Cold Open On Caffeine Vs Creatine

SPEAKER_00 1:35

It's very different to being stimulated with caffeine, which is quite a short, quite a short burst of caffeine stimulation, and you've got to have another coffee because you feel yourself flagging. It's like, I need another coffee. And creatine provides you with sustainable cognition, sustainable uh ability to not feel that mental fatigue.

Barcelona 1992 And The First Product

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Shift work can be brutal, but it doesn't have to be. Welcome to a healthy shift. My name is Roger Sutherland, certified nutritionist, veteran law enforcement officer, and 24-7 shift worker for almost four decades. Through this podcast, I aim to educate shift workers using evidence-based methods to not only survive the rigors of shift work, but thrive. My goal is to empower shift workers to improve their health and well-being so they have more energy to do the things they love. Enjoy today's joke. And welcome back to a Healthy Shift Podcast. Today, I am joined by someone who has had a massive influence on the performance nutrition space. Long before most of us even knew what creatine was. Now, Steve Jennings is known globally as the Creatine OG. He's a former professional cyclist, turned entrepreneur and innovator who spent over 30 years building and launching nutrition brands around the world. Steve was the first person to bring creatine to the market in 1992 at the Barcelona Olympics, and he's worked with some of the biggest names in the business, like PepsiCo, Nike, Lego, Unilever, and even more. So there's some names for you. Now, Steve is now leading Generize, which is helping everyday people to experience the power of creatine through ready-to-drink beverages and functional foods. Now, today, what I really want to do with Steve, for you, our audience, is to cut through the noise. I want to cut through the myths, all of the misinformation that's out there, and that social media confusion that we have to talk about why creatine is genuinely one of the most powerful, well-researched supplements out there. Steve, you've been in this space since before most even heard the word creatine. Can you just tell us how that journey started and how you became known as the creatine OG?

