Creatine Supplements - Triathlon Week

sfricks · 11-02-2006, 04:29 AM

Dear Dr. Mirkin: Will taking creatine supplements help to prevent the loss of muscle strength that occurs with aging?

Each muscle has millions of muscle fibers, and each muscle fiber is enervated by a single nerve. With aging, you lose nerves and with loss of each motor nerve, you lose the corresponding muscle fiber. So the treatment of muscle weakness with aging is to increase the size and strength of each remaining active muscle fibers. You do this only by exercising against increasing resistance.
Creatine will do nothing to stop the progressive loss of nerves that decreases the number of active muscle fibers. However, it can help you to exercise harder and longer, so it may help you to do the intense
workouts that will build larger and stronger muscles. At this time we
do not know whether there are any deleterious side effects in older people from taking creatine, so I cannot recommend it. See [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]