Hi all, everyone I talk about this and everywhere I look, it is always recommended to never take more than 5g of creatine per day.
So, what happens if we do?
Bonus: how is it always 5g regardless of body weight?
Thank you in advance.
Edit: Thank you guys, appreciate the clarification!
In: 3
I think what is recommended is to not exceed 5g a day, because you don’t get the benefit any more as your muscles are saturated.
Too much creatine leads to bloating and stomach discomfort.
So, nothing major if you exceed it but just no more benefit
More than five grams shouldn’t be a problem. But watch out for the symptoms and cut back if needed.
>>Taking in high amounts of creatine (more than 25 grams per day) is more likely to cause side effects like bloating and gastrointestinal distress. The good news is that taking more than 25 grams of creatine per day is not likely to be harmful; it’s just uncomfortable.
I’m not sure where the 5g per day number came from, but it definitely isn’t correct.
5g per serving is used as a guideline, primarily because you won’t absorb much more than that at a time, so anything more is just a waste.
It is actually recommended to take up to 30g per day for a 3-5 day period to help build up the amount available in muscles and then cut down the dose to maintain the peak levels.
The biggest risk of taking large doses over a long period of time is kidney damage. The kidneys filter out the extra that isn’t used, and it is hard work to remove all of that waste material. People can also lose the ability to naturally create creatine, because the body sees that there is always enough, so it shuts down the processes that we have inside to make it.
As for dosing calculations, larger body mass will require more, but there are a lot of complicated factors that go into finding that number, so 5g seems to fit most people best. Elite athletes will often have blood work done to test levels to get it exact, but us hacks at the gym are usually fine with 5.
[Here is an academic journal article that has great information ](https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12970-017-0173-z)
Nothing really. 5g is a normal daily dose (for after the completely unnecessary loading phase of 20-30g/day). Even taking a lot more doesn’t do anything for most people–just makes your kidneys work harder and can bother some people’s stomachs.
Bonus: It’s 5g no matter the body weight for the same reason 60g/day is the recommended amount of fat. It just assumes everyone is a 150-170 lb sedentary male.
There is no defined hard limit for creating intake. In otherwise healthy people, there seems to be little to no negative effect for large doses over a long time period. But I don’t think enough conclusive studies have been done on that to allow anyone to go hog wild on it. Plus, you never know if you have perfect kidneys until they are failing.
[This link](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8401986/) demonstrated that one could intake 5-20 grams per day and show positive effects.
The take away from my comment, read studies to get facts. They usually don’t come from random people online.
Loading phase of higher amounts just saturates quicker. You could take 10-20 for a week and be saturated then just use 5g. But I get bad stomach bloating etc so don’t bother
A side question, I get nauseated if I drink creatine mixed in hot water. Any idea why?
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