109: Creatine: The Most Misunderstood Supplement in the Wellness Space | Dr. Dan Pardi, PhD

Creatine used to be something people mainly associated with athletes or bodybuilders—but lately it’s been having a major moment in the wellness space. And it turns out the benefits may go far beyond muscle. In today’s episode, I sit down with Dr. Dan Pardi, PhD to explore what creatine actually is, how it works in the body, and why researchers are now studying its role in brain health, energy production, and cognitive performance.

Dr. Pardi is the Chief Health Officer at Qualia Life Sciences, where he leads education around healthspan and human performance. He holds a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience from Leiden University and Stanford, and has advised elite military units, Fortune 500 companies, and startups through his consultancy, Vivendi Health. If you’ve been hearing about creatine everywhere lately and wondering whether it’s worth adding to your routine, this episode will give you the science and context to understand why it’s getting so much attention.

Suggested Resources:

• Qualia creatine (use the code wellnstrong for a special discount)
• Creatine before vs after workouts

This episode is proudly sponsored by: Sizzlefish

Let’s talk about fueling your body with the best nature has to offer. If you’re looking for premium, sustainable seafood delivered straight to your door, you need to check out Sizzlefish! Head to sizzlefish.com and use my code “wellnstrong” at checkout for an exclusive discount on your first order. Trust me, you’re going to taste the difference with Sizzlefish!

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Transcript

*Unedited transcript

Jac: [00:00:00] Dan, I, first of all, I'm so excited to have you on today. I know we started recording already. I find Dan that I'll get so immersed in conversation with folks when I have them on that I forgot to hit record.

So that's why I always just start recording from the beginning. But, um, I'm really excited to sit down and chat with you today. I feel like I'm part of the Qualia team already. I've known Chase for what, like the past two or three years. I love him. He's so great. And when he mentioned having you on the show, I immediately was like a, I would love to meet Dan and BI have not yet spoken about Creatine, which is now the biggest buzzword in the wellness space.

So I figured, you know, I should dedicate an episode to it, right?

Dan: Uh, it is such a great idea. It's, it's so funny to me, interesting perhaps to think about the arc of creatine because it's like, it's having like another revival in a way, and I'm really, really happy for it. We've, we've definitely expanded our understanding of what it's for.

Jac: Yeah, of course. Well, Dan, before we dive [00:01:00] in, can you first share a bit about your background, who you are, what you do, and how you became such a strong voice for creatine, especially Qualia?

Dan: Yeah. I'd be happy to. So, you know, it's, it's interesting to think about when you became interested in health, right? What were the key moments? And for me, it probably goes back to when. I was playing sports in high school and I got injured, and in a way it was a gift because

it helped me At that moment. I paid attention to my body in a new way, and that stuck.

It created this new path for me in a way. Wanted to heal myself. I started reading about the body. I started reading about sports performance, and then that led to me doing, going on to college and studying everything I could in the area, getting a master's in exercise physiology, and then working in a variety of capacities.

I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I just knew I loved everything. It was more, it was a [00:02:00] problem of selection, not lack of interest. Right. It was, I was too interested in it all.

Jac: Yep.

Dan: So I did, I did prostate cancer research through UCSF when I graduated. I then went on to work at a bioinformatic company that was sequencing the human genome, um, which was so fascinating.

I went into work in pharma for a little bit. I did sales for a year, and then I went into medical affairs and founded the medical affairs department at Jazz. Pharma. Worked there for almost a decade, and that was great 'cause I gotta travel around the world and be a subject matter expert for one of our products, Xyrem, which, uh, is for, uh, the sleep disorder narcolepsy.

And so that ignited my love for sleep. And, and even then I knew, so eventually I left and I did my PhD. It's like I, I've got questions of my own. Now I gotta address them. But even when I started my PhD, I knew I didn't wanna be a sleep researcher, not because that [00:03:00] wouldn't have been a fascinating life, but I was thinking back to my time when I was working on this multifactorial lifestyle program for prostate cancer patients.

How do you help harness all the information we know about lifestyle into something that is going to help people with various issues or just trying to main optimize their health span to be healthy in life? That was always been my calling. There just wasn't really a career path that had been blazed for this.

And so now I do a lot of theoretical work working on the definition of health, the meaning of that and health span, uh, how we need to change our healthcare system. And I also love all of the very rubber meets the road tactical. Creatine topics of the world too. So I get to now be, um, engaged in all of the things that I still find interesting, but, um, I do spend some time focusing on some of the big picture questions that are also really interesting to [00:04:00] try to explore.

Jac: Yeah, Dan, I love that we're gonna be good friends and just for you, but on my background, my background's in finance and economics. I went to a small business school called Babson, right outside Boston. Worked in finance the past several years. Left my full-time job about a year ago to do well and strong full-time.

But kind of similar to, we all have a story, right as to why we find ourselves in this space. My story is my mom was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer back in 2018, and she was the reason I started this platform. Um, we'll talk offline, but I'm a huge fan of integrative medicine, specifically with regards to cancer.

I wrote a thesis on it as an undergrad, like that is my passion project. But well and strong has evolved over the past several years to encompass, you know, topics beyond that. Hence why we're sitting down not talking about creatine, but I always love hearing people's stories, you know, as to why they found themselves in the wellness space.

Because it's a story, you know, it, it's a, it's a life changing story with everyone. So

Dan: Can I share a little bit more about

Jac: yeah, please 

Dan: journey? The, um, when I started to [00:05:00] work for the Preventative Medicine Research Institute, my father was diagnosed with cancer and we were studying prostate cancer.

And so I was in this moment in my life where these two worlds are coinciding and, uh, of course, I tried to do everything I could to help my father and share all the information that we were utilizing for the benefit of these patients in this trial.

Jac: Right?

Dan: And I was throwing so much information at my dad, and he's not a scientist, he was a businessman and I, and after, and he, he was so proud of me. He would listen with great pride to what I was saying, but he wasn't really at a place to be able to implement it. And some of that had to do with the fact that he hadn't taken great care of him himself.

