a bit of meat to do that. And then it comes into the dilemma of what if you don't eat meat or you just can't afford it?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, creatine has exploded over the recent last couple of years. I saw a stat that said, I think in women it had gone up to about 3%. Women take the creatine and in men it's slightly higher. It's still a little bit lower in terms of consumption in women from the stats that I saw. And I think that in part is because there's still some prevailing myths about creatine. When I speak to some of my friends, people know that I interview a lot of health experts and scientists and PhDs that have done research on supplements. They ask me the first question I get asked a lot is what other supplements should I definitely take?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

And when I mentioned creatine, it's always met with a certain set of rebuttals because there's some prevailing myths. You've got some myths about creatine on the cards in front of you. Can you reveal one by one what they are?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

So this is definitely the number one myth. Creatine damages your kidneys. So when you take in creatine to the body, it gets stored as creatine. But when you metabolize it, sort of sort of thinking leaking from the muscle, it gets leaked out as creatinine. And most people watching, like, oh, that was on my blood requisition form. And right below creatinine was something called egfr. So glomerular filtration rate is an estimation of your kidney health. So the problem is when individuals on creatine supplementation, they go to their doctor for their annual blood work, their creatinine might be a little bit elevated, and that's only from the breakdown of the the compound. And then, unfortunately, their filtration rate is lower. So then their doctor gets really surprised, and they're like, stop taking creatine because it's hurting your kidneys. What typically happens is they go back or stopping creatine, and then they check their kidneys again, and it's fine. So I would say 99 out of 100 times that it's a false positive. So this is by far the biggest myth. And there's been randomized control trials for several years showing that creatine causes no detrimental effects to the kidneys.

[Podcast Host]

I had exactly that twice on my blood test.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yes. And if you're also creatinine can be elevated if you're on a high meat diet, a little bit dehydrated. So those that are exercising is very, very elevated. So always tell your doctor you're on creatine supplementation because your creatinine could be a little bit higher.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Myth number two. Creatine makes you retain water. So this is really important, and I think this is one of the main reasons females were really hesitant to take creatine. If you take too much too soon, it can lead to an increase in water retention. So you've probably heard of the creatine loading phase. This is where supplement companies want you to take about 20 or 30 grams a day for about five or seven days. That has been shown to increase water retention acutely. So maybe it'll reside there for about three to five days. But after that, when you go on a maintenance phase of about 3 to 5 grams a day, that water retention goes away. So in the initial stages, if done improperly or too much, it can cause a little bit of water retention. The good news for everybody watching is after about the first week, that water's inside our muscle. So now we're volumizing the size of our muscle. Sort of like a balloon here. It's full of water. Now. After a while, the water is now going into our muscle, it's a lot bigger compared to a deflated balloon or muscle that didn't have any water. So creatine is osmotic. Water likes to follow creatine. So by taking it into the muscle, it gets a lot bigger. And that's good because a swollen muscle stimulates protein synthesis to get bigger and stronger.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, really? A swollen muscle stimulates protein synthesis.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Synthesis, yeah. So when you have water coming in, that's a really good thing. And creatine does that. And that's one of the main mechanisms why it works.

[Podcast Host]

So what does that mean? Does that mean that if I have creatine in my muscle, I'm more likely to gain muscle?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

That is potentially the factor because when you're having or trapping water, it turns on all these signaling pathways that are involved in protein synthesis. And one of the biggest robust evidence is that creatine increases lean tissue mass and regional muscle thickness with weight training over time.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Because a lot of people are concerned that they're going to put on lots of weight and be bloated with creatine.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

The interesting there is if you take smaller, more micro dosing, there's hardly any effect. And this might come surprising, but if you did a six week study pre and post after creatine, you only increase mass by 0.86 kg. And the majority of that is lean mass. So at the end of the day, you know, a pound and a half is not a lot.

[Podcast Host]

Lean mass.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Lean mass, yeah. Which is, we think of lean mass, most people think it as muscle. But lean mass in our body, that includes water, connective tissue organs as well as skeletal muscle. And about 50% of our lean mass is muscle.

[Podcast Host]

Okay. Yeah, great.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Okay. Myth number three, creatine is only for men. This is 100% false. When you go through the totality of all the evidence, Females respond extremely robustly to creatine supplementation. They get profound benefits in strength, endurance and performance. They lose a little bit of body fat. So there's another idea that people thought water retention was causing an increase in fat mass. We've done some meta analysis now showing that creatine reduces fat mass. Females get an increase in lean mass as well. And I'm happy this one came up because from our lab with bone health, females do respond very favorably with creatine and bone. And we can talk about that as well. Myth number four. Oh, I can't believe you did this one to me. Creatine causes hair loss. So obviously looking at me and I'm a Prolific creatine researcher and taking creatine religiously for like the last two and a half decades, people would look at me and say, well, obviously looking at him, creatine caused this. And I was going bald before I started taking creatine. This myth came from a study in rugby players decades ago where creatine, about 20 to 25 grams a day for seven days increased a hormone called DHT. It's a precursor for testosterone, which unfortunately has been linked to hair follicle loss and thinning. But the ironic thing is when creatine was given to these young males, the hormone went up, but it was still within the biological range and no measure of hair follicle thinning or loss was done. The cool thing is, just a few years ago, they decided to put this theory to the test. And 5 grams in young males for about six to eight weeks of training caused no detrimental effect from hair thinning follicle loss. So my appearance was probably based on something else. So there's no evidence to that as well. Myth number five, creatine causes muscle cramps. No, I think this is so overplayed. When creatine is taken into the body and water will follow it, now you're super hydrating the muscle. So one of the main issues with muscle cramps is it could be, you know, dehydration in the muscle. Some people have heard of sodium potassium, that's why Gatorade was invented. But if anything, sodium decreases muscle cramps and it's super hydrate. So in the hotter environments, June, July, August, creatine is going to be one of your best friends.

[Podcast Host]

So those are the five myths we talked there about weight training. What is this very curious graph? It seems to show that creatine helped gain muscle mass through a training regime.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Oh, yes. So this is actually showing now that when you take creatine supplementation, you're actually getting an improvement in training volume. So when you go in the weight room, you look at the load you're lifting by the reps, by the set, so it actually goes up. And then when you don't, obviously it would go down over time as well. So the cool thing here is that one of the main reasons you get an enhancement in performance is that creatine seems to enhance training capacity. So a lot of people say, I've taken creatine now I got an increase in the number of reps or sets that I can perform, and that probably leads to a stimulation over time.

[Podcast Host]

So this is a eight week study.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

That is an eight week study. Very Short term as well. So you can see that the number of weeks came down when they weren't taking creatine. And then when they started to take it, it went up as well. And this leads to another important point. So. And it's often not talked about when you take creatine for at least a month. People say, well, how long does it stay in my muscles if I go on vacation? What if I can't take creatine? And in skeletal muscle, it takes about a month for those elevated levels to come back down in the brain. We don't have a lot of evidence, but it's speculated it takes about anywhere between five weeks to about three months for those elevations to come back down.

[Podcast Host]

And this essentially means that if I take creatine, I will be able to train harder.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Harder or longer or more frequent. So one of the things with creatine, it allows the muscle to recover quicker. So you might be able to get back to the. You know, if an athlete's training twice a day. So either one of those seems to be one of the most plausible mechanisms.

[Podcast Host]

And why is there a big dip in the middle of this graph?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

So that is actually showing where the individuals would train and then without creatine, and then take it over time as well.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, okay. So that's. They'd stop.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

It's a detraining and then taking it again. Correct.

[Podcast Host]

Okay. So they start taking it.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Taking it at week four, and then that's where the elevations go up. Oh, yeah. So it goes to show that when you have creatine, everything is elevated. If you stop taking it, it takes about four weeks to come back down. But you'll notice that it was at the same level as a placebo. And then when they take it again, they get a rebound effect. So I think this has application for people who have injured themselves, and they now need to go back and start training. If you take creatine, it can accelerate the rehabilitation program.

