Why Dr. Rhonda Patrick Started Taking 10-20 Grams Of Creatine Per Day

“I'm finding now, it's not just a Jimbrow supplement. It's hugely important for not just muscle health, but I think brain health. And I'm becoming increasingly convinced that people should be thinking about their brain health, because if they're thinking about their brain health, then they're gonna get the muscular benefits.”

“Generally speaking, your muscles are saturated after about a month or so of consuming five grams a day. And once your muscles are saturated and happy, any spillover, anything that's left can spill over to the brain. Your brain also makes a small amount of creatine itself, but muscles are greedy and consume anything that you're orally consuming. And so after the five grams, if you go up to 10 grams a day, then we're talking about maybe getting some brain benefits.”

“Giving people 20 to 25 grams, depending on their body weight, seemed to attenuate 21 hours, was it? Yeah, a full night of sleep deprivation, essentially. So not only did it attenuate the cognitive deficits of sleep deprivation, it also seemed to bring their baseline up higher, like they were functioning better than normal if they weren't sleep deprived.”

“And the other thing I've noticed, just going up from 5 to 10, so I was doing 5 grams a day when I started lifting, I noticed that the 10 grams a day really took away the afternoon sleepiness. I mean, it was like, it's pretty night and day, because when I forget my creatine and I don't have it, or I go down just to 5 grams, I get sleepier again during the afternoon.”

“The biggest, I have a couple of, like, vegan, almost vegan friends, and it's, like, changed their lives. I mean, like, they're just like, I can't even tell you how much this has changed my life. But you imagine, you know, creatine is found in muscle meat, right? And so if you are a vegetarian or vegan, there's very little creatine in plants. And if you add exercise on top of that, like, I've got vegan athlete friends, and they're now taking 10 grams a day, and it's life changing for them.”

“Creatine is big, it's like a sink for methylation, because our body, you need methylation to make creatine. And so about 40% of methylation groups that are formed go to make creatine, because energy is very important. And so when your body, when you give yourself exogenous creatine, supplemental creatine, you are alleviating some of that burden, and your body now can shift the methylation to other processes as well. Like some people have been able to lower their homocysteine by supplementing with creatine.”

“I know some people who can't get to sleep if they take it too late in the day. I've heard about that. I typically take all my creatine before noon.”