Um, I mean, he, he didn't pay [00:06:00] attention to health, right? He was paying attention to other things he didn't smoke, you know, but he, he wasn't abusing his body, but he wasn't taking great care of it. He had probably had very bad sleep apnea. Uh, you could hear him snore from across the entire house. And, um, but what I realized then is that there is good information and then there is.

Communicating it in a way that actually help that specific individual take action.

Jac: Yeah. That's, and again, with Well and strong too, Dan, it's like there's so much information out there, you know, and it's like, how do you distill it? How do you also like tell people that there isn't one right way, right? Like, many things work for many different people. Um. But I'm sure your father is very proud of you during that work.

Uh, my mom is my biggest fan and she continues to always listen to my podcast, you know, whenever she does. 

Dan: That's great.

Jac: yeah, but all that to say, Dan, let's get into creatine. So I'm [00:07:00] really excited to talk about this because I feel like I have friends Dan who all bring it up with, and they'll say, oh yeah, I've been taking creatine for the past 10 years, and then folks who are just now jumping onto this creatine train.

But let's start with the basics. So what exactly is creatine and what role does it play in the body? Because I feel like it used to be like Jimbo territory, right? And now like everyone's taking it.

Dan: 100% it, you know, it really had the hist. Well, I'll tell you about the history too, because it is actually interesting. It's a good story. And I think in communicating health sciences good stories, um, will surpass just the detail, like lots of detail, right? So we'll talk about that story 'cause it's fun. But fundamentally creatine is a natural molecule.

Your body makes it, and it's made out of three amino acids, arginine, glycine, and methionine. And what it is doing, it's [00:08:00] mostly stored in muscles. So about 95% of your creatine in your body is in your muscles. And so. We'll get into now what is, what is it actually doing? But that's what it is, that's where it's found.

And then I'll actually say a little bit about how it's made and then we can talk about what it does. So you eat it if you have, if you eat animal products, if you have a vegetarian or vegan diet, you're not really consuming much at all.

Um, hardly any, uh, virtually none. That's the best way to put it.

Virtually none. And so side note, people that are vegetarians or vegans that do take supplemental creatine actually even do better than, um, carnivores, but people that, or omnivores. Yeah. So people that are omnivores that are eating fish and meat, those sources contain creatine. And so you'll consume about one or two grams a day, and then your body will make another [00:09:00] one or two grams.

And it, the way that it's made, it's not made like locally, so your muscles don't make it. They absorb it. And so it's made, it starts off in the kidneys and that's part, part of the molecules made there. Then it goes to the liver where the structure is completed and then it enters into circulation and then your muscles have a transporter.

They're creatine, one transporter, and they just pull it in.

Yeah. The only place that makes it that's unique is the brain. The brain makes a little bit of it itself, and we can talk about that later because the brain aspect of this is very cool. But yeah, so now what is it and where, where is it and how is it made?

And, and where do you and you consume it. So we've covered that. The, the story of creatine and what it does. So the history a little bit, 'cause this kind of segues into like what, how we think of it,

[00:10:00] but 

Jac: Let's do it.

Dan: All right. Cool. It was discovered in the 18 hundreds. Uh, and it just sat in textbooks for like a, a century, but we knew then and that it was given the name Creas, which means, um, flesh.

And so, because it was found in muscle tissue, but we really didn't know what it did. And then in 19, in the early nineties, there was a researcher named Roger Harris, and he started to look at it for sports performance. And he found that you could increase muscle stores by taking supplemental creatine and that you could also improve sprint performance, like high intensity efforts by like up to 3%, which doesn't sound like that much, but think about like the a hundred meter dash right.

3% difference in your, your performance is really the difference between. You know, maybe getting into the [00:11:00] final race and winning gold, like 'cause right? Like, think about those photo finishes where we're just looking at the nose of one person and like, you know, the ear of another NA second differences. So Roger Harris brought this to a guy named Steve Jennings, and Steve Jennings is a British sports scientist, and he was working with the Olympic team.

And so he, Steve Jennings said, okay, wow, we need to figure out how to get this to our British athletes. But the global supply at that time was only one kilo, which was about 50 days worth for one athlete. That was the global supply.

Jac: insane.

Dan: Yeah. So they're, they're, they recognize that this could be transformational for their athletes.

And they try to figure, they're like, we need to figure out a way to make it and then get it into athletes. And so they came up with this ever, ever nascent form. So you almost like a, a tablet that would fizz. Right. So you, um, I'm trying to think of like a, [00:12:00] a parallel molecule that, or a, you know, compound that does that, but I can't, some something like anac acid or something.

Yeah, yeah. You're with me. You're with me. Uh, and so turn turns out, that's not necessarily needed, but it did work. That form did work, and they were able to then get it to their athletes in time for them to train so that they could benefit from that. And the story. So there was an athlete on the British Sprint team named Linford Christie.

You're probably too young to remember him, but I'm not. And, uh, he won the a hundred meter dash, which is really one of the most visible events of all the Olympics. It's just so exciting. It's, it's been my favorite forever. And, uh, and so he won. And after the Olympics that story broke that he was taking creatine and it set off this like wave of interest in top level athletes.

So much so that just a couple years later, the market size for creatine was [00:13:00] about $30 million in the United States. And then even three years after that, it had, uh, grown by fivefold to 150 million. So it started with like high level athletes and college athlete, you know, as pros and college athletes.

Then your non-professional athlete that's taking their training serious 

and yeah. And so the first study that I ever took part in, uh, was in the mid nineties when I was doing my master's in exercise Fiz. And it happened to be on creatine and. Uh, so I was, I didn't real, I didn't even realize at that time I knew that it was new because I had just started to read about it, that there was definitely a buzz about it already.

Um, but I didn't know all the history at that time and I was both a participant in that study and also an assistant. And we, I don't have to get into the details, but what we found is that yes, indeed Creatine did improve sports performance or performance on what's something called a Wingate power test, which is a brutal, absolutely brutal test.