[Podcast Host]

Hmm. And it does it, I guess, because it makes your training volume increase. Correct. It makes your muscle mass gain increase.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

It can gain gain increase in muscle mass. It's not great. That's probably gonna be a bit surprising to a lot of people. A lot of people take creatine for huge increases in muscle. You get an increase in lean mass by about 1.2kg. But as I said previously, remember, only half of that is skeletal muscle. So creatine. Yes. Can, with weight training, improve muscle mass? But it has more robust evidence for muscle performance.

[Podcast Host]

Is there anything else we need to know about creatine's? Link to muscle mass.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

I think one of the big things is that it decreases something called protein breakdown. So that might allow the muscle to maintain its integrity or recover quicker. But overall, when you combine creatine with a standard weight training program, you should expect a greater increase than weight training alone. Absolutely. And that is, that's across all ages, which is really important.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, and the studies you've done in your own lab, what are those? How wide varying are those? And how many have you done?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

We've, oh God, we've done at least 30 to 40 studies in our lab. I've published over 120 papers just on creatine alone. And the interesting thing is that from young individuals to middle aged to older adults, we see a very common theme that combined with weight training, creatine, about 5 grams or more, we use typically a little bit more, seems to have beneficial effects on muscle mass, muscle strength as well as performance. Absolutely.

[Podcast Host]

Can you show me what 5 grams looks like?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Absolutely. So this would be a standard 5 gram dose, which is one scoop for one scoop. Now keep in mind that can be found in meat or seafood, but you're going to require a lot.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, so five grams is one scoop.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

One scoop.

[Podcast Host]

And you're saying we don't necessarily need to do this loading phase that bodybuilders would correct.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

So the loading phase is the most rapid way to saturate your muscles. Now that's very beneficial, but that would be four scoops. So four scoops is a loading phase per day and it's very effective. But the issue is can it cause some adverse GI tract irritation, things like. That's where anecdotally people report that. But a lot of people from a muscle perspective will start with just 5 grams a day and that's very beneficial.

[Podcast Host]

And at 5 grams a day, what benefits am I getting?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Oh, across from a skeletal muscle perspective you get a whole plethora. So you definitely get an increase in lean tissue mass or muscle size. And then again muscle performance, muscle strength, power and endurance. And the other one that never gets a lot of press with should is functional ability, an older adult to sit, to stand. This has applications. Getting off the toilet, out of the bed, out of a car. So as we get older, we're losing muscle strength and performance as well as functionality. And creatine and weight training seems to come to the rescue there.

[Podcast Host]

And is there anyone that shouldn't take creatine?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

You know, I can't find anybody that can't or shouldn't. The safety profile is Exceptional. If they have pre existing medical conditions, they definitely need to speak to their doctor. Besides that, I'm not seeing any reason a healthy individual can't take or shouldn't

[Podcast Host]

take creatine and pregnant women.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

So that's an interesting colleague of mine, Dr. Stacey Elleria out of Australia, is now finally looking at human trials with pregnancy going into breast milk into the fetus. So it's still in its infancy, the jury's still out. But as it currently stands, it seems to be relatively safe and well tolerated.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, so not all creatine is made the same, right? Correct. There's lots of different types of creatine. Some people take creatine gummies. I mean, I have some different types of creatine here. Creatine monohydrate, creatine hydrochloric. Okay. I remember looking when I was in a shelf a couple of months ago and seeing like five or six different types of creatine. What is the, the optimal type of creatine to take and why?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

So by far, creatine monohydrate. And that goes against all the new marketing forms. So creatine monohydrate is simply creatine linked to one water molecule. When you take it into the body, the water molecule dissolves. It's identical to what's being produced in the liver and the brain. All the evidence that you ever hear about the safety and efficacy of creatine is based on the old boring from 1832 creatine monohydrate. There's new market forms of creatine such as hydrochloride, which does have evidence behind it. There's many other forms. But the only downfall with all these market forms is it's never been shown to be safer or more effective than creatine monohydrate. The other big thing for your viewers is make sure it has creapure or some form of creatine monohydrate on the label. And then, and that is also third party tested.

[Podcast Host]

Kriyapure.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Creapure is from Germany. It has the highest standard of qualification and scrutiny. And then NSF certified or another third party certified. So those are the three things that I personally would look for. Monohydrate. Creapure is the type. And then NSF certified or third party

[Podcast Host]

certification, which is that little logo at the bottom.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

That little logo here at the bottom. That's right.

[Podcast Host]

What does that mean?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

So NSF is the National Sanitation Foundation. It's a third party organization that will independently take the the supplement and then third party Test it and then you get a certificate of is to make. So there's no contaminants like lead or arsenic or things like that. So that's something for the consumers watching to definitely be aware of when you go to the store.

[Podcast Host]

And we've got this thing here in front of us, this is the dosing dilemma. We talked about muscle there. Have we checked muscle off or is there anything else to cover?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

No. So how many scoops do you think is optimal for skeletal muscle?

[Podcast Host]

Oh, skeletal muscle?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yeah, your bicep, your tricep, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

[Podcast Host]

Five grams.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Five grams. So that's only going to be one little scoop. Okay, okay. That's probably very viable. And you're correct. Across the lifespan, 5 grams has been shown to be effective. But here's a little bit of caveat. If you're over the age of 50, maybe you want to have a little bit more. Because as we get older, the creatine in our lower legs is more jeopardized and therefore you might need a bit more.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, okay.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

This is without the loading phase. So this is if you just want to take a little bit per day

[Podcast Host]

and you have to take it consistently.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Good question. So ideally, yes, there is evidence that you can just take it on the training days. But we haven't talked about the brain yet. And the reason why I think you should take it every day is it likes to go to other tissues on a daily basis.

[Podcast Host]

So that's about seven grams.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

That's about seven or eight grams. And that seems to be very safe and viable dose to be shown to be effective for improving muscle mass and performance.

[Podcast Host]

I do have an issue sometimes when I take a little bit more creatine, which is, I feel, I wouldn't say light headed, but I get a little bit dizzy. Almost 100. What is that?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

So there is a mechanism. So creatine is the biggest methyl scavenger in the body and without boring your viewers, but methyl groups are used for everything. They're also used to synthesize something called adrenaline and our neurotransmitters, you know, the things that we get excited about. So when you take in too much creatine, typically on an empty stomach or in a dehydrated state, that will spare methyl groups in the body to be used because you're taking so much in, and then it says, where can I go? So since creatine is now being taken into a supplement, these methyl groups are available in your body to go elsewhere to do work. And they like to synthesize adrenaline, and that's why you feel more energetic, so to speak.

[Podcast Host]

When you say synthesize adrenaline, what does that mean?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yeah, that means you're creating more of the hormone called epinephrine. And that, you know, you hear about fight or flight or you're nervous or whichever it is, it gives you a little bit more of that. So that's why sometimes you feel a little bit jittery or things like that.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, sometimes I can feel a little bit sick as well if I do too much.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yeah. And so that's where it's sort of the new area of interest for me is this micro dosing based on that. So we're starting to see some evidence now that if you take smaller amounts all throughout the day, it does not have any adverse effects. If anything, it seems to be a little bit more tolerable. So you could take a few grams in the morning, a few grams in the evening, or whichever. I think one of the best ways to take it that never gets any press is I put 5 grams in my water bottle during my workout. And so now I'm consuming a little bit of creatine as I do my weight lifting or cardio, and then I'll consume a little bit in the morning as well. So I take about 10 grams a day at minimum on. On a daily basis. Other people will take more or less, but that's just how I get it in.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, I find that if I do take a little bit in the morning and then a little bit later, it's much better.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

100.

