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Wisdom Wednesdays: Yet Another Benefit of Creatine - Combatting Depression · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to another edition of Wisdom Wednesdays, and
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  Speaker 1: today we're going to talk about creating. Now, creating, you
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  Speaker 1: may know, is pretty famous as a sports supplement. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: it is probably the best studied and safest sports supplement
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  Speaker 1: that there is, kind of next to protein. But a
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  Speaker 1: recent research has shown that creating can actually be useful
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  Speaker 1: for the brain. And the reason age you need to
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  Speaker 1: be a little bit we need to get a little
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  Speaker 1: bit technical. Sorry, So if we think of our energy
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  Speaker 1: systems in the body, we have three energy systems. You
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  Speaker 1: have your aerobic energy system, which basically runs off the
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  Speaker 1: breakdown of fat. Then you have what's called glycolysis, which
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  Speaker 1: is basically running off carbohydrate. And then we have ATP
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  Speaker 1: PC and the PC in that stands for posphol creating.
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  Speaker 1: So ATP is the the energy currency of the body.
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  Speaker 1: And some of you who are familiar with these energy
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  Speaker 1: systems will know that sprinters use mostly ATPPC. And then
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  Speaker 1: if you think of four hundred meter runners, like they
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  Speaker 1: all use a little bit of eats, but four hundred
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  Speaker 1: meter runners that's dominant the lactic acid are glycolysis. And
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  Speaker 1: then if you think of a marathon runner. They're mostly
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  Speaker 1: the aerobic energy system until you know they're really pushing.
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  Speaker 1: Now posphol creating are atppiece. The PC part of it
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  Speaker 1: creating actually, it has been shown, provides energy for ourselves
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  Speaker 1: and that also gets into the brain. And now I
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  Speaker 1: want to talk about a really interesting research paper which
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  Speaker 1: is a randomized control trial in adults with depression who
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  Speaker 1: were receiving cognitive behavior therapy and in daily supplementation with
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  Speaker 1: creating monohydrate our a placebo. And what they looked at
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  Speaker 1: was the efficacy of supplementing with creating on top of
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  Speaker 1: getting the therapy and seeing if that had an impact
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  Speaker 1: on depressive symptoms. So depressive symptoms were measured using something
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  Speaker 1: called the Patient Health Question or nine, which is a
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  Speaker 1: standard depression inventory if you like. And they had one
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  Speaker 1: hundred adults. Average age was thirty and half of them
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  Speaker 1: were men and half of them were women, and they
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  Speaker 1: all had major depressive disorder, so not that kind of
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  Speaker 1: fleeting depression, but major depressive disorder, and their severity range
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  Speaker 1: from mild to severe. And they had not taken any
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  Speaker 1: psychotropic medications in the eight weeks before the study, so
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  Speaker 1: they weren't on maids, but they were getting therapy, and
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  Speaker 1: they conducted an eight week randomized control trial and as
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  Speaker 1: I said, the participants in the intervention got their therapy,
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  Speaker 1: but they also took five grams of creating monohydrate and
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  Speaker 1: the control group had a placebo, right, so a proper
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  Speaker 1: randomized control trial with a placebo, and they all received
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  Speaker 1: forty five minute cognitive behavioral therapy sessions during the study
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  Speaker 1: on numrous occasions and depressive symptoms improved in both groups.
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  Speaker 1: We know that CBT is useful for that, but there
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  Speaker 1: was a greater improvement in the creating group, and the
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  Speaker 1: difference between the groups met previously established thresholds for clinical significance.
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  Speaker 1: And this is really important because some medications actually don't
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  Speaker 1: reach that threshold for clinical significance, which suggests that most
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  Speaker 1: participants would have felt noticeably better with creating. So the
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  Speaker 1: big picture on this is that that creating you know,
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  Speaker 1: we get it from food life red meat and fish,
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  Speaker 1: but it's also synthesized their mane in the body, particularly
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  Speaker 1: in the liver and the kidney as well as the brain,
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  Speaker 1: and it plays a key role in energy production. As
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  Speaker 1: I talked about earlier on it basically stores these high
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  Speaker 1: energy phosphate groups in the form of creating phosphate as
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  Speaker 1: I talked about atppc, and those phosphate groups are donated
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  Speaker 1: to ADP to generate ATP or energy, the energy currency
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  Speaker 1: of the body. And because our brain cells require a
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  Speaker 1: constant supply of ATP, which is in part provided through
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  Speaker 1: that phospho creating reliant energy system, creating is crucial for
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  Speaker 1: optimal brain function, and I have talked on the podcast
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  Speaker 1: before about how creating can minimize the drop in cognitive
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  Speaker 1: function whenever you're sleep deprived and also seems to be
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  Speaker 1: good for overall brain health. Now, this is further evidence
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  Speaker 1: by the fact that clinical symptoms of creating deficiency syndromes.