I always [00:14:00] say, if you ever have like the invite to do a Wingate power test, it's a hard no. So you're on a ergonomic bike, you're and a stationary bike, and you have a group of people standing around you screaming at you for 15 seconds. 'cause they, what you're trying to do is get this sympathetic burst and go as hard as you possibly can, can, and the closer you get to a hundred percent, it's kind of like.

The speed of light, like the, the, the heart, it goes up exponentially. The, like, the difficulty. So you did five rounds of 15 seconds and by the end of that I laid on the floor for 45 minutes. I couldn't, I could not move. I was that tired. Um, and we were looking at the difference between placebo and creatine.

And yes, creatine did actually improve performance and a statistically significant way aligned with the rest of the research that was coming out. And so you had in this moment, mid nineties, this explosion of commercial interest and research and all of that was in sports performance because that's where the story started.

Jac: Wow. That's wild. That's 

[00:15:00] so fascinating. Yeah. You mentioned, you mentioned Dan, so obviously like, you know, people who aren't necessarily, you know, intense athletes are starting to take it now too. One thing that I have heard, especially among women is this like persistent belief. You probably know I'm gonna ask, but there's this persistent belief, Dan, that creatine makes women gain weight or get bulky.

But physiologically, as you kind of alluded to before, like that's not what actually is happening. Can you break down what, like what creatine is really doing in the body, especially in terms of intracellular water and body composition and why? Perhaps like a small shift in the scale doesn't necessarily mean fat gain.

Dan: yeah, totally. So this has been something that I wouldn't say plagued, but it's been a attributed to creatine, uh, supplementation for, since really the beginning you will gain a little bit of weight. I actually gained quite a bit of weight. I gained like 10 pounds when I take creatine always consistently, but I'm also, you know, 210 pounds.

So [00:16:00] it, the, it is be proportional. It's a percentage increase, and some people are more responders than others, but. Creatine is a hydrophilic water loving molecule, and it is stored intracellular. It's, it's inside of the cell. And so people, w has been misunderstood, is that, oh, it's gonna make me bloat, but bloating is really extracellular water.

It's that squishyness that we experience when we have like a huge bowl of ramen, you know, the night before. Um, like we overdo the salt. So then you've, you just feel squishy and not very tight. This feeling of creatine is more like, think about yourself in the gym. You're lifting some weights and you have a, your muscles feel a little tight.

That's the feeling of the intracellular water, making your muscles, but it doesn't make you bulky. Bulky happens when, for months to years of hard, hard training,

right, where you actually gain weight. [00:17:00] By a different type of weight, like your muscles, you are in a very dedicated program to make your muscles grow.

And that is a very controllable outcome because it does not happen fast. So it's not like you're gonna take creatine and look like the most jacked CrossFit athlete. After seven days, you're gonna feel a little bit more like you do at the end of, you know, some workout that you did where your muscles just feel a little tighter and pretty much everybody likes that feeling.

Jac: Right. Yeah, that makes sense. And Dan, what are the different forms of creatine? So I've heard that like creatine monohydrate is like the most researched, most, you know, prescribed or taken form. Is that, is that true?

Dan: Yeah. 100%. So there are different forms. Um, creatine hydrochloride, creatine, ethyl ester, uh, creatine monohydrate. Most of the research is on creatine monohydrate. And because of that, we have more confidence that the effects of creatine monohydrate are, are what they are. 

So pretty much anything [00:18:00] that you read about the science of creatine is from the compound creatine, monohydrate being given.

Are these other forms interesting? Maybe there's a couple of studies that show that there may be as effective or might have some unique benefits, but it's one study usually by a manufacturer who conducted it, which I, I never dismiss outright. But there is also consistently, we know a bias. The main thing to know is that there really hasn't been anything compelling, that there's a difference.

And so those other forms are more expensive.

And less tested and, and then you have to think, well, why would you even want to be taking them in the first place? Like what would be the advantage? Is it absorption into the body? Might it help get into certain tissues? All of that needs to be demonstrated before, and I'm open-minded to it, like, Hey, if we, if more evidence comes out on those, that it can do anything different.

Awesome. [00:19:00] Right. We have another tool in our toolkit, but cre, team Monohydrate is the way to go. 

Jac: Okay. That's helpful. And also too, I've read that creatine supports a TP production, which automatically made me think of biohackers. Right. And all of their, I guess you could call it like stacking therapy interventions, right? Where they stack like supplements or other, you know, modalities or interventions in their routines.

Has there been any solid research, Dan, on whether like stacking, creatine with other compounds could enhance its effects?

Dan: Oh, totally. Uh, you know, has there been research? Yeah, there has, I I just was talking about skin the other day with, on a different show and that, and, and so fundamentally, what, let's talk about what creatine is doing. We talked about that it improves sports performance. The reason it works is due to the energetics, the, the effect on energetics or energy, the energy systems in the body.

Creatine doesn't necessarily give you energy like [00:20:00] eating some toast and some carbohydrates or fat. Those are fundamentally where we are getting our energy. And also from store fat. What creatine does is it buffers energy. So when you're using energy at a high rate. And your a TP levels. Your A TP is adenosine three phosphates.

So that's what it means. And it gives one of its phosphates. Uh, that's what we think of as energy, and that fuels reactions in the body. And when the pace of a TP giving away its phosphate is so high, it can't resynthesize fast enough, and creatine is stored in cells as creatine, phospho, creatine, which means creatine plus a phosphate.

So when a TP is struggling to keep up, uh, you know, having, there's, we're body's struggling to have enough creatine, I'm sorry, a TP then creatine donates its phosphate and it's able to re-synthesize a TP really [00:21:00] quickly. And that's why in sports performance, you see like, all right, I can do two more reps 'cause I have the energy to do that.

But it doesn't just apply there. This actually applies to a lot of scenarios in the body. And around 2010, the scope of what creatine started to be studied for widened. And so in some ways we have a lot more data that we do. But I still think that we are, at the beginning, we're at the, are we at the very tip of the iceberg?