[Podcast Host]

I don't get any weird feelings.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

That's correct. And it seems to be more consistent and appreciate it for individuals because if you do or are susceptible to any fluctuations in weight gain, water retention, or GI tract irrit, those seem to definitely go away. And we've got. We've assessed over a thousand individuals in my lab, and that seems to be a very viable approach. Not a lot of taste to it, is there?

[Podcast Host]

It's not the best tasting, no.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

It's very bland, very boring. But there's other companies trying to make it more flavorful, things like that. The cool thing is with creatine, you can put it in anything. You can put in yogurt, a juice. Whichever it is, you can now put it in coffee. There's a little bit of controversy over the dose of caffeine. I think anywhere lower than 350 milligrams is fine. And that's good to be most standard coffees or teas as well. So whichever allows you to become Consistent is a great way to do it. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, so bone, tell me what I need to know about.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

So now we talked about muscle. How many do you think for the skeleton here?

[Podcast Host]

The same. Okay, seven.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Unfortunately, the lowest dose ever been shown to have bone benefits is 8 grams all the way up to 12. So now we're in a dosing dilemma. Already we just started. We have a little bit disconnect between muscle and bone. Three to five grams seems to be really good for muscle. A little bit more is fine, but bone needs to be a little bit more. And that's primarily based on some of our work from our lab where we've shown that about 8 to 12 grams a day with exercise. And that's crucial if you do not exercise. There's never been a study ever shown to have bone benefits. But if you do perform weightlifting. One of the very cool things in postmenopausal females is that creatine seemed to reduce the rate of bone mineral density loss around the hip region. So it didn't increase bone density, but it decreased bone density loss. And it also seemed to maintain or improve the structure of the bone a little bit more. So that has profound beneficial effects. Especially as we get older. If those individuals on creatine were to fall, maybe they might not fracture their hip. And as we both know, if you fracture your hip, you're going to be placed in long term care. You're going to be inactive for at least six months. So creatine has some bone benefits. They're not great. They don't improve bone density. So they're not going to be an osteoporotic cure. But there is something there, especially if you're prone to osteoporosis or osteopenia.

[Podcast Host]

And what's the mechanism that that's just stopping bone loss?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yeah, it's very interesting. So if you understand a 24 hour cycle that creatine sort of stimulates these bone building cells to become more energized. Think of Super Mario, the original Nintendo, when he got the mushroom, he became energized. Creatine does that as well. And then on the flip side, creatine seems to decrease the osteoclast or bone breakdown cells. So by a synergistic mechanism seems to cause this turnover to go a little bit better, causing the bone to maintain its structure. It's very similar to a bisphosphonate that someone would to maintain their bone health.

[Podcast Host]

Bisphosphonate?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yeah, it's a drug that a lot of individuals will take if they're prone to bone loss. Obviously, creatine is not a drug, but it has some of those similar properties.

[Podcast Host]

So we've got muscle. I need to take about 7 or 8 grams to get those benefits. With bone, it's a little bit more.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

A little bit more?

[Podcast Host]

You don't mean additionally?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

No, in total. So now this is where we get into the daily dosing dilemma. We've gone from 3 to 5 grams or a little bit more for muscle, bone is maybe 8 to 10 or a little bit more. So what do you think on the brain, the hottest topic?

[Podcast Host]

10.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

10. Okay, so that would be, you know, two scoops.

[Podcast Host]

I'm just assuming this increases. Yeah.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

So the interesting thing here is that the brain will naturally make its own creatine, very similar to the liver. So since the brain is actually making its own creatine, it may not require as much or any on a daily basis. So here's the brain, obviously, and in different regions, creatine is being synthesized and being used all throughout. So this Organ is about 2 kg, but uses 20% of our daily energy at rest. So just think about that. 20% of the amount of energy we're consuming from food or using is being used by the brain. But what if you're stressed? Sleep deprivation, your dog got you up in the middle of the night to pee and you couldn't fall back to sleep. University students cramming for a midterm. Now all the countries looking at the World cup, they're going to be up stress, you know, different time zones. Then all of a sudden the healthy brain becomes a metabolically stressed brain. So your guess, about 10 grams on average is fine, because the brain on a non stressed day is naturally making enough and it's healthy. But now we get into a more difficult. What about those metabolic stressors? So again, all the neurons in the brain are being used. So what about sleep deprivation?

[Podcast Host]

10 grams for sleep deprived.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

When was the last time you slept 10 straight hours?

[Podcast Host]

It's been a while.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

It's been a while for even you to pause there. You know, that's alarming because you're thinking, when was the last time I got a really good night's sleep? What if you were up for 24 hours? Gosh, an ER doctor traveling different time zones, all these come into play. Remember, on a healthy brain, adequate sleep, probably the brain is actually making enough. But when you're stressed, night shift workers, military pilots, ER doctors, whichever it is, that's where the brain starts to rely on supplementation. So unfortunately for the brain, creatine really struggles to get through the blood brain barrier. But if it does now, you might need longer or higher dosages. So what about sleep deprived?

[Podcast Host]

I have no idea.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Okay, so, so let's say there's five, there's 10. What do you think?

[Podcast Host]

It's going to be more, isn't it?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

It's going to be a lot more. Here's 15. Couple studies showed some benefits. Now let's do 20. Remember that loading phase the best overall studies currently right now that use an MRI for the brain have showed about 20 grams seems to have some effect acutely. But the two studies last year in Germany even showed this. There's 25 and here's 30. So a classic study was done last year when they gave 30 grams to a group of young individuals who volunteered to be sleep deprived for 21 hours. And that level of creatine increased creatine levels in the brain and it offset some of the negative effects. Remember that was an acute episode of 21 Hours of Sleep deprivation. They've done a subsequent study going down to about 0.2 grams or about 14 grams. It didn't have the same effect. So remember, a healthy brain likely doesn't need any creatine, but a stressed brain likely does. And the more stressed it is, the higher the dose seems to come into play. There's a lot of nuances with the brain. Obviously we just show different regions which we don't have a lot of information. But overall it seems that 20 grams seems to be the most viable dose. When the brain is stressed we basically need to start dumping out quite a bit more. So when you get from this area on the brain healthy likely doesn't benefit from any type of supplementation because it's making its own. But in these areas when you're stressed it likely does. The area of nuance or why it's become so popular is I think most people fall into this stressed environment and if they're not getting enough creatine through their diet and or supplementation, that's why this big explosion on let's take more to sort of check off all the boxes. So I take 10 grams a day at minimum to check off muscle, right. That checks off bone for the most part and I'm pretty sure over time 10 grams would do the most part for stress. Now since I just flown different time zones Today, I'm taking 20 to 25 grams based on this acutely. And then when I go back to a non stressed environment, back to Canada, I'll go back to my regular 10 so I look at the 10 gram doser a little bit more as kind of being like a safety net. If you're only taking three to five, you definitely will get muscle benefits. Will you eventually get brain benefits? There's a small chance, but taking a little bit more. And remember the cool thing for your viewers, we're not talking about protein. If we were talking about protein, the entire thing would be hundreds of grams. We're only talking about maybe 20 grams. And that may only need to be done acutely. You know, when you're really going through metabolic stress. Look at university students, five final exams, hardly any sleep for a week. This is where this would come into play. I look at flight attendants or pilots, they'll fly from Canada to Europe and then they go back home. Their circadian rhythms are all over the place. So I think of all these scenarios. The area that I was surprised I watched one of the episodes of the ERAS tour and you know, money can't stop circadian rhythm. So as much as Taylor Swift would have, I was marveled by three hours of performance in 90 to 100,000 people. Of all her running around and then when you see her, they're totally gassed, they finish the concert, they're totally mentally exhausted. That's a situation where this could come into enhanced performance. Then you think of celebrities, you think of athletes, these a lot of high pressure things. Like imagine being in the World cup final. The pressure, the mental capacity. That's where creatine seems to come into play. There's a lot of nuances we still don't know a lot. So I think the big take home for people is that if you're going through periods of stress, a little bit more is okay. We don't know any adverse effects, we don't think there are any. But again, if you're just taking creatine for muscle, bone and the brain, you're likely gonna be checking off all those boxes.

