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- Creatine: Very Different For Young & Old People
Creatine: Very Different For Young & Old People
Plus: how certain foods can reactive your stem cells
The 10almonds Team
April 24, 2023
Loading Screen Tip: Judge each day not by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant.
⏰ IN A RUSH?
Today’s 30-Second Summary
If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:
Foods that help reactive our stem cells include cocoa, green tea, black tea, and the Mediterranean Diet in general
Creatine can help boost muscle recovery and growth in athletes doing high-intensity training—but is not as effective at that for older people as for younger people.
In older people, creatine may potentially be helpful in the treatment of some age-related health problems (mostly pertaining to the brain, and including cognitive decline), but there haven’t been nearly enough studies on humans yet to be sure.
Processed meat and refined carbs can increase your risk of type 2 diabetes
A sedentary lifestyle seems to be a predictor of anxiety—which in turn can make people less keen on getting out and about.
Read on to learn about these things and more…
👀 WATCH AND LEARN
Dr. William Li: Reactivate Your Stem Cells
Dr. Hyman & Dr. Li discuss things that help/hinder our body’s regenerative abilities, including our diet.
The following is evidence-based information on which foods activate our body’s stem cells:
Foods that improve stem cells include:
Cocoa
Green tea
Black tea
Mediterranean Diet
💊 MAIN FEATURE
What’s the Deal with Creatine?
Creatine is best-known for its use as a sports supplement. It has a few other uses too, usually in the case of helping to treat (or recover from) specific medical conditions.
What actually is it?
Creatine is an organic compound formed from amino acids (mostly l-arginine and lysine, can be l-methionine, but that’s not too important for our purposes here).
We can take it as a supplement, we can get it in our diet (unless we’re vegan, because plants don’t make it; vertebrates do), and we can synthesize it in our own bodies.
What does it do?
While creatine supplements mostly take the form of creatine monohydrate, in the body it’s mostly stored in our muscle tissue as phosphocreatine, and it helps cells produce adenosine triphosphate, (ATP).
ATP is how energy is kept ready to use by cells, and is cells’ immediate go-to when they need to do something. For this reason, it’s highly instrumental in cell repair and rebuilding—which is why it’s used so much by athletes, especially bodybuilders or other athletes that have a vested interest in gaining muscle mass and enjoying faster recovery times.
However! For reasons as yet not fully known, it doesn’t seem to have the same beneficial effect after a certain age:
What about the uses outside of sport?
Almost all studies outside of athletic performance have been on animals, despite it being suggested as potentially helpful for many things, including:
Alzheimer’s disease
Parkinson’s disease
Huntington’s disease
ischemic stroke
epilepsy
brain or spinal cord injuries
motor neuron disease
memory and brain function in older adults
However, research that’s been done on humans has been scant, if promising:
In short: creatine may reduce symptoms and slow the progression of some neurological diseases, although more research in humans is needed, and words such as “promising”, “potential”, etc are doing a lot of the heavy lifting in those papers we just cited.
Is it safe?
Nor does it appear to create the sometimes-rumored kidney problems, cramps, or dehydration:
Where can I get it?
You can get it from pretty much any sports nutrition outlet, or you can order online. For example:
🌏 AROUND THE WEB
What’s happening in the health world…
More to come tomorrow!
📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW
The Mediterranean Diet Cookbook for Beginners: 1500 Days of Simple, Tasty and Mouthwatering Recipes to Live Longer and Better - by Jessica Aledo
There are a lot of Mediterranean Diet books on the market, and not all of them actually stick to the Mediterranean Diet. There's a common mistake of thinking "Well, this dish is from the Mediterranean region, so...", but that doesn't make, for example, bacon-laden carbonara part of the Mediterranean Diet!
Jessica Aledo does better, and sticks unwaveringly to the Mediterranean Diet principles.
First, she gives a broad introduction, covering:
The Mediterranean Diet pyramid
Foods to eat on the Mediterranean Diet
Foods to avoid on the Mediterranean Diet
Benefits of the Mediterranean Diet
Then, it's straight into the recipes, of which there are 201 (as with many recipe books, the title is a little misleading about this).
They're divided into sections, thus:
Breakfasts
Lunches
Snacks
Dinners
Desserts
The recipes are clear and simple, one per double-page, with high quality color illustrations. They give ingredients/directions/nutrients. There's no padding!
Helpfully, she does include a shopping list as an appendix, which is really useful!
Bottom line: if you're looking to build your Mediterranean Diet repertoire, this book is an excellent choice.
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Wishing you a healthy and productive week ahead,
The 10almonds Team