No, but we, I would say the majority of the iceberg is still underwater

Jac: Yeah. I definitely wanna get into that, Dan, especially with regards to brain health. But before jumping into that. In terms of like time of day to take creatine, is there a best time of day, morning versus night pre-workout versus post-workout or even during workouts? Like what is, what is the best time to take creatine?

Dan: Yeah, I think we can keep it pretty simple. So creatine, we'll talk about this in a moment because of the effects of the brain and then also sleep. But creatine can [00:22:00] keep you awake. So you take it in the morning,

that's the best time to take it. And even if you do a loading dose, which we've not talked about dosing yet, but some people will do, uh, they'll take a higher amount for five days when they first start.

And what that does is it saturates your muscles more quickly. If you don't do the, the loading dose in five to seven days, then you'll get to the same place after taking five grams for two or three weeks. So it's more just about do you wanna like load up quickly and get your muscle saturated fast? The way that people do that is you take it mostly in the, in the morning.

So you take, even if you're doing four doses of five grams, you would take, take five grams, wait a half an hour, take another five. Wait a half an hour. An hour. If you take it all at once, you can get some GI distress, because remember, it's water loving. And so imagine you take this big bolus of creatine, it can move right through you.

And we wanna avoid that because if you have that negative association, [00:23:00] then you're like, ah, I'm gonna give up on this really helpful substance. So let's 

avoid that altogether, 

Jac: Would, having creatine with food Dan, make any difference in that reaction, or not necessarily?

Dan: yeah, probably. So still, if you did 20 grams, let's say with a meal, I bet it would improve the situation. And that's a great question. So if you're like, gosh, I don't know if I, I just would need to get this in me and then move on with my day, what I would say is for everyone who's thinking about trying that, just go slow.

So first day, take five grams. Next day, take 10 grams with food, you did fine. All right. You could take take 15. You, you can, uh, see how you do with it, 

but Yeah. test and test and then, yeah. But taking in 15, 20 grams all at once without any food, you're likely to experience some issues.

Jac: Okay, that's helpful. Now the fun part, Dan, getting into brain health. So this is honestly the part I find most fascinating, and I'm sure [00:24:00] you as well. But can you set the stage for us, like why is creatine now being discussed in neuroscience and psychiatry, and what exactly is the connection between creatine and the brain?

Dan: Yeah. So back in, even in the nineties, there was one study that came out that showed that a loading dose of creatine actually did increase brain creatine levels as, as well, not as much as in muscle. So you'll increase the inter intercellular stores of creatine in your muscles by like 20%. And if you're a vegetarian or vegan, it could be up to 40%.

'cause you're not making that much. Yeah. So big increases in the brain. It, I've seen research showing somewhere between it that, that this first study was around 10%. So eight to up to 16%, but let's just say 10%. 'cause that seems to be like an average, not as much as muscles, but that's, that's a pretty sizable increase. And the brain is the hungriest [00:25:00] tissue in the body for energy. I mean, it, it only weighs about, it's 2% of our body weight, but it's using 20% of our resting energy.

So even if you're not. Thinking hard. It's working, just doing all of its non-conscious processes. It's a very hungry tissue, and it turns out that, I mean, I'll focus on the brain still, but tissues that are really hungry energetically, they love creatine because it's helping with energy. But yeah, so there was some debate on this for a little while because creatine doesn't enter into the brain as easily, but it does get in there.

And uh, and so looking at the mechanisms of transport was an area of research for a little bit. Turns out that when the brain is stressed, and this can be from a thousand different things, sleep losses, like the canonical version of a stressed brain, then the [00:26:00] brain is like, oh, gimme more creatine. And it actually absorbs more so the dynamics of the blood brain barrier change so that more creatine gets into the marine.

Jac: That's 

Dan: And so isn't that interesting? Yeah. And it can also be from, I've been thinking for five hours in a row, working on this paper or doing something difficult or due to other forms of stress, psychological stress, even hormonal changes that are, um, just a part of the female physiology. Uh, and all, all of those things can lead to, uh, a brain that actually becomes more readily, that more readily absorbs, creatine.

And then the what, what happens? Does it serve like a stimulant? No, it's not like coffee or anything like that, but it's buffering against a loss, a dip in energy or a TP. And what does that lead to? It leads to you feeling not as tired, more normal. It helps you stay [00:27:00] feeling alert, uh. Helps your mental processes.

So we see a variety of different benefits, reaction, time, planning, all different types of ways that you can assess brain performance. They show improvements, but what's most sensitive seemingly is memory and working memory. And working memory is a, a unique form of memory that's part of your executive functioning.

So it's holding information multiple digits in your mind, like a phone number or ideas. It's like a, it's like a neural whiteboard, right? It's keeping ideas ready for you to deal with and, and, and work with. And so creating supports, working memory quite strongly and consistently across studies. So that is a really cool thing and I, I found probably the, one of the best uses is when you don't get enough sleep.

And we all know that feeling. You know, it's the worst, right? It's the worst. I'm a sleep scientist. I've studied this for a long time. My, my PhD researchers were [00:28:00] looking at the intersection of what I called inter uh, like ecologically relevant sleep loss, which means you just miss a couple hours here and there, which is relevant to how most of us would experience sleep loss.

'cause a lot of sleep studies, they'll, they'll take a person into a lab and they will give them no sleep for an entire night and then they'll test things. Really important work to do, but it's not as ecologically relevant and it's, that's not how most of, most of us are experience experiencing a lack of sleep.

And so that's what I was testing and I was looking at how does an ecologically relevant amount of sleep loss affect cognitive performance? And then how does changes in our brain affect what we choose to eat and how much and all that. So it was this intersection between real sleep, real relevant sleep loss, changes in the brain and eating behavior.

Jac: That's so fascinating.

Dan: Yeah, and it was great. I loved it.