[Podcast Host]

And when we start getting the brain benefits up at this end, what are those brain benefits that were recorded in the studies? Is it, I'm gonna feel like I slept or is it something more internal?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

You likely won't feel anything, however, when you get to tasks the next day. So, for example, you're up all night, you take a high dose of creatine, then you have to go write the final or the midterm or you can't remember. It's those things when your memory and doing puzzles or basic tasks or. What about a Stroop test?

[Podcast Host]

What's a Stroop test?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

So I'm gonna get you to do this. I apologize in advance. It's one of the most fatiguing things that you can do, and it was one of the most robust studies to show the efficacy behind creatine. So. So all I simply want you to do is. You can see that there's words and then corresponding letters, but you'll notice that the color is incorrect. So up here, you would see, you know, you have red, blue, green, blue, black. But the Stroop test is now looking at the bottom part.

[Podcast Host]

Okay?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

So I've tried it. I can only get the line 2 without making a mistake.

[Podcast Host]

Okay. Okay.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

So I want you to do this out loud, but as fast as possible.

[Podcast Host]

And am I reading the words or the color?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

You're reading the color.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, so the first one's green. Yeah.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, fine. You wanna do as fast as possible.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

As fast as possible. Okay, so let's see how you do.

[Podcast Host]

Gosh, this is confusing already. I hit the second one and I got it wrong in my head.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Depends how much creatine you're talking about.

[Podcast Host]

I don't think I've had creatine today. Okay, okay. Green, red, yellow, green, blue, black, orange, red, blue, green, blue, pink, black, gray, yellow, red, blue, green. Fuck. There you go.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

See, I failed the study that they did get this. They had to do this for 90 straight minutes.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, wow.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

So you can imagine how fatiguing that is for someone studying for the MCATs for medical school or, you know, midterms, being sleep deprived. And you're not sleep deprived, and you struggled and you got slower. Now you have to do this for 90 minutes.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

And in this classic study, they gave 20 grams of creatine before they did the test and then after, and it really improved their ability with speed and cognition there. So it's just a simple example to show. Wow. Our brain is seeing one thing. We gotta maintain memory and cognition, and creatine can help maintain some of those factors. So you won't feel anything but performance of activities like that come into play.

[Podcast Host]

Do you know how much it improved the performance on the streetcar?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

I would have to get the graph, but it did prove statistically significant. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

What else is there for me to know about the impact that creatine can have on the brain? I think as a podcaster who sometimes sits here for many, many hours interviewing people on a range of subjects, I'm always trying to find if there's any way that I can perform better mentally.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

So it doesn't boost the brain. It likely just brings those levels back up to normal levels before stress, and it might give you a little bit more. So there's been populations, Alzheimer's disease, clinical depression, concussion. When those populations are evident, one of the biggest factors is that they have reduced creatine in their brain. So maybe supplementation can get through the blood brain barrier. The brain says, I need help, and that's why you see some improvements there as well. So I like to think of the brain, that creatine can act as a safety net and it certainly won't cause any detrimental effects. But it's always good to have that because you never know. When I give you a Stroop test, like, I'm going to find you tomorrow and give you this and say you're going to be practicing all night, will you perform better? But that's just an example of something that we go through on a daily basis. If someone's working on Wall street or whichever it is really high stress demand, you know, stuck in traffic for two hours, these all add up. And it's a cascade of stressors that unfortunately most people go through. And now we have a nutrient that is being made in the brain, but during times of stress, it likely needs a little bit of help.

[Podcast Host]

For the last couple of years, I've been working on something that I realized every podcaster listening to this, but actually probably every creator listening to this might just need. Podcasting is difficult for many reasons, and one of them is that these hosting platforms don't give you much information. And also because they're so fragment, you kind of have to go through every single platform, uploading it to YouTube and then taking the same big old video file and uploading it to Spotify's platform. It takes huge amounts of time, and that friction means most of us don't do it. That is the problem we set out to solve. And so we built something called FlightCast, which you can [e-mail] and today, FlightCast is also one of our show sponsors. And some of the world's biggest podcasters are now using our platform to run their shows because it gives you an edge, it saves you time, it gives you analytics most people want you won't typically get. It allows you to use AI to be more informed on your show, and it has growth tools that other hosting platforms don't have. So podcasters that are using FlightCast have this unfair advantage. So go to FlightCast.com doac Now, of all the things I thought would ever turn up on my desk, a red light toothbrush was not one of them. Here we are. This is made by our sponsor, Bon Charge. And you'll probably know of their red light face mask and their infrared sauna blanket because I use them religiously and I've spoken about about them on this podcast before. But their toothbrush is new to me. I was sent one of these a few weeks ago and ever since then I've been using it religiously because I love their products. And this is the first toothbrush that combines both red light and near infrared light with sonic cleaning at the same time. The same red light technology that's used for skin and inflammation is now built into a device you already know so well. And I'm using it at least two times a day at the moment to clean, clean my teeth. It's great for your gums, for stimulating gum circulation and for soreness. And the best part is it's not an extra thing to add to your routine. It just replaces your current toothbrush. If you give it a try, you'll get 20 [e-mail] doac and also you'll get free shipping and a one year warranty. That's boncharge.com doac what about inflammation? Yes, in the body. So what is inflammation? And is there a link between creatine supplementation and inflammation?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

There is. So unfortunately I'm 49, so at the age of 40 I have this systemic inflammation that went up. And we all know this because around the age of 30 we're, you know, you can work out and nothing hurts. And all of a sudden you wake up one day when you're in your 40s and 50s and things hurt. And so systemic inflammation is happening all the time and unfortunately it accelerates aging. We're more sore more often and it can lead to a lot of arthritis or joint pain and things like that. Creatine does have anti inflammatory effects, but a big distinction. Creatine is not like acetaminophen or ibuprofen, which directly as a drug effect blocks that, but it has been shown to decrease markers of inflammation, specifically during long duration exercise. So this is an important distinction. Weight training is too acute, but when you do Ironman triathlon, things like that, those individuals who took creatine 20 grams a day for five days beforehand, they had reductions in inflammation markers. So that might allow that individual to recover quicker, not get ill, and then perform more optimally. From a weight training perspective, we see that it decreases markers of muscle damage. So it has these anti inflammatory and anti catabolic effects as well.

[Podcast Host]

Interesting. Yeah. And what about people that have neurodegenerative disorders.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yes. So Alzheimer's is the area we're really starting to focus on. And a couple single arm studies came out last year by Matt Taylor and Aaron smith showing that 20 grams a day for eight weeks did increase brain creat creatine levels in Alzheimer's patients. And it seemed to improve measures of memory and cognition there as well. So again, using the same mechanisms, it decreases inflammation, it maintains brain bioenergetics, and it might actually have a neural protection effect as well. There's evidence in cell cultures and in rodents that there's some lines there. But in humans, we're still in the infancy, but if it can have any benefit to any neurological disease, it's huge. And there's a lot of hope, especially around Alzheimer's.

