Yet another creatine question: How fast does creatine turn into creatinine?

physicaltherapy

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Can it be mixed in my PWO drink, sit in my car for 2 hours while I'm sweat humping men in my BJJ class, and be alright to drink afterwards? Or should I just leave it (and my other PWO crap) in powder form and mix it with water afterwards in my shaker bottle?
 
Can it be mixed in my PWO drink, sit in my car for 2 hours while I'm sweat humping men in my BJJ class, and be alright to drink afterwards? Or should I just leave it (and my other PWO crap) in powder form and mix it with water afterwards in my shaker bottle?

I think the general consensus is to leave it in powdered form until you are ready to drink it.

But you do bring up an interesting question on the degradation time; I believe either Madmick or KK posted on this a while back, and it took "days" for a creatine mix to completely break down. Throwing "creatinine" into the Sherdog search brings up zip.

They may be some breakdown over two hours, but I can't see it being much. I'll see if I can actually dig up some numbers.
 
IIRC the process of creatine converting to creatinine in a liquid is pretty slow. So don't mix a weeks worth of creatine on sunday since by friday some of it may be creatinine.

Creatinine isn't toxic at all. Its freely filtered in the kidneys so it doesn't stress them at all. The reason why people think its toxic is that if you have a lot of it in your urine and you aren't an athlete and you aren't taking creatine that can be a sign of failing kidneys. But larger, more muscular people and people supplementing creatine naturally have higher levels and its fine.

Also creatinine is just waste, so it doesn't "contaminate" your shake or anything. 3% creatinine in your shake won't make any difference. 20% won't make any difference either. If you are that concerned about it, just add a tiny bit more. Then if 20% of your 6 grams of creatine converts, you still have a good amount left.

http://www.sherdog.net/forums/showthread.php?t=541574
 
I believe either Madmick or KK posted on this a while back, and it took "days" for a creatine mix to completely break down.


LoL, I'm fairly certain you posted a link to something as well. I remember finding a source that said it would take about 1-2 days to have significant degradation. I
 
Great find sonny. What a concise and eloquent post you dug up there. :icon_chee

Edit: Actually, I tried looking this up and in the 5 minutes I devoted to this search, I found only one thing: http://www.aapspharmscitech.org/view.asp?art=pt040225

Ninety percent creatine degradation was observed within 45 days for RT [Room temp] samples. However, at refrigerated condition this degradation was 80% within the same time period.

After 45 days in a fridge it was 80% creatine, and the room temp stuff was still 10% creatine. So a few hours isn't going to make any noticeable difference.
 
Great find sonny. What a concise and eloquent post you dug up there. :icon_chee

Edit: Actually, I tried looking this up and in the 5 minutes I devoted to this search, I found only one thing: http://www.aapspharmscitech.org/view.asp?art=pt040225



After 45 days in a fridge it was 80% creatine, and the room temp stuff was still 10% creatine. So a few hours isn't going to make any noticeable difference.

Wow, that's quite a difference between refrigerated and room temp.
 
Christ almighty, this is why I hate shiftwork. I swear to god I forget half the shit I post. I'm sure one day I'm going to post a question that I've already answered.

Thanks Monger :icon_chee

Just say what everyone else says when they get banned. "My account was hacked dude."
 
Haha. Holy crap. I don't blame myself 100% for this mistake though, since obviously none of you guys read my source. :redface:

I posted:
After 45 days in a fridge it was 80% creatine, and the room temp stuff was still 10% creatine. So a few hours isn't going to make any noticeable difference.

And I typed it wrong. 45 days in the fridge it was 80% creaTININE, or only 20% creatine. Room temp was 90% creaTININE, or only 10% creatine.

So they were both pretty much waste after 45 days. But thats 45 days, we are talking about mixing a few hours before hand. I'd even say 24 hours you are still ok. Like I said before, if you put 6 grams in and 20% gets converted you still have ~5 grams of good stuff. From the above study I'd say it would take a few days to degrade 20%.
 
Is the degradation linear though? Or does it quickly degrade then just sort of chill out the rest of the time, maybe larger particles making up 10-20% of the mix don't break down as quickly or something?
 
Is the degradation linear though? Or does it quickly degrade then just sort of chill out the rest of the time, maybe larger particles making up 10-20% of the mix don't break down as quickly or something?

Wow...good question...is the curve exponential initially??
 
Haha. Holy crap. I don't blame myself 100% for this mistake though, since obviously none of you guys read my source. :redface:

I posted:


And I typed it wrong. 45 days in the fridge it was 80% creaTININE, or only 20% creatine. Room temp was 90% creaTININE, or only 10% creatine.

So they were both pretty much waste after 45 days. But thats 45 days, we are talking about mixing a few hours before hand. I'd even say 24 hours you are still ok. Like I said before, if you put 6 grams in and 20% gets converted you still have ~5 grams of good stuff. From the above study I'd say it would take a few days to degrade 20%.

But you have 1g of bad stuff, if you take creatine 5 times a week, that's 5g

then you die

joking, I usually use creatine PWO, and add water after my workout in the shaker
 
Is the degradation linear though? Or does it quickly degrade then just sort of chill out the rest of the time, maybe larger particles making up 10-20% of the mix don't break down as quickly or something?

I have no clue. The only reason why I'd think that it would degrade quickly and then let 10-20% stay as creatine is if its in equilibrium and the increase in products limits the forward rate of degradation. I don't think its an enzymatic process, and I doubt its in equilibrium or anything. I assume it would be linear since there should be equal probability that each molecule will randomly degrade. Or would it follow a exponential 1/2 life curve?

I think we are over analyzing it haha. Drink your creatine within 24-48 hours of mixing it, and if you think its gonna sit around for a while try to keep it in the fridge and also make that spoonful a little more heaping than normal.
 
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