Jac: My best friend Dan, uh, she is currently a pediatrician, but while she was in medical school and then, you know, when she was doing her rotations and her shifts and all that fun stuff and had to do the 24 [00:29:00] hour, uh, days, I told her, I was like, Catherine, you should try creatine. And I think, I think she did. Um, but I, I mean, I can imagine, you know, people that would benefit from that the most would be, you know, doctors who are doing long shifts and whatnot because that is extreme, uh, extreme sleep sacrifice there.

Dan: jaline you, that is incredibly good advice

because 

Jac: right now who's in medical school, go 

Dan: yeah, 

Jac: ine.

Dan: anybody in medical school, anybody who is doing shift work, which is like 15% of the population, uh, anybody that has to be up at a time when they're not regularly up or ha having to stay up longer than they typically would. Both scenarios are relevant to first responders.

Med, medical, um, all of that. So there was one really, uh, really cool study that was looking at professional rugby players. And so they were testing rugby skills specifically, [00:30:00] and then they had them do a battery of tests at baseline and then gave them only three hours of sleep. One group got creatine, one group didn't, and the group that got creatine had no decrement in their performance.

Jac: it's wild. 

Dan: it's totally wild.

Jac: Yeah. That's crazy.

Dan: So you asked me the question earlier, when do you take it? And that is the most common time in the morning, but I will now take creatine. I'll take like 10 grams. If I ever have to go to a friend's party and it's a dinner and it's late at night or later than I would be up, I take creatine.

Yeah. And you just feel normal. You don't feel tired. You feel, you know, mad. A lot of these parties are on Friday night, you're kind of tired from your week and you feel great. You don't feel stimulated. You just feel like it's the middle of the day and you're not, you know, your personality's there all, you're not demonstrating or manifesting signs of a tired brain.

Jac: That's so interesting. I have to try that. I usually take it in the morning. But that's a, that's a good fun social hack right there. Going [00:31:00] back to dosing too, Dan, so you mentioned you take 10. I know that typically, I mean in the past, and again new research is coming out, but it was always what, like three to five grams is enough to like saturate your muscle.

Um, but when it comes to brain health, you know, I've seen much higher doses, right? Anywhere from like 10 to 20.

Dan: Yeah.

Jac: At what dose does creatine shift from helpful to excessive? Like, is there a ceiling where more doesn't equal better? And I know more and more research is coming out, but like based on the research and literature right now, what is that number?

Dan: Yeah. So I have not identified a level that is problematic. There was concerns from the very beginning that it was hard on your kidneys, and that has not borne out. And the reason why is that we were conflating, uh, a marker of poor kidney health, which is creatinine, which is a breakdown product of creatine.

So typically, if your creatinine levels are rising, then that is a sign of poor kidney function.

Jac: Hmm.

Dan: [00:32:00] Well, if you're also taking a lot of creatinine, you also will raise your creatinine levels. It has nothing to do with poor kidney function. You're just changing the, so all of those kidney function. Tests were validated on, not without, without supplemental creatine.

So this is, this is for a long time that theory persisted and that has been tested rigorously and over time. And there are no, there is no worsening of, of kidney function by taking creatine. But I should be cautious because most of that still is at five grams. We're now exploring higher doses. Um, I can tell you why for the brain here in the moment and for sleep, and even give you a specific amount that has been tested so people know how to apply that to their body size.

But. We should be cautious when we then say, oh, there's no problems here. There haven't been any identified. Most of that's been at five grams per day, but it even, it just doesn't appear that there are real significant issues anywhere. [00:33:00] So I would like to say that more confidently when we have years more worth of data with a large group of people taking 20 grams 

Jac: Yeah, 

Dan: or, or, and then we'll know more.

But

Jac: I can imagine that GI stress is perhaps maybe like what, one of the ones that you may see just from increasing doses, 

Dan: yeah.

Jac: Yeah, 

Dan: Yeah, that's a, that's a big, that's a big one. And it's acute. It's really, you know, your body will acclimate when you, you know, the, the, the first time you take creatine is probably the time when you'll be most sensitive to it. And then after you take it for a few weeks, your body adjusts.

Jac: Yeah. Well, and with that too, Dan, like I know I typically think of creatine's effects as something that build over time, right? With consistent use, like you mentioned before, not something acute, but I also know that there has been some signal that very high doses may have short-term benefits, right? Like, like you said in the context of sleep deprivation.

So like how, like, like what is, why is that so?

Dan: Yeah. [00:34:00] Yeah. So, um, the, there was one really interesting study in, in sleep. So there was a few that came out, like in the, the mid two thousands. Uh, we talked about some of those, the rugby players, and also this one by Terry McMorris that was looking at cognitive performance in elderly people, um, that had undergone sleep loss and there was a preservation of function.

So that was awesome. Um, then there was a, another study that had come out that showed similar things in terms of. The effects that there was a boost in cognitive performance, but they looked as at as why that was happening. And that is the study that showed that there was an improvement in the absorption of creatine in the brain under stress conditions.

So there was something about the, the acidity and the ammonia levels that rise during a sleep loss that then create an environment for more creatine to get in. That was the cool. Yeah. Yeah. And they studied this with some imaging [00:35:00] so they could see that creatine was getting into the brain and um, and so that was cool, but the dose that they used was 0.35 grams per kilogram.

So for somebody my size, that's 35 grams. That's a lot. So, but you can now apply that to your body size and, and, uh, see how you do. But I have now tested this many times and. Let's say you just, for whatever reason, I have a three-year-old boy, um, love him dearly, not, not, the best for my sleep all the time. And, uh, and so more than one occasion, um, you know, having to be totally prepared to 

perform mentally the next day. And I'm on a level of sleep that has been really, Chas really challenging and creatine is the best thing by far. And what it's doing is it's helping your body restore a TP levels at that dose, um, [00:36:00] and where it's otherwise struggling to maintain energy.

And you have your energy and it's, so, it's restoring a TP, right? And if you think of, so it's adenosine, tri phosphate, and the more you use your brain and energy across the day. At that pace, you have a buildup of extracellular, adenosine, right? Adenosine, tri phosphate, and ca c uh, caffeine, uh, from coffee or tea.