[Podcast Host]

There was an eight week trial in Alzheimer's patients that also showed modest muscle gains and a 1.9 kilogram increase in hand grip strength, which is a key predicator of survival in dementia patients, which was a landmark study of 20 Alzheimer's patients, found that taking 20 grams of creatine daily for eight weeks increased brain creatine levels by 11% and significantly improved the cognitive test scores they showed. That's the journal of psychiatry and Brain

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Science and that one's really exciting and I think more future studies will come out. The limitation with those is that there was no placebo to compare to. But again, it's just showing that, yes, creatine can be used as an effect active adjunct. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

And because there is impact on our brain, is there impact on our mental health with creatine?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Excellent point. So the best lines of evidence here come from clinical depression and anxiety. The group out of Utah and the United States have clearly shown that creatine in addition to other therapies. So this is important. Creatine by itself has never been shown to be a standalone, but with SSRIs or cognitive behavior therapy or methamphetamine use in populations under medical supervision, the addition of creatine seem to improve symptoms. And it's likely going back to all the ones we've already talked about, where it improves bioenergetics, it improves neurotransmission or neuromodulation, but it also in animals has been shown to improve a protein called bdnf. So this protein is involved in brain plasticity. So there's a whole bunch of emerging evidence and hope that creatine one day will be used as a treatment in the toolbox for a lot of these clinical issues. PTSD also Comes to my mind, there

[Podcast Host]

was a study in Gatorade Sports Science Institute, which PubMed published, that said a study of over 200,000 adults found that those who consumed the least amount of creatine in their daily diet had the highest rates of depressive symptoms.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yes, that's correct. And the common denominators, those with clinical depression or anxiety, when you measure their baseline creatine stores, very similar to concussion or Alzheimer's, they're reduced. So therefore, obviously this condition or series of conditions is causing a disruption at the brain bioenergetic level and creatine levels are decreasing.

[Podcast Host]

And there was another in PubMed that said in a clinical trial of women with major depression, adding 5 grams of creatine to their daily antidepressant doubled their remission rate over eight weeks.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

That's correct, yes. And that group is from Perry Renshaw's group out of Utah. They do great work. Our hope. And I'm collaborating with some colleagues now to look at creatine as a standalone treatment versus placebo. Could it have some beneficial effects there? So that's very exciting to come out.

[Podcast Host]

If I don't want to be supplementing with creatine, is there. What are the foods that I can eat that are high in creatine?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Naturally, they're primarily animal based. So seafood and red meat. You know, herring is going to have one of the highest concentrations, salmon as well as beef, very small amounts in milk and dairy. So you'd have to drink all the milk in the Jersey cow to get a sufficient amount. So it definitely comes down to animals based flush.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, there's some other studies that I, that I love, that I think I've heard you talk about before. One of them was young athletes who took 5 grams of creatine daily, slept an average of one hour longer on training days.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yeah, we did that study a few years ago in young biological females who were healthy and on the days that they trained until creatine, this is interesting because they actually slept an hour longer compared to a placebo. So this is a very interesting fact. So creatine, you know, we now know it has brain bioenergetics. And there's two arguments. If it's making the brain recover, wouldn't you need less sleep right now? In this study, it showed that improved. So maybe these individuals trained at a higher capacity and allowed the brain to have more homeostasis to come back. So this is an air, a study that needs to be replicated in males as well to see can creatine improve sleep quantity and if it is, I think that's a game changer. I think everybody on the planet would raise their hand and say, hey, I need more sleep.

[Podcast Host]

Is there anything else we haven't covered as it relates to creatine?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

You know, the expected gains versus the hype gains. I think there's evidence there that creatine can have an effect. I think it's getting overhyped, especially around the brain, for what it can do. It's one tool in the toolbox, and I think it's one of those things that I'd like to show or talk about, for sure.

[Podcast Host]

Well, what do you mean by that?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

So if you think of the toolbox, when it comes to a plan, whenever you need to go fix things, you simply say, where's my toolbox? You can't do anything without a plan. And the way I like to preface this is the most popular tool in anybody's toolbox is the hammer. Now, from a lifestyle perspective, what do you think the hammer represents? What would you decide that the hammer represents?

[Podcast Host]

As in like a.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Is it weight training, is it cardio, is it creatine, is it protein, or is it sleep?

[Podcast Host]

Sleep.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Okay, so I say weight training is going to be the hammer.

[Podcast Host]

Okay,

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

now what about the screwdriver? Always need a screwdriver.

[Podcast Host]

Creatine?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

No, I think aerobic training or sleep comes way before creatine.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

But most people say, hey, I can fix a lot of things with that. Now remember, we have a nice big toolbox. I like to think of creatine as the multifactorial wrench or screwdriver, because creatine has profound benefits for muscle, a little bit for bone, of course, brain and other areas of the body. So you can hit something with this, you can open it up and fix something with this. It's heavy. You can also pull out the measuring tape. Your argument? Sleep. This could be protein, whichever it is. So when you put all these things in your toolbox, you're now having a greater comprehensive plan to improve health.

[Podcast Host]

So you said weight training was the hammer.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Hammer. I like to consider, if you were to choose one modality of exercise, weight training is a little bit superior to cardio. You can, you get pretty much all the same benefits of cardiovascular exercise, and then you get more with obviously an increase in lean tissue mass and performance. Weight training, if done effectively, can actually improve mitochondrial health. You can improve VO2 max if done correctly, and you don't need a lot of it. So I think we've switched from just doing cardio to now incorporating weight Training to be effective.

[Podcast Host]

So weight training.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

What are the sort of misconceptions about weight training and why are you so positive about it?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yeah, I think one of the biggest myths is that you always need to lift heavy to put on muscle mass. And world renowned researchers in this area have clearly shown now that lighter weights perform to a lot of effort, almost to fatigue. If done correctly, you can get as the same increases in muscle mass as then compared to lifting heavy weights. However, if your goal is just to get stronger, lifting heavy is always there. So I think this is a cool thing for people. Some days if you have a little bit of soreness or you don't have a lot of energy, you can lift lighter weights, but just to fatigue. Whereas other days you come in Monday, you've had your coffee, whichever it is, you're ready to go, you can lift heavy. So I think there's not one concrete way. There's a little bit of variety here as well.

[Podcast Host]

And why are you putting it above cardiovascular work?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yeah, I think the benefits there is that cardiovascular exercise will make you live longer and healthier. But the downfall with cardiovascular exercise, it doesn't stimulate strength or the muscle skeletal system as much as we'd hope. So improving muscle mass, and that is very difficult to do with cardio. Maybe sprint interval training will do that. But the cool thing with weight training is you get cardiovascular benefits, but you also get those profound muscle skeletal benefits. So if I was to tell anybody, if there's one form of exercise to do is weight training, but you got to do cardio as well, so do both.

[Podcast Host]

And if I just do weight training, what am I missing from not doing cardio training?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yeah, if you do weight training improperly, where you're lifting heavy, heavy weight with low repetitions all the time, you're likely going to jeopardize capillary density or mitochondrial health. These are things that sort of move blood flow to and from your muscles. You could decrease VO2 max or a fitness parameter for metabolic health, fitness. So at the end of the day, everybody should be doing both. But if you only have time to do weight training or cardio, you still benefit because the majority of the population doesn't do any.

[Podcast Host]

And how much, how often do you think?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yeah, it's amazing that it's a small amount, so let's just do cardio. Most countries will say 150 minutes of physical activity at a moderate level over a week. I'm okay with that. I'd like it to be higher. I'd also like the intensity to Be a bit higher. So when you tell an average individual 150 minutes of a week, most people say, well, I'm going to do 70 or I'm going to do 30, I'm going to hold the couch down and watch Netflix. So we've given 150 and we say, you know, if you can do 21 minutes or 22 minutes a day for seven days a week, that's going to be a brisk walk or whichever we'd like to be at a higher intensity, if possible. Now, when it comes to weight training, this might be surprising, but two days a week or more is all you basically need. And you can do a whole body routine. So you don't need to go in there and just do chest and biceps Monday and then legs Tuesday. You can, can. But if you say, I want to do whole body of training Monday, Wednesday, Friday, that is great as well. So a little bit of volume or frequency goes a long way, especially as we get older. That's the key.

