
Creatine supplementation improves brain performance in vegetarians [pdf] - ulvund
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1691485/pdf/14561278.pdf
======
dejb
Edit : it should be noted that this is from 2003. I'm sure newer research has
been done. (Re-Edit. Not much by the looks of it)

One question this raises is why isn't there a know correlation between high
red meat diets and higher brain performance? All things being equal the the
study suggests a significant advantage for higher intake.

Here are my best guesses in order of likelyhood

\- The benefit is temporary and relates more to the raising of levels rather
the absolute level.

\- The amounts of creatine involved (equivalent of 2 pounds red meat per day)
are too much for anyone to ingest naturally for long, but this level is
required to see significant benefits.

\- The benefits of creatine are being counteracted by some other substances in
red meat therefore masking it's effect on heavy meat eaters.

\- The reported high average IQ of those who chose to become vegetarians masks
the fact that the lack of creatine in their diet does actually make them
dumber.

Anyway it looks interesting especially for those without much natural creatine
intake.

------
gwern
Relevant link: [http://groups.google.com/group/brain-
training/browse_thread/...](http://groups.google.com/group/brain-
training/browse_thread/thread/fe4ee2f0c994e40e/d24bcf30c083ec3e)

tl;dr: Rawson 2008 is a broad null result for healthy young omnivores who
aren't idiots. Vegetarians, idiots, the sleep-deprived, and old people may
benefit.

~~~
elblanco
So what the study is saying is that eating a diet we are evolutionary adapted
to, then sleeping well makes us smart?

~~~
gwern
I think I'd put it in negative terms; not that sleeping makes you smarter
(because that makes it sound like sleeping is a sufficient condition), but
that not sleeping prevents you from being smarter (which says sleeping is
necessary but not sufficient - as it is).

Ditto for vegetarian diet - not that eating meat makes you smart, but that not
eating meat and not replacing the meat appropriately will prevent you from
being (a little) smarter.

(There are other examples, like the B vitamins that vegetarians need to watch
out for, I've heard.)

------
chaosmachine
The graphs seem to show ~50% increase on Raven's Progressive Matrices tests,
and ~30% on backwards digit span tests.

<http://i.imgur.com/7jZT4.png>

Those are pretty large gains, I'm tempted to try supplementing this.

------
lurkerperpetual
A very interesting topic for a study would be similarly testing groups of
omnivores, vegetarians and vegans, to see if there are any detectable mental
capacity differences. It should be less controversial than comparing the same
between races and genders.

The 'we developed bigger and better brains from eating meat' is an often used
rationale for the omnivore diet.

~~~
araneae
Actually, I think that would be a terrible study. It's too hard to control for
other factors that may differ between the groups. For instance, vegetarians
and vegans in the U.S. are on average more educated. You can add that into a
model, but this kind of study- where you test people before, during, and after
creatine addition- is really much better science.

------
ulvund
From the abstract:

" .. In this work, we tested the hypothesis that oral creatine supplementation
(5 g/day for six weeks) would enhance intelligence test scores and working
memory performance in 45 young adult, vegetarian subjects in a double-blind,
placebo-controlled, cross-over design. Creatine supplementation had a
significant positive effect (p , 0.0001) on both working memory (backward
digit span) and intelligence (Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrices), both
tasks that require speed of processing. These findings underline a dynamic and
significant role of brain energy capacity in influencing brain performance."

~~~
imurray
_Statistically_ significant (subject to the usual caveats of being careful
about the results from a single study). Little is said about how worthwhile
the change is.

~~~
yungchin
See figure 1. From what I gather in the paper, this RAPM is a speed measure.
If I'm interpreting this stuff correctly at all (never read anything in this
field before) performing 40% more tasks per unit time is quite worthwhile!

~~~
gwern
Actually, Raven's isn't supposed to be speeded if you care about measuring IQ
rather than, say, processing speed or WM control. This is one reason why the
Jaeggi 2008 study (showing that Dual N-back boosts IQ) is somewhat
untrustworthy.

------
duncanj
Why do the graphs change the name of the line between point 2 and point 4?

~~~
ulvund
Because they switch the placebo and creatine groups :)

    
    
        Week (-∞)-0: Noone has taken any supplements
        Test 1.
        Week 0-6   : Group 1 gets creatine, group 2 gets placebo
        Test 2.
        Week 6-12  : Noone takes any supplements
        Test 3.
        Week 12-18 : Group 1 gets placebo, group 2 gets creatine
        Test 4.