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  Speaker 1: That's a group of conditions that are characterized by death
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  Speaker 1: aicits in the ability to either create, creating or transport it.
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  Speaker 1: And these deficiency syndromes include intellectual disability and epilepsy, amongst
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  Speaker 1: other neurological abnormalities and no sorry, brain creating content and
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  Speaker 1: abnormalities in energy within the brain or what we call
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  Speaker 1: brain bioenerg genetics. They're associated with severe neurological disorders like
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  Speaker 1: Hunting's disease and also depression and supplementing with creating. As
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  Speaker 1: I said earlier on, it's been shown to improve brain
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  Speaker 1: health because it increases the creating content in the brain,
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  Speaker 1: so we know that it gets into the brain, and
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  Speaker 1: that gives us the plausible mechanism by which creating could
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  Speaker 1: improve overall brain health. And in the case of this
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  Speaker 1: study now, other than affecting the brain bio energetics, pre
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  Speaker 1: clinical evidence of other studies suggest that supplementing with creatine
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  Speaker 1: could help with depression by modulating or affecting neurotransmitter receptors,
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  Speaker 1: for example, activating dopamine and serotonin receptors and inhibiting something
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  Speaker 1: called nmethyl d aspartate receptors, which are not good whenever
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  Speaker 1: they're overactivated. And creatine might also improve depression by decreasing
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  Speaker 1: oxidative stress and increasing BDNF. And you've heard me talk
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  Speaker 1: about BDNF before, brain derived neurotropic factor, which is a
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  Speaker 1: really useful chemical in terms of overall brain health, protecting
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  Speaker 1: brain cells, creating new brain cells. So there's even more
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  Speaker 1: evidence for this effect. I mean, creating has been consistently
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  Speaker 1: shown to improve depression like behavior in female rudents and
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  Speaker 1: in humans. Preliminary evidence from clinical trials other than this
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  Speaker 1: one suggests that taking creating alongside antidepressant medication isn't an
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  Speaker 1: effective intervention for improving depression symptoms. And a large study
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  Speaker 1: in participants with methanthettermine dependence reported that supplementing with creatine
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  Speaker 1: that's without antidepressant use, improved depression symptoms in these people. Now,
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  Speaker 1: the problem with a couple of those studies that they
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  Speaker 1: didn't have a placebo control group, but this study actually did.
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  Speaker 1: And there's also evidence from other randomized control trials. For instance,
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  Speaker 1: a studying patients with bipolar depression who were taken antidepressants
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  Speaker 1: find some evidence that adjunct treatment with creating was better
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  Speaker 1: than a placebo for improving depressive symptoms. And in another study,
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  Speaker 1: participants who had a major depressive disorder who were taking
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  Speaker 1: antidepressants went through an eight week study that included fifty
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  Speaker 1: two women, and they found that taking five grams of
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  Speaker 1: creatine a day was better than a placebo for improving
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  Speaker 1: depressive symptoms, so pretty similar to antidepressants taken together. I
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  Speaker 1: think there's a pretty broad spectrum of evidence that makes
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  Speaker 1: a compelling case that supplement them with creatine could be
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  Speaker 1: an effective intervention for improving depression. But also with other evidence,
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  Speaker 1: it is very very clear that creating is a supplement
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  Speaker 1: that should be very high on your list for overall
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  Speaker 1: brain health, and now it would appear mental health as well,
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  Speaker 1: and for sports performance and improving your recovery from exercise.
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  Speaker 1: So I actually think that creatine is the best supplement
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  Speaker 1: that's out there. Cheap, it's effective, there's not really any
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  Speaker 1: side effects unless you're taking large doses, and it has
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  Speaker 1: lots of different benefits. So that's it for this week, folks,
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  Speaker 1: get on the creating. Catch you next time.