[Podcast Host]

Why especially as we get older?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Well, based on this graph here, it's clearly showing a detrimental effect. So if you can see here, you know, you have muscle mass on the, the x axis or the y axis, and then you're having all the catastrophic effects as we get older. So unfortunately, you know, 20 and 30

[Podcast Host]

looks great when you're 20, 40 years old.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

When you're 20 and 40 years old, or all the way from 20 to 40, you can see great. That's probably the area that you're gonna have the most muscle. Yeah, but look what happens. 40, age 60, 80, and if you live to be 100, it's catastrophic. You're losing muscle mass at an accelerated rate. On average is about 1% per year after the age of 40, 40, even if you're training. So if you're training, you're maintaining that. So this is the average sedentary inactive population. You lose strength at about 1 point or 1 to 3%, even faster. Now, if we were to maintain resistance training, that muscle mass would plateau. So I can't stress this enough, although we focused on creatine. If you were to choose, one thing to do today is exercise. And the only form of exercise that really maintains muscle is weight bearing or resistance training. And if that's the case, you're going to have way more muscle later on in life. So you can pick up the grandkids, you can walk those stairs, you can do more functionality things later on in life.

[Podcast Host]

Can you not just, I don't know, 60 years old, start training, then you can, absolutely.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

And you get profound benefits. You can be 80 or 100 and you still get benefits. It's never too late to start. But one of the things we've already talked about is if you do weight training and add in a little bit of creatine, it gets a bit higher.

[Podcast Host]

Higher.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

If you added in protein, it gets even higher. So again, nutrition, you know, if exercise is king, the queen is going to be nutrition. They go hand in hand all throughout lifespan. You got to have both.

[Podcast Host]

And on the subject of protein, you're saying that when combined with creatine, it's a force multiplier.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

It's a force multiplier when it comes to performance and lean tissue mass. So there's been a few studies. When you combine high quality protein with creatine, they've been shown to increase lean tissue mass and muscle muscle performance a little bit more than each alone.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Does the average person get enough protein through their diet?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

You know, I think nowadays we do. And, and I think this is overhyped as well. I think if you're getting about 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kilogram, so, you know, if you're 70 kilograms, that's going to be on average about 84 to about 115 grams of protein. I think we're so conscious now of the health benefits of protein that most people are. I think if you're training really intensely five, six days a week and you take a gram per pound, that's probably the max. But a lot of times when you take an exc protein, it doesn't go to your body area that you're probably hoping. It doesn't all go to your muscle. It's used for other things like hormones and blood cells, things like that. But I think nowadays most people are likely getting enough protein. The question is, are they getting enough high quality protein? So vegans and vegetarians can definitely get enough protein. They might just need to eat a little bit more to get all those essential amino acids, which we need.

[Podcast Host]

Much of the reason most people haven't posted content or built their personal brand is because is it's hard and it's time consuming and we're all very, very busy. And if you've never posted something before, there's so many factors in your psychology that stop you wanting to post what people will think of you. Am I doing this right is the thing I'm saying. Absolutely stupid. All of these result in paralysis, which means you don't post and your feed goes bare. I'm an investor in a company called Stan Store, which you've probably heard me talk about. And what they've been building is this new tool called Stanley that uses architect, looks at your feed, looks at your tone of voice, looks at your history, looks at your best performing posts and tells you what you should post, makes those posts for you. You can also just use it for inspiration. And sometimes what we need when we're thinking about doing a post for our social media channels is inspiration. Building an audience has fundamentally changed my life and I think it could change yours too. So I'm inviting you to give this new tool a shot and let me know what you think. All you have to do is search coach Stan Store. Now to get started. Menopause. Yes, we talked a little bit briefly about menopause, bringing both together the subjects of muscle, but also of creatine.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

How does those two things impact a woman's journey through menopause?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yeah. So we know from animal cells that estrogen is highly involved in creatine metabolism. Estrogen seems to be implicated in the enzymes that are needed to make creatine. And then estrogen also has a huge impact on nutrition, not only brain bioenergetics, but muscle metabolism as well. So as the female goes from a premenopausal stage to perimenopausal stage to the postmenopausal transition, if estrogen is decreasing and then independent of their diet, we think creatine has bone effects and muscle effects. And of course we've talked about the cognitive effects there. So from a whole skeleton perspective, I think everybody should be. But of course the perimenopausal postmenopausal transition is good. And then that brings up a question about what about really young pre menopausal females, you know, optimal health? What if we built up their tissues more? Maybe that would offset the rate of this decline over time as well. So that's what we're hoping to get

[Podcast Host]

to Is creatine safe for kids?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

So it's interesting you bring that up and the current body of evidence suggests yes, at recommended dosages. Good. Researchers in the United States have put up multiple reviews looking at creatine in adolescent children and teenagers. Improves balance, agility, body composition. If anything, they want to get at least one gram per day because in children they want to have an optimization for bone health as well as muscle development. But again, again, if any parents are watching, obviously talk to their medical practitioner. But all the current reviews currently suggest that it's safe.

[Podcast Host]

And we're talking about, we're not talking about babies Here we're talking about.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yeah, we're talking about adolescence all the way into teenage years. When it comes to baby or infancy out of Australia, Stacey Allergy is starting to do that work there as well. But we don't have a lot of data in humans yet. But that is an area to pay attention to for sure. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

What is the most important thing we haven't talked about that we should have talked about?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yeah. I think one of the big things is the safety profile of creatine. There's been, you know, hundreds of randomized control trials now on creatine. The safety profile is exceptional. Last year they put out a study looking at over 25,000 cases in creatine. Even over 10 grams a day for many years has been very, very safe and effective. One area that comes up is what about the timing? Does it matter when I take it? And the cool thing is we just got a paper accepted two days ago putting the nail in the coffin on this. And at the end of the day, you can take creatine at any time of the day. You can take it in the morning with breakfast. You can take it right before workout. I take some during, you can take it after go to bed. It doesn't matter when you take it as well.

[Podcast Host]

So you can take it right before sleep?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

You can.

[Podcast Host]

And it won't impact your sleep?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

No. Currently we haven't exactly assessed the effect on sleep, but another study looked at it in the evening and it had no detrimental effect there as well.

[Podcast Host]

And what else, what else is the other questions that you get messaged with or asked most often? Doctor? Yeah.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Can I spread out creation creatine all throughout the day? So for example, we have like, if we were to take creatine in a gummy form or a candy, you can actually have, you know, one or two of these every hour all throughout the day. You can have it periodically so you don't have to take creatine all at once. You can take it in smaller amounts all throughout the day. And if anything, there's been a study a few years ago showing that 1 gram every 30 minutes up to 20 gram dose seem to retain more in the body. And that was beneficial as well.

[Podcast Host]

What do you think of these gummies?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

You know, there's only been a few companies that have actually shown some validity and reliability. As long as the third party tests it, they're very, very effective. Do you want to try one?

[Podcast Host]

Are they third party tested?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

The green ones? Yeah. And the bottom ones? Third party tests? Yep.

[Podcast Host]

But you know the stuff that Makes it a gummy. Is that stuff? Is that stuff good for you?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

So the issue there is, does the manufacturing trying to keep the creatine together influence it? It can. And there's only been a few companies out there. The one you're eating is by Create from the United States. They've had multiple trials. They're the first company to actually look at a randomized control trial to show improvements in volleyball players with the gummies. Children love them. Older adults. This has become an area of interest where chewing ability or taste sensation has gone down. They seem to be very convenient and effective. You can have these at your desk, whichever. You don't need the white powder to mix. So the companies are coming up with more viable ways to get creatine in there. But to your point, you always want to make sure the company's third party technology test it. It uses a high quality creatine and it actually has a source of creatine in there as well.

