Hello, I'm Monica Reinable, and you're listening to The Nutrition Deva

podcast Welcome. This week's podcast topic was suggested by B who wrote,

Can you comment on research showing that

creatine supplements can improve cognitive function

in vegetarians?

Do I need to worry about my vegan diet hurting my brain?

Now if you've heard anything about creatine, you've probably heard about it in the context of enhancing athletic performance.

My colleague Brock Armstrong recently devoted an episode of the Get Fit Guy podcast

to the potential uses of creatine to build muscle.

But creatine has also been investigated as a potential nootropic.

A nootropic is a substance that enhances brain function or cognition.

Creteane is a non-essential amino acid acid and that means that our bodies have the ability to manufacture it from other amino acids

but we can also get creatine from our diets and the primary sources are meat, poultry, and fish. So not surprisingly,

vegetarians and vegans have lower levels of creatine in their blood and their muscle tissue than meat eaters.

So if creatine is important for brain functioning and vegetarians have lower creatine levels,

could a vegetarian or vegan diet have a negative impact on cognitive function?

I don't think so.

Observational data suggests that lifelong vegetarians and vegans actually have a lower risk of dementia than meat eaters.

Now this may not have to do directly with the amount of animal products they do or don't consume.

It could be due to a higher intake of vegetables or legumes for example

or it could have to do with the fact that vegetarians are statistically more

likely to exercise and less likely to smoke or any number of other lifestyle factors.

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