If both, creatine and testosterone occur naturally in our bodies then why supplementing one keeps us natural but taking second one makes us not natural anymore?

Question

As the title says, apologies if wrong tag was chosen

In: Other

Answer 1

Creatine exists in humans as a way to recycle adenosine triphosphate (ATP). The phosphate groups are the main way we use energy for pretty much every process in our bodies. These phosphate molecules have a ton of energy in them.

Creatinine helps convert adenosine diphosphate into ATP. Going from two (di) to three (tri) phosphate helps increase the energy that the molecule can provide.

The reason creatine is helpful in exercise is because it puts us in a position to have more ATP available. When we exercise, we basically burn through the ATP we have stored for that purpose in about 1 second. We can only generate it for about 10 seconds via the ATP-CP (creatine phosphate) system.

After that, we have to use different cellular processes via things like lactic acid and aerobic respiration which either aren’t sustainable (lactic acid is ~2 min) or aren’t going to be ideal for getting bigger (aerobic).

So creatine as a supplement basically extends the amount of time you can have using purely stored creatine and that effectively means you can get maybe 1-2 extra reps in an exercise. It’s proven to help with this and is basically the only supplement you can buy that is proven to “work”. It does not make you bigger per se but it does help you get more reps in, which over time means you get bigger and stronger, assuming you’re pushing yourself in the gym. It also works for other anaerobic exercises.

Testosterone on the other hand, is pretty complex but the simple explanation is that it works on receptors that tell your body “we need to divert resources to growing muscle” amongst other things. That is why we get taller in puberty, our voices deepen, we grow body hair etc. Testosterone is a “grow” hormone. Testosterone itself is not doing the work, it’s just the key that turns everything on.

The reason we aren’t all hulking beasts with super high testosterone all the time is because it comes with downsides. It can affect your liver, heart, blood vessels, cholesterol, make your hair fall out etc. It’s one of those “everything in moderation” deals. Constantly having any signal blasting out is generally not good for the body. This can be the case for any hormone so when you take extra, it can mess with things.