[Podcast Host]

Because I remember watching a YouTube video by a guy called James Smith who's been on the show before, and he did some testing on the off the shelf creatine and found that a lot of them didn't contain any creatine.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

90 and there was only a few. And the one that you did consume, it did, yeah, 1.5.

[Podcast Host]

Isn't that crazy that you can go buy creatine and it has no creatine?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yeah. So that's why I think for the consumers watching, you got to do a little bit of whole homework and look at those three things, make sure third party tested. It has a logo clearly on the packaging. If it doesn't, I would strongly advise you not to consume it.

[Podcast Host]

Of all the, of all the studies that you've encountered on all the subjects we've talked about, muscle protein, creatine, are there studies that were pivotal in how you think about these subjects?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yeah, there was. So the, the landmark study came out in 1992 and it clearly showed that 5 grams elevated creatine in the blood. But if you took multiple 5 gram dosages, it maintained that throughout the day. So this is where the dose of 5 grams seems to be very, very viable. And the other one showed that, hey, I don't want to take five. What if I only want to take three grams? So three grams seems to be the lowest, most effective dose. And you just need to take that for one month and you'll saturate your muscles. So again, you have options. Take as little amount or a high amount as you want over time. But I think One of the biggest studies is that we DID was a two year trial in postmenopausal women where we gave 0.14 grams of creatine. And it really seemed to improve or have an effect on bone preservation as well as muscle performance. So these are the studies that seem to come to my mind. We've done quite a few, but they seem to be the landmark ones.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. And what are the supplements that you take outside of creatine?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yes, for sure. So on a daily basis it's a probiotic with food in the morning and evening and that's something I just recently learned. I was taking it on an empty stomach. But Probiotic. I take two forms of magnesium, one before bed and then one in the day, three and eight for cognition and function. Function. I take 2,000 international units of vitamin D. I always take protein on a sufficient basis as well. And then I take about 4 grams of omega 3 fatty acids. And I always take one of the omega 3 fatty acids post exercise because that seems to be the best time to take it.

[Podcast Host]

So Omega 3, magnesium, vitamin D, vitamin

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

D, probiotics, of course, creatine and protein. I take powder and, or through dietary food every now and then. I don't eat a lot of red meat, so I'll take iron, but not on a consistent basis. And I'm hoping the new one is. This is an area of controversy, Nad this is the, you know, it's a precursor for a main enzyme that's highly involved in metabolism. There's been evidence to suggest it goes down with aging. So my eye is closely on that to see if that's going to be something to come up into play. And a multivitamin, you know, started with Flintstone vitamins as a kid and I take a multivitamin a day as a safety net.

[Podcast Host]

I noticed that when I looked at your video in the interview you did with Dr. Rhonda Patrick. A lot of the comments were from people in there, their 60s, 70s and 80s. And I wondered why that was. If you just. I was just looking at the top three or four comments and it's a 71 year old, it's an 82 year old, it's a 53 year old who's contending with Alzheimer's.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Right.

[Podcast Host]

Why is that?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yeah, I think it's the awareness and education now and social media has really helped with this, getting our evidence based research out to the public and the awareness that creatine is just not for young males to get bigger, stronger, faster. If anything, when you go to an aging body and they're predisposed to agent related muscle loss, strength loss, functionality, bone loss and atrophy in the brain. Creatine has been shown to have effects there as well. So I think a lot of older individual populations are becoming more aware of the effects of creatine. And of course, as we produce more research, it gets out to the public more often. So I'm really excited and encouraged that creatine has sort of taken on a life of its own in the last decade.

[Podcast Host]

And are there direct weight benefits if I'm trying to cut fat by taking creatine? Or is it indirect?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

It's indirect. So it seems that if you increase lean mass, it might stimulate energy expenditure or a turnover. And then in animal models it has been shown to have some beneficial effects from a cellular perspective on fat. But at the end of the day, if you are seeing a reduction in fat, it's likely that you're improving your metabolic health with lean tissue mass.

[Podcast Host]

Do you think much about how to get these habits to stick? Because I imagine there's lots of people that are aware by now that creatine is a useful thing to take, but for whatever reason they still don't take it.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Exactly. And I think that's one of the biggest reasons people don't. So. So we gotta come up with ways to maintain consistency. And I think whatever vehicle you want to choose to maintain that in the run of a day is the best. So if it's putting in your coffee in the morning, because you won't forget it, great. If it's putting a little bit in Greek yogurt, if it's using the gummies, whichever it is, as long as it's a viable source of creatine, that makes it very practical and consistent for you. That's the best way.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. I found that having it en route to where I'm going is being really, really important. So when I come to my office in the morning, it's all on my desk.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

So I have the supplements just on my desk. And actually, even before I walked into the studio today, in the green room that I have, it's on the green room when I'm at home, it is where the coffee machine is.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Correct.

[Podcast Host]

And that has radically helped me. Otherwise, if it wasn't within my routine, it wouldn't happen. Yeah.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

We have a jug on the counter with all our other supplements. It's in the pantry, it's close by. Because if it's in the garage, you're like, I forgot about it.

[Podcast Host]

I think the other thing Is with some things like creatine, it's hard to really, really notice the difference sometimes.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Excellent point. Yeah. This is not like caffeine, you know, it's an immediate effect. So unlike caffeine, creatine takes a while to notice the effects, and they come indirect. You don't immediately notice a massive increase in energy or alertness. It's like after a week away training or even two, you're like, wow, I did more repetitions, I could do more weight. I recover quickly is one that we hear quite often. You'll never notice with, with your bone, but we have heard anecdotally with cognition, especially sleep deprivation, starvation, people do notice the effects, and I'm a NAN of one, but I notice jet lag goes down quite a bit when I take a high dose of creatine.

[Podcast Host]

And you know when you start taking it, if you start taking it today?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

If I start taking, so 3 to 5 grams of creatine today, am I going to notice the differences today?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

No, It'll probably. With 3 to 5 grams, you'll probably notice it in a few weeks, if not to a month. From a muscle perspective, from a brain perspective, that low, you're likely not going to notice any effect because the brain is probably making enough. But if you're really metabolically strong, then you might notice some memory or cognitive benefits after a few days. But at such a low dose, you need to be a little bit patient. But again, 3 grams could saturate your skeletal muscle in 30 days, so it's not that long of a wait.

[Podcast Host]

And on the cognitive side, yes. The cognitive benefits that were observed when doing these Stroop tests, had they been taking it previously or was it just administered on that particular day when the test happened?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yeah. So that one was in a week in advance with the loading phase. So they really saturated the body to try to get the effect.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, so they were taking it for some time.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yeah. But on the sleep deprivation study from Germany, they just gave it one bolus mega dose for 21 hours of sleep deprivation. And those individuals did perform better from a number of tests like this the next day. So if you're like, wow, I got something coming up Friday, unfortunately, I'm not going to get any sleep. At best, one or two hours, then a high dose might come into play, and then you can go back to your more consistent routine. I think what happened or is happening is a lot of individuals who are now thinking, I need to take 20 or 30 grams on a daily basis based on those studies. And I'm like wait a minute, minute. Are you getting enough sleep the next day? Because at that dose we don't know if the neuron will swell with water. And if that's the case, is that potentially causing any detrimental effects in the long term? So again, I would not recommend taking a mega dose for consistently over time. Could that down regulate your natural synthesis? These are all questions that we need to look at. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