It blocks the adenosine receptor, which makes you feel alert.

Jac: Hmm.

Dan: And so what's better creatine, which is actually helping to restore a TP levels or caffeine, that's blocking the effects of, of high extracellular inosine, creatine actually is better 'cause you're, you're removing the signal doctor's trying to block it.

And so a combination of some coffee, a regular amount that your body tolerates with creatine is extraordinary for making you feel much, much better when you are, you know, traveling and not getting enough sleep, didn't get sleep for, you know, [00:37:00] x, y, and Z reasons. So I think it's one of the coolest aspects of the entire space because we, we, we suffer from issues with sleep 

Jac: Everyone does. 

Oh yeah, for 

sure. I'm learning so much, Janna, this is so interesting. One other question I had for you, you mentioned before, um, you know, obviously like dosage is a factor of body size as well, but when it comes to. Like workouts. Right. Someone who is, let's say like training for the Olympics, right?

Versus someone who just is a leisurely runner. Should their dose differ? Like how does that work with regards to activity output?

Dan: Yeah, I, I think that you, you mentioned earlier that some people are now going up and dosing, so the, it been commonly three to five grams per day, and that will saturate your muscle stores. But the way that I think of it is, I've, I've imagined this, this image helped me a lot. So imagine there's this concrete slope.

Right. And on that slope, there are holes in the [00:38:00] concrete and every, every day you pour a glass of water from the top of that slope down and the, the fir, those first holes absorb all of that water and none of the water gets to the holes that are farther down the slope. That's what your muscles are. Your muscles are those first few holes, right, that are soaking up all the water.

So when you take a higher amount, you both saturate, you continue to peak. Uh yep. Saturate those hungry muscles and then more can spill over and get into new tissues. And that's why the 10 gram daily dose is exciting and now getting a lot of momentum for common usage. It's getting more, is getting into other tissues that need it after you saturate the muscles.

Jac: Interesting question for you Dan. So is this something that your body can become used to, like as with anything, right? Like you don't necessarily wanna ever become dependent upon something, so I don't know, has there been any research on whether you should like pulse, creatine, intake? Right? Like do it for [00:39:00] three months, then pause for a month and then start it up again.

Dan: Yeah, that's an interesting question, Jacqueline, and I don't know if that has been tested specifically. And the question would be, are you actually shutting down your body's ability to make it if you

take it? 

Jac: exactly.

Dan: And I don't, I don't think so. There might be a slight downregulation of the enzymes that are making it because they're not you, you needed, but would those enzymes recover?

And I, I wouldn't imagine a reason why they wouldn't and

quickly, so yeah, 

I, I, bet all those sort of I adaptations that would take place from taking creatine would happen within like a two week period

and, 

Jac: ask you what a timeline was for that two 

Dan: yeah. Yeah, that's, and that's me just thinking about the biological plausibility of this, but without having specific data to point to,

Jac: Yeah. I'm so curious, too, Dan, what is your supplement regimen like? What do you take every single day?

Dan: [00:40:00] I take, I take a lot. 

Um, you know, it's one, so I have an interesting strategy that I wouldn't necessarily recommend for everybody, but a lot of my usage is conditional. So example would be, do I take fish oil on a particular day? No. If I'm eating fish or ate it yesterday. So I'm trying to balance out my diet and I'm constantly thinking I have this big cupboard of supplements and that includes a variety of different phytonutrients.

Um, it has vitamins and minerals. Uh, it has things like creatine, which you can consider like meat medicine 'cause it's coming really from animals. Uh, so you have like plant medicine, meat medicine, and then I am through. My sort of awareness of my diet. I am supplementing on particular days, things that I may not be getting re and then there are certain things that I know that I don't get as regularly, and then I take those more consistently.

But I take B vitamins every day. So [00:41:00] I take qua NAD, it's my favorite NAD

product. I feel it. And I've taken another N Nads and I don't feel it. And that's probably because the addition of the B vitamins. So, uh, that's efficient. Um, I take, uh, astaxanthin and some carotinoids because I don't eat a lot of, I don't eat a lot of, um, carrots and root vegetables.

Um, I do take Sulforaphane and some other types of, uh, plant compounds that have an impact on master regulators of inflammation in the body. But I take them, I, I actually rotate 'em. So I'll take something one day, take something else another day. And like I said, I wouldn't necessarily recommend this strategy for everybody.

'cause 

Jac: Yeah. 

Dan: I, I do some coaching, uh, just a little bit, but it helps me stay connected to people 

versus just printing out information to the world.

Jac: I should invest in that, Dan.

Dan: It's, it is actually really, you know, I 

kind 

of came to it more, [00:42:00] it's rewarding and informative. You have to use all your skills and you learn, 

um, you know, if you're working, if you are communicating of a philosophy, like if you're communi, if you're communicating to people about health sciences, you should talk to them.

Jac: Yeah.

Dan: And for a long time with my previous company, HumanOS, um, so HumanOS me, I did all sorts of health education. It's just good to talk with people and stay connected to their questions and what they get. And so I do a little bit of that now with a couple of clients. And that's the main purpose is for me to stay connected.

Um, so some people just like, I need something simple. I need something practical. I take magnesium every day. I think it's really easy to not get enough. That's why 50% of the United States don't, doesn't get enough magnesium. I love great quality of this product. I joined the company in the summer and one of the reasons I joined the company is 'cause I love what they do, and I wanted to be involved with a company that was making products.

It's a great way to embed a lot of [00:43:00] knowledge into 

something that's really easy to take so you can help.

Jac: Very true. You and I share a very similar, uh, supplement regimen.

Dan: Okay, cool. Yeah. What are some things that are, uh, like non-negotiables in your

supplement routine? 

Jac: magnesium. Magnesium probiotic and cod liver oil. I'm a huge cod liver oil enthusiast and some I take the liquid. Some people like can't tolerate it, but I just take a straight liquid and 

Dan: Yeah, 

it's great. 

