The Creatine, Protein, and Lifting Protocol Every Woman Over 50 Needs | Dr. Jim Stoppani | #162

**Vonda Wright** (0:00)
Hey, everybody, I'm so excited to be back today with a special guest that is going to bring to us a real depth of knowledge around muscle protein synthesis and supplements, and truth and transparency in what you buy. Dr. Jim Stoppani is a PhD in exercise physiology. You are a scientist, a long-time editor of many publications we will have read. You're a coach to some pretty elite athletes, and on top of that, an entrepreneur. Really on a mission to make sure we know what we're taking when we buy what we think we're buying, right? So which is a big problem within the supplement industry.
But I want to jump right in because my women have been told repeatedly by myself and others that probably creatine is a good thing for them to be interested in. So Jim, should every 45-year-old woman be interested in creatine and why?

**Jim Stoppani** (0:59)
Absolutely, yes.
And it's not even the muscle benefits. I mean, that's one of the many benefits, right? So better strength, a bit more lean muscle mass, right? Which is important with aging because with sarcopenia, we're losing that muscle mass. So anything we can do to maintain more muscle is a good thing as we're aging. And so creatine is one of those things for men and women that can do that. But then there's also the brain boosting benefits that are really gaining a lot of publicity lately. And you know, we, you and I have known about the brain boosting benefits of creatine because we understand creatine is not a muscle building supplement. It's truly an energy molecule in the body, right? It's a critical, critical, it killed me for the first 20 years that creatine came out, you know, that people were talking about dangers and the muscle cramps in, you know, increasing, you know, muscle injuries and it's just like, guys, do you understand what it actually is? This isn't a steroid. It's simply something that we're already getting in our diet from meats, you know, whether it's steak, fish, chicken, right? So, and our body needs it, you know, like I said, it's a very critical energy, a molecule for not only muscle nerves, right? And muscle cells, but nerve, nerve cells as well. And so, the bait, though, on the brain benefits is the dosing. Yeah. And so, I don't know if we want to get into that yet, but yes, back to your question, should every woman over 40, even under 40, 20s, be interested, at least interested, not saying they should or have to take it, but they should be interested in the benefits that creatin can offer.

**Vonda Wright** (2:50)
So, you know, when I first heard of creatin, it was in 1992 I was working adjacent to the USA Olympic wrestling team who were very interested in building muscle. But at that time, it was really high doses, cycling on and off every six weeks or so, worried about dehydration and kidney function, whether that was true at that time or not, because I wasn't as into it as I am now.
But that kind of history still comes forward as women ask me, what about these high doses? Am I going to bloat up? Does creatine monohydrate versus hydrochloride? Am I going to get all bloated? I think the science has really developed since 1992, right? The safety profile of creatine is hard to say that there is any safety concerns. What are your thoughts on this whole line of progression that we've had since the early days?

**Jim Stoppani** (3:48)
Yeah, you know, well, it's exciting to me because, like I said, I've always known it's safe, it's been effective, if you just understand what the molecule is, you know? And what's nice is now, not only do we have piles of research, and not just on effectiveness, but safety, looking at safety studies, whether it does increase the risk of muscle cramps. And actually, what the research suggests is that it decreases the risk of muscle cramps and muscle injuries. But oh yes, the studies, the studies in the safety, you know, we have studies now showing that in long term, in one of the researchers that's been doing these safety studies is Richard Kreider, I don't know if you know. He is a big Crete and supplement researcher. But anyway, he published two recent studies, one in 25 and one in 26 this year.
The first one is just on the safety of Crete and at a normal three to five gram dose. What they did is they looked at not just like a meta analysis, but they also looked at things like adverse event reports, which is, let's say you bought a supplement on Amazon, you took it and you got horribly dizzy or your heart started racing. And you would contact the company and put in your complaint about what had happened. And that adverse event needs to be recorded and is cataloged, right? And so they had something like, I can't even remember how many millions of adverse event reports.