So outside of the realm of creatine, outside of the realm of muscle, outside of the realm of, I guess, nutrition generally. You what, what are you doing to keep yourself healthy? What is your routine?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yeah, so I'm religious with exercise. So I try to exercise at least three to four days a week with weight training and add in at least 20 to 30 minutes of either moderate intensity cardio or like a spin class. I personally like to do alternating days. So I'll do weight training like maybe Monday, Wednesday, Friday and then cardio, Tuesday, Thursday and then on the weekends hiking, things like that. Pretty religious with nutrients as well. Try to eat a really balanced diet and my God, my failure is getting enough sleep. So I've had to cut caffeine out quite a bit by past noon to allow me. I'm probably a slower metabolizer with caffeine. So I try to really optimize evidence based research, take it into my daily life and try to promote it that way.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. And is there anything you're particularly excited about? In the work and research that I

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

do, I'm super fascinated with the movement from the neck up. I think we know a lot about the neck down with creatine and exercise or other nutrients. I'm fascinated with the ability. What about concussion? You know, can the UFC fighter take creatine before they get hit? Could that decrease CTE or concussion or brain trauma later on in life? I think of boxing, Muhammad Ali, things like that. So there's evidence in rodents that if you take creatine before head trauma, it really speeds up concussion recovery. So I'm fascinated with that as well. Like almost a prophylactic. Anybody involved in head trauma, I think, I think you should definitely look at creatine as something to be taking just in case you get hit. And then of course, everything with Alzheimer's or other areas of depression. So I'm fascinated that this nutrient, which was, you know, 1832, it was discovered boring for the longest time because we thought we knew everything and now it's taking a life of its own and it's having these profound benefits we never even thought would happen.

[Podcast Host]

Yet a lot of people consider you to be the sort of leading expert on this subject for many reasons. Do you think there'll be a time where you. You stop researching creatine and you move on to something else?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

You know, that's interesting. I would have said yes about five years ago, but now, no. There's too much to do. Even with skeletal muscle. If you were to say, what's the best dose, Darren, to take? I say, I have no clue. Every creatine researcher said, I don't know. We still don't know the best dose that every person can take that will check off all the boxes, especially in the brain. We're just giving an estimate that I take 10, maybe you take 12, someone might take 15. But at the end of the day, we still don't know the best supplementation protocol, the best dose. So there's so many areas. So for the next 20 years, I bet y' all still be focusing on creatine with other things as well.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. And on that doses, is that different for different people?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Excellent question. So the thought was that the larger you are, you have more storing capacity in your muscle for creatine. So it makes sense if you're 50kg and 150kg kilograms, you're gonna have a greater soaring capacity. So the dose on a relative basis is likely higher there as well. The more stressed the person is, it's likely they're going to require more because their natural machinery in the brain can't keep up. So it is very individualistic. I think we give out general recommendations to make it easy. But again, some people can take it very scientifically and base it on body weight, and you can't go wrong with both of them.

[Podcast Host]

I bet there's a lot of people that are this far into the conversation and their central question is, where I've got loved ones. Loved ones that I really, really want to start considering creatine supplementation for whatever reason, it could be cognitive benefits, muscular benefits, whatever, all the things we've talked about. They might end up sending this conversation to their loved ones, something that I do sometimes when I have episodes that are particularly moving for me. If their loved ones are now listening.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yep, yep.

[Podcast Host]

And you had to make a case to their loved ones about why they should take creatine.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

What would you say?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

I would say creatine is one tool in that health promotion toolbox that might help you live longer and better and allow you to maintain activities later on in life which you wouldn't have been able to do. And unfortunately, that leads to Accelerated aging and a poor way to go. It's like saying, I'm going to save everything for retirement. My question is why you might not make it to retirement. So that's one of the things. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Aging.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

What is aging in your definition of the word?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

It's catastrophic, Unfortunately, I'm going through it. I've noticed ever since I hit the fourth decade, things hurt bit a little lot more, and muscle mass to retain it is a little bit harder. So unfortunately, think of the body's ability to withstand stress is not as high, and things start to break down quite fast. So we all know, you know, things hurt more, we've lost muscle mass. I can't run as fast. So biological aging is kind of the deterioration of the human body. We need to, with this conversation and others, come up with ways to stop the deterioration and if anything, come up with ways to maintain that ability to live longer, free of disease. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next, not knowing who they're leaving it for. This one's quite a tricky question. Okay, what is reality? What do you think all of this is? All this stuff that we can see and all we experience? What do you think it is? Do you think it's a simulation? Do you think it's.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

This is all real? For sure, Because I think we can feel it. It's not a Big Brother or anything. That's a game show. We all go through different emotions and things like that. So I think you can feel it.

[Podcast Host]

Are you religious?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yes. Catholic. Roman Catholic, Yeah. Okay.

[Podcast Host]

And you're a family man. You've got some.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

A French bulldog and a cat, as we talked about, and wife at home. Yeah. And really close to my family and stuff like that.

[Podcast Host]

And what is your goal if we get to the end of your career and this was your last day and you had been successful. Oh, yeah.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

I think it would be a lasting impression on my students that, wow, he changed my life in some way. And if I can make one person live longer, free of disease and happiness, happier, I'm all Thor. You know, when you start to see the human body as people get older, you're like, oh, that person used to be young and vibrant. And then when you hear other people that can't do activities they live in or they can't travel or they're afraid to, I'm like, you need to embrace today. I love that quote from Morgan Freeman, Shawshank. Get busy living or get busy dying. Because honestly, we have the ability with lifestyle Choices to improve optimization. And I want to see people live to be 120, 130, still active, still going. And I think we're on the cusp with technology and I think awareness around nutrition, exercise, sleep, laughter. Oh, geez. If I could ask anybody to do one more thing, it'd be just laugh more often for me to be just a small piece of the puzzle promoting it. I think it's. If anything, it's just beyond my belief. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Why did this pull you in? I ask that in part because it tends to be the case that the things that draw us in or pull on our. Make us curious. There tends to always be a bit of a personal reason.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Right. Yeah, it was. It was more that, you know, am I scared of death? 100%. Yeah. I can't. I can't think of it. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Why?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yeah, I just think it's weird for me. I get to a point maybe being religious, and then you think about it, and then my brain stops. I can't think about it, really. Yeah. And it's. It becomes almost like I want to live forever. And if I can think of ways to make me live and partially get there, obviously it's not reality, but. Yeah. I'm scared of death or dying.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Have you always been.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yep. 100% scared to death of heights. And I can't even talk about the. The death experience. Yeah. Because I think it. It sort of brings into perspective things that you just don't know.

[Podcast Host]

Did you ever lose anybody?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Just friends and things like that, but nothing specific like parents or anything like that yet, but it's always been there. I don't know if it's the Roman Catholic in me or not, but it's like, whoa, I don't want that at all. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

You can't even talk about it.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Can't even talk about it. No. No.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Really?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yeah. It's kind of like I can talk about it in a sense. I understand it and it's realistic, but it's more that. For some reason, I don't even want to think about it because I have so much passion for life that I don't even want to think about, oh, shit, this could happen. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

And you believe you go somewhere after death?

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Oh, for sure. Heaven. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

But if you do believe you're going to heaven, that sounds like a good place.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Great place. Yeah. I just want to spend more time here. There's still a lot of things to do. Yeah, for sure.

[Podcast Host]

Makes sense.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Well, thank you. Thank you for taking this.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Thank you so much. This was great. Thank you.

[Podcast Host]

I have to say, you know, you've done so much research on this subject that so many of my previous guests cite and talk about.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Okay.

[Podcast Host]

So it's great to have the source here himself. And I applaud you for the work you've done because at the end of the day, I think a lot of people do want to extend their health span, right. Which is to live healthier for longer. Because there's a real sort of epidemic of people having short health spans, being medicated from the age of 40, 50 years old and then having that sort of last couple of decades of our life being incapable of doing the things we care about 100%.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

And I think a lot of this research gives us an option, if we choose to take it you to live a. To live a better life.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

Thank you so much. Yeah, it was great.

[Podcast Host]

So thank you so much.

[Dr. Darren Kandao]

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