Jac: in the morning.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Um, that's a great one. Uh, I think, have you heard of Ray Kurtzweil? He, he's a futurist. He's the c the chief technology officer at Google. And he is a brilliant man who is interesting 'cause he's, he's in his role more as a philosopher of the directionality of the future for the company versus like a technical expert.

Yeah.

Jac: Yeah. I'll have to check 

him out. 

Dan: yeah, he's written a bunch of books, but he takes like 80 supplements a 

day and 

Jac: yeah. I was gonna say, It's so funny, Dan, [00:44:00] 'cause like if you, if you open my cabinet, like you'll probably see like so many supplements. Like I also take dim, I take an acetol for healthy insulin signaling, you know? But I don't take like them every single day. I mean, an acetol I do, but I rotate. I rotate.

Similar to you, but going back to diet, Dan, here's a question for you. My brother-in-law has been on the carnivore diet for the past several years. It's worked for him, you know, everyone by individual when it comes to diet. But for someone like him, would he benefit in supplementing with creatine or is that like overload?

Dan: He, he could, I mean, he's, he's now getting, he's getting a maximum amount of creatine 

from diet

and what supplement, what supplementation allows is to probably reach levels that are really hard to attain with diet alone.

I, if I were anyone, I would have creatine in my cabinet for the purposes of taking those super high, you know, the higher [00:45:00] doses during sleep loss and whatnot.

But he's going to, he will experience less of a benefit or noticeable benefit than the vegan or vegetarian because he's, he's

Jac: She's already getting it.

Dan: dietarily doing a lot. Yeah. Carnivore is an interesting diet. It's an interesting diet. That's been all of the people that follow guidelines. Will always reject any idea that is outside of the guidelines.

But it is a natural diet in some ways. Like we were, we're not, we're not carnivores. We definitely have the internal plumbing that is of a arm omnivore, 

Jac: Right. 

Dan: but it seems to help some people in, I think of it more as a ther, a therapeutic tool 

in 

Jac: Yep. 

Dan: senses. And I think it should be, I think it should be explored more.

Jac: Yeah, like keto, I think of the ketogenic diet as a therapeutic tool. And I think like again, for a lot of people it works for like four or five months and then you could stop, go back. I'm a fan of pulsing things, Dan. If you can't tell, [00:46:00] you know, I think it gives the body a chance to adapt and then you stop and you adjust and you introduce new things.

Dan: I li I love the pulsing idea. Uh, a natural diet has seasonality to it. Uh, so we are the, the, we create these tools that help us get some exposure, physiologic exposure to things that are missing even in a healthy, normal diet.

Jac: Right.

Dan: And that can be employing different dietary strategies for a period of time, and then going back to an already healthy diet.

There was one great study that was concatenating a, uh, Mediterranean diet with a, uh, ketogenic diet with that had probably the best weight loss results that I have seen actually from the ketogenic diet.

Um, and it looked like a lot of the benefits of that diet were being sustained. Uh, it was, it was a, I can't remember the exact length.

It was either a year or a little bit longer, which is good for a diet study. [00:47:00] But, um, that one was impressive because as we know, maintaining weight loss is, is challenging and it has to do with just the adaptations that have 

Jac: Right. 

Dan: of the body that drive a higher set point of body fatness in the body.

Jac: Yeah, Dan, we'll have to have another episode just dedicated on nutrition. 'cause I'm so curious to pick your brain on so many different topics, especially with diet and cancer, which I've had so many conversations on. But again, that's a super nuanced area. 

Um, 

Dan: I'd be happy to. we are coming up on time. The hour flew by.

Jac: But before we close, I do wanna ask you what makes a high quality creatine supplement? So for someone out there right now listening, they wanna start supplementing with the creatine. They don't know where to start. Where 

Dan: Yeah. 

Jac: what are the three, I think guess things to look for when looking for a, a high quality supplement?

Dan: Well, I would say that right now the gummies are an attractive way to get anything into [00:48:00] the body for some people. 'cause you can chew them. Some people don't like pills, some people don't like powders. But, um, while I have not personally assessed the, all of the different options for creatine gummies, the research that has looked into that shows that they're, they don't really contain much of what they say they contain. So at this point in time, creatine gummies are not ideal. Although I do give my boys two grams of creatine. Uh, my 12-year-old and 7-year-old.

Jac: I was gonna ask if you give your kids creatine. Interesting. Okay.

Dan: Yeah, remember you're getting it from the diet. And so giving a little bit, you know, my, my 12-year-old is about to enter into puberty, and that's a high, it's a

period of very high energy demanding time, and he is also an avid athlete.

So again, you're, you're supporting the energy system in a very unique way. Um, but going back to your question, and it's one of, so when cre when Quaia looks [00:49:00] at formulating anything for a goal, it's like, all right, how do we optimize this? The goal is not, how do we complicate it? It's like, what would you do if you were to make the most perfect version of it?

And that's, so we use, for example, a form of creatine monohydrate that is, I think, much better. And it's called opt creatine. So it's micronized. So if you are used to taking creatine, you put it in a jar and it's kind of, it's like the, the granules are not small,

and then you, yeah, you drink and then like half of it's left on your glass.

And I don't. Yeah, that's some amount is leftover creatine. Uh, so opt creatine will dissolve much better, and that also probably helps with absorption inside of you too.

Uh, we then add a little bit of sea salt because the transport mechanism, the transporter is using both chloride and sodium. So the sea salt has both of those.

And so yeah, those are not whacking in our diet. But if you take it first thing in the morning, [00:50:00] right, you're now s you're supporting the, um, creatine, getting into your body 

and that's what you want, right? You want to have absorb more of what you take. Um, and then we have a pretty unique form that we auto that use.

So it's optic, creatine. There's three ingredients, optic, creatine, cre mag power, which is creatine, bound to magnesium.

Jac: Yeah, I saw that. I was gonna ask you why include magnesium in that formulation?

