Let's say you're trying to find some solid information about a serious health problem that concerns you, high blood pressure, diabetes.

Yet everywhere you look, someone's trying to sell you something like vitamins, yoga mats, blenders, drugs?

Well, breathe a sigh relief because all we bring you are the facts. Welcome to the nutrition facts podcast. I'm your

host Dr Michael Greger. When accompanied by a strength training regimen, three

grams of creatine a day may improve muscle performance in older adults.

Here's our first story.

Creatine is a compound formed naturally in the human body that is primarily involved in

energy production in our muscles and brain. It's also

naturally formed in the bodies of many animals we eat and so when we eat their

muscles we can also take in some creaking through our diet. It was named after

Krias the Greek word for meat in which it was first isolated.

We need about 2 grams a day, so those who eat meat may get like 1 gram from their diet and

their body makes the rest from scratch.

There are rare birth defects where you're born without the ability to make it,

in which case you have to get at all externally through diet.

But otherwise our bodies can make as much as we need to maintain normal concentrations in our muscles.

When people cut out meat, the amount of creatine floating around their bloodstream goes down,

but the amount in your brain remains the same because your brain just makes all the

creatine it needs. The level in vegetarian muscles is lower but that doesn't seem

to affect performance as both vegetarians and medors respond to creatine supplementation with similar increases in muscle power output.

And if vegetarian muscle creatine was insufficient, then presumably they would have seen an even bigger boost.

So basically when you eat meat that just... they would have seen an even bigger boost.

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