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Yeah, it's a great story, Roger, and thanks for that fantastic intro and the you know invitation to come on to the Healthy Shift and hopefully share some knowledge and bring some clarity around creatine with your with your audience of listeners. So the journey of how this all began is quite astonishing, actually. Back in the 80s, I was racing a bicycle. I was a professional athlete, pretty obsessed with sport full stock. Still am, and cycling became the thing that I fell in, fell in love with for many, many reasons. Lots of reasons why I fell in love with the bicycle and decided to pursue, go on a journey that took me to some interesting places, you know, racing, racing all over the world. And this was a long time ago. The 80s cycling was quite different to what it is today. It was a different sport. But in the early 90s, 1990, 1991, I found myself involved in performance nutrition. I had a connection with an athlete, a cyclist who was part of the British cycling team. And that gave us access to a lot of sport people. And at this time, I was introducing a performance nutrition product in Europe. This was not creatine. I was building a company bringing a performance nutrition product to the European market for weekend warriors, not hardcore products that were designed for people that want to, you know, perform on a weekend, really, you know, fulfill what it is that they like to do for their hobby. It was quite a new concept, actually. It was the first company in Europe to go down this route with something that appealed to a broader audience. And that product was adopted by the British Olympic Association as part of their nutrition strategy for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992. So we're a Fred Fledgling company, and pretty much out the gate, we're already supplying the British Olympic Association for Barcelona '92 with a functional nutrition product that we developed. That got me on the radar of two researchers that were conducting the first creatine study. I don't know, had conducted the first creatine study that was the breakthrough study that showed a 1-3% performance improvement in elite athletes who participate in explosive events, sprints, obviously, 100-meter sprint, 110-meter hurdles, 400 meters. And I received a telephone call out of the blue in February 1992 from one of the scientists. This was pre-internet. I didn't know who this person was. And they asked to meet with me later that week, like four days later, at a hotel in the north of England. It was like a scene from a movie. And I met two of, I mean, arguably that at the at that moment in time, and probably when you look back at creatine research, two of the most renowned, impactful, influential researchers in creatine, full stop. It was Professor Eric Holtman and Dr. Roger Harris. I met with them and we had an amazing conversation. They gave me a challenge. They said, look, we've got the research, it hasn't been published yet. We're going to give you a copy of the paper. This is all done on trust. It was unbelievable. They gave me a one kilo bag of creatine. At that moment in time, that was the one kilo bag of creatine. There was only one company producing tiny small batches of creatine, a kilo, two kilos at a time. It was not the industry as it is today where there are tens of thousands of metric tons of creatine being produced by gigantic chemical companies. This was a tiny company in Austria that could produce small amounts of creatine. And I was handed the research paper on a one kilo bag of creatine. And they gave me a challenge. We'd like you to get the creatine into the hands of some of the athletes who are going to perform in Barcelona. We'll work with you to speak with their coaches. We'll work with you to speak with the British Olympic Association because you know creatine is found naturally occurring in the diet. It's very safe. And that's how it began for me. It was a serendipitous meeting, a telephone call. I was in the right place at the right time. Super ambitious entrepreneur. I took on the challenge. And 45 days after that meeting, we'd created the world's first creatine supplement. And it was not a powder. The very first product, the very first creatine product that ever entered the market was an FFSing tablet pre-dosed in blister packs. We were far ahead of where creatine was up until quite recently in our thinking, because the athletes wanted pre-dose. We did this with a pharmaceutical company, and in 45 days, we went from the one kilo bag to having a small production line creating FFSing creatine tablets like you get with vitamin C in blister packs. And that's what the athletes were taking when we introduced it to them. And to cut a long story short, this was all done under secrecy. We couldn't mention this to anybody. It was all giving the athletes the respect that they needed. We worked with the British athletes, and during the Olympic Games in Barcelona, an investigative journalist got wind that some of the British athletes were using something that nobody else had access to. So I received a telephone call from an investigative journalist in the Olympic village. I thought it was my brother calling me and playing a trick. And it wasn't my brother, it was an investigative journalist. And he basically said, Look, I know the British team have got access to something. I don't fully understand what it is, and you've got an option here, a choice. I'm going to write a story, and it's going to be published in 48 hours. Unless I know exactly what it is that they're taking and I understand it, this is going to go in one of two directions. It's either going to be the biggest doping story of all time, and I will write that, or it's going to be the biggest breakthrough for your company. But I need to understand the facts. And Dr. Roger Harris and Professor Eric Holtman went on a call with Doug Gillon. We had all the documentation already from the Sports Council in the UK to say that creatine was safe. We had confirmation from the British Olympic Association that it was safe for the athletes to use, that it isn't a performance-enhancing drug, it's not a steroid, it's made up of a combination of amino acids, and you can find it naturally occurring in the diet in meat and fish. So we had our backs fully covered. So when the story broke, it was an extremely positive story, and it exploded. That story was picked up. You can imagine a story like this breaks in the Olympic village. The global media are there, and it got picked up by the global newswire. And honestly, it changed the trajectory of my life. We never set out to have a story like this break. It wasn't the plan, it happened. And it was like lightning in a bottle came out of the bottle. Some of the athletes were quite annoyed with me because they thought that I was the architect of this journalist releasing the story. And I said, No, I he was going to write it anyway. I said, You guys in the Olympic village, from what I understand, were holding up these boxes of Ergomax in front of the American athletes and going, We've got this and you haven't. And I said, the journalist got wind that you were doing this, and he followed the thread of the story, and we had to deliver, give him the facts. And creatine exploded. At this moment in time, it didn't exist as a supplement. There was only one company in the world producing small amounts, and creatine literally, it exploded very, very quickly. We were getting orders coming in by fax machine from all over the world. This was pre-internet, so orders coming in overnight from all over the world, people writing to us with letters with their credit card information or a check saying, I need some of this. Send me three boxes, send me six boxes. It was unbelievable. It's like a scene from a movie. And when I explain this story to people today, they're going, How did you all do all of this without the internet? How did you do it? And we didn't know the internet. There was no internet, so you didn't know that there was e-commerce because it didn't exist. It was mail order ads, it was people were sending you letters, sending you a fax, calling you up and placing an order. It was the world of analog business. And yeah, basically that's what took creatine from being completely unknown. It didn't exist as a supplement. And in a very short space of time, it became very well known.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

But the question that I would ask on the back of that was it exploded, but why? Why? What was it that it was doing? What was it that was making people sit up and pay attention to its booth?

