How long should I use creatine?
According to the Nutrition Center, using a creatine monohydrate supplement can help athletes perform better during intense and explosive exercise, such as weightlifting or short, consecutive sprints.
But how long can you safely use creatine supplements?
How long can you use creatine?
Because creatine is both produced in the body and naturally present in several foods, most researchers have reasonably assumed that its toxicity is low. Regarding long-term consequences, the respected American institution Mayo Clinic states that creatine supplementation, when taken at the correct dose, is likely safe to use for up to five years.
Many past studies on athletes have shown that even the very high doses needed to achieve rapid creatine saturation in the muscles (10 to 20 grams per day) appear to be perfectly safe in the short term, despite occasional anecdotal reports of side effects such as bloating.
Nevertheless, researchers were, and still are, concerned about the potential long-term health effects of prolonged creatine supplementation, particularly on kidney health. This is because about 2% of the body's creatine stores are broken down daily into a substance called creatinine, which must be removed from the body by the kidneys.
“Creatine is safe to use for 5 years.”
Creatine use and the kidneys
Taking large doses of creatine over a long period could theoretically place a significant additional burden on the kidneys, which could lead to damage for people with less than perfect kidney function.
However, more than 10 years of widespread creatine use and hundreds of published studies have (so far) provided little to no evidence that long-term creatine use poses a threat to kidney health.
Creatine as a cycle or continuous use?
What is the best way to use creatine, as a cycle or continuously? The short answer is that both options are possible. Creatine fully serves its purpose in both cases. Taking it in cycles has the small additional side effect that its effect on your strength level develops in leaps and bounds, just as you take your creatine cyclically.
So, after your cycle break, as soon as you take creatine again, you will notice a small jump in your strength level. If you take creatine permanently, this sudden increase in your strength levels will not occur. However, this does not change the fact that you will have almost the same increase in strength with the two different variants for the same total intake duration.
Is long-term creatine use completely fine?
As mentioned, there are still some unanswered questions. For example, some nutritionists have theorized that the fluid-retaining effect of creatine supplements could disrupt normal fluid transport, which in turn could harm exercise performance in very hot conditions.
Creatine and the heart
Another theoretical risk concerns cardiac arrhythmias. A recent study cited the case of a young, fit, and healthy man who developed atrial fibrillation after consuming large amounts of creatine.
This condition is extremely rare in young people and is normally only caused by excessive use of stimulants or alcohol. Other anecdotal reports have also linked arrhythmias to creatine use.
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Reduction of natural creatine production?
One adverse effect that seems beyond all doubt is the fact that long-term creatine use can significantly reduce the body's natural production of creatine. "So what?" I hear you ask. It makes sense that the body would reduce its own creatine synthesis if it gets a lot of creatine in supplement form, doesn't it?
Well, that's true, but these results raise an important question: what could be the effect of very long-term creatine supplementation on the enzymes used for creatine synthesis? We know that other enzymes in the body can become permanently downregulated under certain circumstances.
For example, people who abstain from dairy products for very long periods sometimes find that reintroducing milk and dairy products leads to abdominal pain and diarrhea. This is because during the period of abstinence, the body's production of the enzyme lactase, which is needed to break down the milk sugar lactose, is reduced and can even stop completely.
When milk is reintroduced, the lactose it contains can no longer be properly metabolized because lactase is insufficient or absent, leading to digestive problems.
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Still many questions about creatine use
Could creatine use cause the same kind of problem? Could continuous high-dose supplementation for very long periods lead to a permanent reduction in the body's ability to synthesize its own creatine?
And if so, how would performance be affected if supplementation were stopped?
We simply do not yet know the answers to all these questions. And while many athletes who buy creatine report no problems when they stop supplementation, there is still insufficient data to promise that there will certainly be no long-term effects.
Conclusion: 'creatine can be used for 5 years'
Creatine is one of the most researched sports supplements, with an excellent safety reputation. Despite all long-term studies, all possible medium and long-term consequences are still unclear.
The American research institute Mayo Clinic states that creatine, when taken in the correct amount, is likely safe to continue using for five years.
Regarding the benefits, a lot is already known about creatine. For example, creatine increases your anaerobic strength, allowing you to train more intensely. Even during washout periods, you should still experience the benefits of previous creatine use, meaning more anaerobic strength and power.
Remember also that you can avoid the high-dose loading phase by taking less creatine for longer, as 3 grams per day for 28 days provides the same degree of muscle saturation as 20 grams per day for five days.
Whichever route you take, remember that once muscle saturation is achieved, there is no point in taking more than the maintenance dose, as extra creatine is simply excreted in the urine!
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