Dan: Yeah. And so this is because we look at, you know, we. Talk about systems science. We're supporting the entire system. So most of a TP is bound to magnesium in your cells. And so we're 50% of people don't consume enough magnesium. Even the RDI, uh, the RDA is probably not optimal. And so there's about four, there's 40 milligrams of magnesium that come along with it.

And so since you're looking to support energetics, that's a reason why, that's why you would include that. It's a really unique [00:51:00] form. And so it's optic, creatine, mag magna power, so micronized, creatine, creatine, bound to magnesium, and then some sea salt and all of that is then

supporting. Yeah, it's great and it tastes great.

It's a little salty, but not terrible. Not, you know, not like overly salty, but a little salty. I put it in my coffee actually.

Jac: gonna, I was actually gonna ask you if you could do that. I mean, I put collagen in my coffee, but that thought crossed my mind.

Dan: So I do both. So I put, um, I make my coffee and then I'll put in some collagen and I'll put in some creatine. And then sometimes I'll also put in some high Epi cain, uh, cacao, which is also another amazing substance that we could talk about for a long time.

Jac: Dan, you and I should start a coffee shop, but it 

would be like a, 

like a special coffee shop with like all of like these like hacks, you know? Like we won't tell people what's in it. We'll be like, what do 

Dan: Yeah. 

Jac: this morning? And then we'll include our creatine or whatever.

Dan: I love that. Uh, more than [00:52:00] you even know because like. I worked for a company, and I won't go into all the details, but conceptually they would ask people, okay, well, do you want this? Do you want touring or carnitine? And people are like, and most people are like, I haven't, what is that? I've never even heard of it.

But ask people like, how do you wanna feel? Right? We're, we're, we have the expertise in house. Tell us how you wanna feel. Do you want to be kind of like calm? Are you feeling like a all high strong? Do you wanna be energized? Do 

Jac: yeah. uh, whatever that is. And then we just act as the people in the background that help make that happen.

I love that. And everyone loves coffee, right? Janna? See? So All right, we'll we'll chat offline about that. But see New idea was born this morning.

Dan: that.

Jac: And Dan, just to wrap up, where can listeners find you? Where can they follow your work? Where can they also grab Qua a creatine if they're looking to get it?

Dan: Yeah, so go to quality of life.com. All of our products are there. What we, we are both a [00:53:00] product and an education company, so we put a lot of time into our blog. You can read about all, uh, you know, we, every week we're coming out with one or two blogs. They're really nicely done, and they will go into the ingredients.

They'll, we'll talk about topics. We wrote an an article recently about brain rot. Nothing to do with any of our subjects. So we write on a variety of topics and that one got so much. It's a fact. I encourage everybody to go read that one. It's so interesting how the pattern of social media changes the brain that facilitates a usage of social media.

After using it for a period of time that I bet a lot of us can relate to. It's the free, what the, the way that your brain changes with social media usage is quick checking. You have a moment to yourself, you're in line. You pull it up every, every little moment you're pulling it up. It's, it's, that is how your brain is changing in response [00:54:00] to social media that, um, and so there's some tips on what to do about that.

Um, but yeah, so you can go get great information. You can learn more about our products. You can buy our products there, but it's quality of life.com and um, and we welcome you to go check it out and follow us there.

Jac: Awesome. That sounds great. Yeah. One thing I really do appreciate about Quaia is just the transparency with everything. I think when a company is transparent, that inherently just makes me want to, to really look them up and really consider their products. 'cause sadly not a lot of companies today, especially in the wellness phase, which I'm sure you're well aware of, Dan, are transparent.

Dan: Yeah. You know, James Berger is our CEO. He is one of the founders, very ethical guys. Like, how do we does just do this, right? Like people want supplements. And I'm gonna be writing this year about supplements in general because there are some people who are like, no, you know, supplements are, it's a bunch of grift and Bs and, and there's a whole line of people that come [00:55:00] from, we'll call it like conventional medicine and standard medicine that are wrong.

But supplements don't have the same types of budgets that a pharmaceutical company does. They can put $2 billion into the development of a product that they then have monopoly ownership over for 20 years. It's a totally different. Marketplace and game over on the supplement side. And so what you do have is studies that are less impressive than the pharmaceutical ones, but you're also dealing with natural compounds.

You're using natural biological levers, and that whole side sometimes forgets that they, they're, they're uninformed typically, and I think the perspective is woefully wrong and harmful. So yeah, there's a way to do it, right. We try to do everything right and that's why, you know, again, why I joined the company.

Um, but I appreciate that you [00:56:00] recognize that and it's what, what I did too and why I joined.

Jac: Yeah. I love that. My last question for you, Dan. This is 

Dan: Yeah. 

Jac: one to ask, and 

Dan: Okay. 

Jac: what does being well and strong mean to you?

Dan: Mm. So I had this term, and I love these philosophical questions because this is where I spend so much time, but that. Your health really, sir, provides an energetic undercurrent that is populating every single moment of your day in ways that affect your large events in life, but even the silent, unconscious ones of what you choose and don't choose to how you spend your time, what you participate in.

And so supporting a higher level of health in your life is going to enable a different trajectory, not only of your health, but of how you spend your time. And so it's worthwhile spending, learning, right? When you're learning about health, it's not an abstract topic. You're learning about [00:57:00] you, and you have a lifetime to do it.

So what I would say is it's easy to feel daunted with the amount of information that's out there, but dedicate time every week to making yourself a little bit more knowledgeable and. Possibly a little bit better about, about how you're spending your 24 hour period. How do you navigate, how do you serve as that good steward for your own health and biology so that, uh, you can do the, you can do your best.

That's all we can ask for. Right? Do your

Jac: I love that. Couldn't agree more. Dan, this has been such an insightful conversation. I'm so excited to share this with listeners. I cannot wait for round two because there's definitely gonna be a round two for us. 

Dan: Let's get on the books. 

Jac: your time. Um, thank you for all the work that you do. Say hello to Chase for me and we'll be in touch soon.

Dan: Sounds great. Thank you so much for having me on. It was a pleasure.