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’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)
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