~~~
duncanj
Thanks. I guess I have a problem reading closely.

------
tokenadult
It's time to link to Peter Norvig's article about reading research studies
again:

<http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html>

------
jey
This study is from 2003 and makes extravagant claims. Have there been any
followup studies that corroborate it or qualify it? Were these vegetarians
seriously deficient?

------
hackermom
Just thought I'd add this...

Creatine is naturally produced in the human body by amino acids. Just because
you're a vegetarian, it doesn't mean you suffer a shortage of the particular
amino acids required for producing creatine. Most vegetarians fall under the
"ovo-lacto" umbrella, meaning they will eat egg and milk, and pretty much
anything else made by animals, just not the animals themselves - being a
vegetarian myself, I often say: "I'll eat food made by animals, just not food
made OF animals" - and many vegetarians also use various "fullworthy" protein
supplements containing all the essential amino acids, guaranteeing them all
the components needed to produce creatine while being a vegetarian.

I myself use protein supplements to ensure, together with food, that I get a
bit more than 1 gram of fullworthy protein per kilo body weight a day, and
that is an amount that actually even meat-eaters, without supplements, can
have a hard time reaching on a daily basis.

Addendum:

Digging a little bit on Wikipedia, I found the three amino acids (of which
only one is essential) that Creatine is produced from in the body:

Arginine (non-essential) - vegetabilic sources: "wheat germ and flour,
buckwheat, granola, oatmeal, peanuts, nuts (coconut, pecans, cashews, walnuts,
almonds, Brazil nuts, hazelnuts, pinenuts), seeds (pumpkin, sesame,
sunflower), chick peas, cooked soybeans."

Glycine (non-essential) - synthesized in the human body from Serine, also a
non-essential amino acid.

Methionine (essential) - vegetabilic (and animalic) sources: "High levels of
methionine can be found in sesame seeds, Brazil nuts, fish, meats and some
other plant seeds; methionine is also found in cereal grains."

Judging from this, it seems that a vegetarian has to maintain a really lousy
and unhealthy diet in order to suffer a Creatine shortage. Maybe the test
subjects were university students on a Ramen diet.

~~~
araneae
Just because your body CAN produce creatine doesn't mean that all it needs to
produce enough is its building blocks.

People here seem to be acting like our bodies have perfect feedback loops for
every nutrient, but if in our recent evolutionary history we always got
enough, that might not be the case. You have to remember that were one of only
three mammals species that has completely lost the ability to synthesize
vitamin C. If we lost synthesis of one necessary nutrient, don't you think it
might be possible that we also lost some mechanisms for regulating the amount
of another?

~~~
hackermom
I just don't see where you are going with that text in the context of Creatine
production. Vegetarians HAVE Creatine in their system, fully produced by the
body. They just don't have the same amount as the meat-eaters, __because red
meat contains Creatine itself, as a form of Creatine supplement__. Ergo,
vegetarians are fully capable of producing the necessary amount of Creatine
they need, by the ingestion of the required components. (otherwise there'd be
no Creatine in their bodies.)

~~~
gwern
> Vegetarians HAVE Creatine in their system, fully produced by the body. They
> just don't have the same amount as the meat-eaters, __because red meat
> contains Creatine itself, as a form of Creatine supplement__. Ergo,
> vegetarians are fully capable of producing the necessary amount of Creatine
> they need, by the ingestion of the required components.

That's quite a logical leap there. I 'HAVE Money in my wallet', so ergo, I am
'fully capable of producing the necessary amount of Money I need'? (You should
know I dream of living like a billionaire.)

Humans can produce vitamin D or omega-N oils on their own, yet, it's
established fact that many humans are persistently deficient.

~~~
hackermom
I consider it just a small leap in logic compared to your knee-jerk parallel
regarding money in the wallet.

We know that increased oxygen in the blood speeds up healing of damaged tissue
- this is why you get a tube up your nose blowing extra oxygen into your
respiratory system when you come out of surgery. Does this by your logic mean
that we're persistently oxygen deficient in our natural state, just because
ADDING oxygen gives a higher effect?

