Part 3 Strategies to Combat Aging
December 11, 2022PART 2 BUILD PRO: Push Past Plateaus and Optimize Performance
January 23, 2023Part 1 Importance of Creatine + GAA Combo and Why It Stands Apart
Recently a new formulation of BUILD has been released. This is a mixture of creatine, guanidinoacetic acid (GAA), and betaine. Today we discuss why this product is superior to other creatine formulations and explain the synergistic effects between creatine and GAA. Before we start, there are a lot of different blogs where you can read many things about creatine. Most of them are correct, but in a considerable number of articles we find a lot of controversial and highly debatable claims about creatine. So why should you trust us? Our expertise comes from scientific and practical experience in work with creatine, GAA, and molecular hydrogen. We are part of the independent Applied Bioenergetic Lab (https://www.appliedbioenergetics.org/), one of the world’s leading labs in human trials concerning these specific topics. We believe in honesty, and always fight for the truth.
Creatine is formed from three non-essential amino acids (methionine, arginine, and glycine), and it is synthesized endogenously in our bodies. In addition to producing it endogenously, we can consume creatine through our diet. Recent advances in creatine nutrition and metabolism suggest that the amount of creatine synthesized by the body is insufficient to meet human needs. As a result, humans must obtain enough creatine through their diet, making creatine an essential nutrient in certain circumstances [1]. A plethora of research published in the last few years points to a lack of creatine intake from diet. For example, 42.8% of the American population has an average intake below recommended levels [2]. Because of this, it would be ideal, especially for physically active individuals, to ingest Creatine through supplementation.
Numerous studies have been conducted to investigate the effects of creatine supplementation. A recent meta-analysis [3] found that creatine supplementation increased short high-intensity exercise by 7.5%. Furthermore, there are some indications that creatine supplementation improves endurance performance and could be helpful also for endurance athletes (unpublished data), which would be a new chapter in creatine and sport. This can perhaps be explained by improved mitochondrial function due to creatine’s effects on PGC-1a, an essential transcriptor responsible for enhancing mitochondrial function. Creatine supplementation has been shown to improve 1 repetition maximum (RM) strength [4], power output [5], sprinting and jumping abilities [6], total workload, and peak power [7]. Also, creatine can be an effective health supplement with many studies evaluating different effects of creatine on various health conditions (figure 1.).
Guanidinoacetic acid (GAA) is a naturally occurring amino acid that acts as a direct precursor of creatine, with research for its use as a novel dietary supplement gaining serious traction. In addition, GAA plays an essential role in the cellular bioenergetics of muscle and nerve tissue. It is formed endogenously in our bodies through the enzyme-catalyzed process from the amino acids arginine and glycine, mainly in the kidney and pancreas. Detailed creatine and GAA metabolism are represented in figure 2.
GAA was examined as a therapeutic agent 70 years ago, showing that supplemental GAA improved patient-reported outcomes in a clinical population [8]. However, GAA has only recently been considered a possible sport-enchanting agent [9]. A few studies examined GAA efficacy and safety with promising results. Auspicious results come from its mixture with creatine supplementation, which has shown to provide substantial synergistic effects. If you are still unsure what GAA is, in short it is a compound that forms creatine in our body. So why consume GAA with creatine, instead of simply increasing your dosage of creatine? The main advantage of GAA is that it can enter the cell in many different pathways and can perhaps even pass the blood brain barrier. In this way GAA has shown to increase brain creatine levels significantly more than creatine monohydrate, which is extremely important both for everyday life and sport-related performance [10]. In figure 3. the transporters of creatine and GAA are presented.
Several studies have examined the impact of GAA on exercise performance (studies are presented in table 1.). The first groundbreaking study that evaluated GAA’s effectiveness on exercise performance was conducted by the Applied Bioenergetics lab, led by Prof. Sergej Ostojic. This study showed that GAA alone, or combined with creatine, could significantly increase total creatine and GAA levels while also improving strength [11]. The findings indicate that the GAA-creatine combination is more effective than creatine alone in improving strength and power in muscle groups with lower initial strength levels.
Furthermore, combining GAA and creatine resulted in less weight gain than creatine administration alone. Creatine causes weight gain due to osmosis, and these abilities are frequently regarded as a side effect (bloating, water weight gain). However, the GAA-creatine combination appears to cancel out this event. There is no specific mechanism for this phenomenon, but additional GAA may have less water-binding capacity due to the lower polarizability of GAA molecules as compared to creatine (10.5 vs. 12.2 3) [12]. Ostojic et al. [13] found similar results in their study. This effect of the combination of GAA & creatine can be of great importance for all athletes who compete in sports with weight categories, for example, all of the combat sports and martial athletes,weight lifters, and more. In addition, it was demonstrated that six weeks of GAA supplementation could improve grip strength and upper-body muscle endurance, indicating that these specific muscle groups may preferentially absorb GAA (e.g., upper-body musculature).