What IS the nominal level of creatine in the body? Do you know? I don't. Pure
creatine supplement from meat ingestion can so far only be proven to be an
_added aid_, rather than going by the logic that vegetarians turn dumb when
they stop eating red meat.

~~~
natrius
I don't understand how you can argue against the research that shows that
vegetarians who supplement with creatine perform better than vegetarians who
don't. Vegetarians do not produce "enough" creatine on their own. If you want
to disprove that, find research that shows otherwise.

The wallet analogy wasn't that great. Allow me to try. I have all the exercise
equipment needed to stay in great shape in my house, but that doesn't mean I'm
in great shape.

~~~
hackermom
But, I never argued that they benefit better with Creatine. You haven't read
my posts. And just as vegetarians get a boost from it, so do meat-eaters, who
also perform better when supplementing Creatine - ask 10 athletes (body
builders in particular) and you will find at least 5 who uses it and can vouch
for increased stamina from it. Does this, too, mean that they don't get
enough? Surely it should, by the logic you've been using, and at this point
you are contradicting yourself. From this we can simply draw the conclusion
that everyone benefits from more of this in their systems, but it doesn't
point to a deficiency of any kind, just as with my example of how artificially
increased oxygen levels in the blood doesn't mean we don't get "enough"
naturally.

The point I trying to make just flies by you; You don't KNOW what is enough,
you don't KNOW what is too little. You can't say any of this based solely on
the proof that _anyone_ performs BETTER when you ADD MORE. This is _not_
synonymous with a deficiency. And the research pointed to doesn't even bring
up the specific vegetabilic diets held by the vegetarian subjects of the
research, which is a very important detail missing for solidifying the "facts"
the research is trying to bring forth. It's a very clear case of "correlation
is not causation".

~~~
natrius
The definitions you're using for "deficiency", "enough" and "too little" are
useless. If your body performs better with more of a substance that can be
obtained through food or produced by your body, I'd call that a deficiency. If
your body isn't performing as well as you'd like, and that can be improved by
consuming more of a substance without harming your health, then you don't have
enough of it.

This really shouldn't be controversial. I think vegetarianism is a good thing
and it's something I'm attempting, but ignoring science because you don't like
the negative connotation of "deficiency" doesn't make any sense.

~~~
scott_s
If we define a "deficiency" as "expected level" of something, then we don't
know if they had a deficiency. Regarding your definition, I don't have a
testosterone deficiency, but I'd certainly perform better as an athlete if I
took anabolic steroids.

Regarding creatine levels, all we know from the study is that after the
supplementation, they had significantly more in their body. Maybe the results
would be the same for omnivores - we don't know until someone runs the
experiment. Even within this data, I'd like to see the vegans and vegetarians
graphed separately.

~~~
natrius
My definition of "deficiency" was intended to consider only levels that can be
obtained through food or created by your body from food. The definition still
isn't completely right since given the same inputs, different people will
produce a range of values. You get the idea, though.

------
ilkhd2
After I switched to vegetarian diet I have not noticed _any_ difference in
brain/personality/iq, I ve just lost extra weight. And have less allergies.
Aside from that - nothing.

~~~
berntb
It is hard to add anything to corruption's comment, but a practical tip:

I've seen claims that it is hard to notice how/when your intelligence changes
over time. A friend who had some health issues for a while (sorry, I'm not
giving more details) played (simple) computer games quite a lot, because the
results showed functionality trends.

ymmv, of course, but if I were you I'd play a few games like that over time
while trying creatine supplements. If they help, I'd continue.

~~~
darkxanthos
Games like what? Tetris? Bejeweled? Text Twist?

~~~
berntb
I think there were simple games like that; not reaction stuff, though. I'll
ask and hopefully get back to you in less than 24 hours.

~~~
darkxanthos
Awesome! Thanks!

~~~
berntb
Not so awesome.

There were mostly FB-games. Things like " _Who Has the Biggest Brain"_ , word
games (speed reactions), like Word Drop and Word Challenge in FB.

(I don't know anything about these games; I just have their names and a
datapoint that they were good to verify daily shape and trace mind effects for
medicines, etc. For some specific problems I'm not going to discuss.)