Although no dose-response relationships were found between GAA administration and exercise performance, GAA improves isometric and dynamic exercise performance [11,13]. These capabilities can be extremely important in many sports activities, and significantly improve regular exercise routines [14]. Also, it was shown that the mixture of GAA + creatine was superior to both GAA and creatine alone [11]. The synergistic effects provide many advantages, such as increased brain levels of creatine, no weight gain, no need for a loading phase etc. In table 1. we present all up to date studies that evaluated effects of creatine and GAA in humans (Nov 11/2022).
Table 1. Studies evaluated GAA and GAA/creatine combination on performance and safety
In conclusion, the new BUILD formulation is an excellent mixture of creatine and GAA as main compounds, enriched with betaine. In the next blogs, we will set the story around betaine and how this important ingredient aids in improving performance and body composition effects, and also is critical for safety considerations. Also, a new BUILD PRO and related product for men above 30, PRIME, is launching simultaneously. Stay tuned as we will detail these superior “big brothers” of BUILD.
Reference
- Ostojic SM, Forbes SC. Perspective: Creatine, a conditionally essential nutrient: Building the case. Advances in Nutrition. 2022;13(1):34-7.
- Ostojic SM. Dietary creatine intake in US population: NHANES 2017–2018. Nutrition. 2021; 87.
- Branch JD. Effect of creatine supplementation on body composition and performance: a meta-analysis. International journal of sport nutrition and exercise metabolism. 2003; 13(2):198-226.
- Bemben MG, Bemben DA, Loftiss DD, Knehans AW. Creatine supplementation during resistance training in college football athletes. Medicine and science in sports and exercise. 2001; 33(10):1667-73.
- Hickner RC, Dyck DJ, Sklar J, Hatley H, Byrd P. Effect of 28 days of creatine ingestion on muscle metabolism and performance of a simulated cycling road race. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. 2010; 7(1):26.
- Kirksey B, Stone MH, Warren BJ, Johnson RL, Stone M, Haff GG, Williams FE, Proulx C. The effects of 6 weeks of creatine monohydrate supplementation on performance measures and body composition in collegiate track and field athletes. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research. 1999; 13(2):148-56.
- Yáñez-Silva A, Buzzachera CF, Piçarro ID, Januario RS, Ferreira LH, McAnulty SR, Utter AC, Souza-Junior TP. Effect of low dose, short-term creatine supplementation on muscle power output in elite youth soccer players. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. 2017; 14(1):1-8.
- Borsook H, Borsook ME. The biochemical basis of betaine-glycocyamine therapy. Annals of western medicine and surgery. 1951 Oct;5(10):825-9.
- Ostojic SM. Guanidinoacetic acid as a performance-enhancing agent. Amino acids. 2016; 48(8):1867-75.
- Ostojic SM, Ostojic J, Drid P, Vranes M. Guanidinoacetic acid versus creatine for improved brain and muscle creatine levels: a superiority pilot trial in healthy men. Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism. 2016;41(9):1005-7.
- Semeredi S, Stajer V, Ostojic J, Vranes M, Ostojic SM. Guanidinoacetic acid with creatine compared with creatine alone for tissue creatine content, hyperhomocysteinemia, and exercise performance: A randomized, double-blind superiority trial. Nutrition. 2019;5 7:162-6.
- van Oss CJ. Long‐range and short‐range mechanisms of hydrophobic attraction and hydrophilic repulsion in specific and aspecific interactions. Journal of Molecular Recognition. 2003; 16(4):177-90.
- Ostojic SM, Stojanovic MD, Hoffman JR. Six-week oral guanidinoacetic acid administration improves muscular performance in healthy volunteers. Journal of Investigative Medicine. 2015; 63(8):942-6.
- Ricci T, Forbes SC, Candow DG. Creatine supplementation: practical strategies and considerations for mixed martial arts. Journal of Exercise and Nutrition. 2020; 3(1).
- Ostojic SM, Niess B, Stojanovic M, Obrenovic M. Creatine metabolism and safety profiles after six-week oral guanidinoacetic acid administration in healthy humans. International journal of medical sciences. 2013; 10(2):141.
- Ostojic SM, Niess B, Stojanovic M, Obrenovic M. Co-administration of methyl donors along with guanidinoacetic acid reduces the incidence of hyperhomocysteinaemia compared with guanidinoacetic acid administration alone. British journal of nutrition. 2013; 110(5):865-70.
- Ostojic SM, Stojanovic M, Drid P, Hoffman JR. Dose–response effects of oral guanidinoacetic acid on serum creatine, homocysteine and B vitamins levels. European journal of nutrition. 2014; 53(8):1637-43.
- Ostojic SM, Todorovic N, Stajer V. Effect of Creatine and Guanidinoacetate Supplementation on Plasma Homocysteine in Metabolically Healthy Men and Women. Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism. 2021;77(5):307-8.