Why Creatine Spread So Fast

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Yeah, it was the research. The research paper that was eventually published in September of 1992, which was a few months after the Olympic Games. It was the research paper from two leading scientists that were working within a research department at a leading university in Sweden that that showed a 1 to 3% performance improvement. We had athletes for the British team in Barcelona winning gold medals that were on the creatine program, and it was like a perfect storm. And that got picked up massively in the USA. It got picked up by professional teams. At this point, it wasn't mainstream, it was elite athletes that were looking for marginal gains of points of percent. So the impact of something that's one to three percent is a game changer at this level. It's an absolute game changer. So the media coverage began with the journalists, but then it spread worldwide. So at this point, it wasn't mainstream consumers, it was elite athletes and teams and federations that and bodybuilders and fitness guys that were looking for a performance edge that cottoned onto it very, very quickly. That was the market, and that market for you know the gym and elite sport, it remained that way for two and a half decades. It's only in the recent past that creatine has started to transition to a new place, and we'll get onto that a little bit later in this in this conversation. But for a decade and a half, almost two and a half, nearly three decades, 30 years, it's been very much creatine is about performance, high performance, explosive sport, explosive sports. And it's kind of got a little bit stuck in in that narrative. Yeah, so that's how it began for me. It was life-changing on many, many levels. It fast-tracked the growth of my nutrition company. It took me into the world of being on TV, on the radio, speaking with journalists that wanted to interview me from all over the world. It was an unbelievable moment in time. And some of it was a distraction. I wasn't trained to be in front of cameras. You know, I'm a young guy doing my first startup, and suddenly it's like a different world that I'm pulled into. Yeah, so that's that's how it began. It was right place, right time. I had the connections. I was already building a nutrition company. We had the connections with elite British athletes, and the stars just lined up.

Creatine Explained As Cellular Energy

SPEAKER_02 16:08

I think the bottom line is there with what you've just said. Like you said, you're in the right place at the right time. But again, and I talk about this a lot because I communicate with a lot of researchers and a lot of scientists. They're desperate to get their research out into the field, aren't they? And they're just looking for a conduit to get it out there. And I think you being in the right place at the right time, they saw you were there, you were doing the nutrition thing, you had what they probably looked at from a research perspective. Oh, this guy knows what he's doing because he's put a nutrition company together. Let's throw him out there. Hey, let's give him a bag of this stuff. Now, my mind, as you were telling that story, was thinking people are thinking white powder in the Olympics, it's going to be a performance-enhancing athletes would have been super nervous to put this stuff into their body for drug, especially through the 90s, drug testing and things like that. Like it would have been a really bad time. But somehow, because of the research, the research paper, you've obviously managed to convince the Olympic Committee that this is perfectly natural, perfectly safe. So, can you explain then? For people who think like we we think creatine because we think bodybuilders, all right. So, how would you, in your own words, simply for people that are listening, how would you explain what creatine actually does within our body?

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Yeah, it's I'm going to distill this down to the simplest explanation you could you could ever imagine. And it ultimately comes down to the production of cellular energy in the body. And the production of cellular energy in the body takes place within the cell. And within the cell, there is something called mitochondria. And mitochondria are the generators of cellular energy. It's called the Krebs cycle, it's the ATP ADP cycle, and that cycle creates cellular energy. It's what keeps us alive. The less cellular energy that your body creates, the more fatigued you feel, the more tired you feel, the faster you age. And it's it's a fact, Roger, that as you go through the aging journey, and quite early on, you know, in once you enter your 30s, your body's ability to produce cellular energy starts to diminish. When you enter your 40s and 50s, that ability to produce cellular energy diminishes even more. In your 60s, which is I'm in my 60s now, me too. It's gray hair, wrinkles, all of the things that are signs of aging. And a big piece of this is your body's natural process of not producing as much cellular energy. Cellular energy is what is what makes you feel gives you vitality, it makes you feel less fatigued, it makes you feel more capable of doing things, less tired, better cognition, improved memory, as we're seeing from the latest research. So it ultimately creatine and and creatine is foundational in the role it plays in enabling the body to optimize the production of cellular energy. When you distill it down to that level of simplicity, and you understand that naturally your body is producing less creatine, the natural aging process diminishes the body's ability to produce creatine naturally because within the body, the body has about 160 grams of creatine, 165 grams of creatine in it at any given time. But as you age, that amount becomes less, and your body's capacity to synthesize creatine naturally diminishes. So you start to be creatine deficient, and that has a huge impact on your body's ability to produce cellular energy. It's quite simple. You know, that you can find creatine in meat and fish, but the amounts of meat and fish you need to consume to get one gram of creatine are like two kilos of meat and fish, and you get a gram. And then the meat and fish is dead, so there's the creatine degrades in the meat and fish once it's the animal is being killed. It's then cooked, that degrades it even more when it goes through the cooking process. So if you want to optimize cellular energy production within the body, the best way to do that is to supplement with creatine as a powder, or just any not just the powder, the creatine could be in other forms. It could be in a gummy, it could be in a in something that you eat. Beverages aren't possible today, but they're coming on stream. So you have to supplement with creatine to get your body's levels of creatine back up to an optimum level. The impact it has on people that have never taken it before, that are in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s is indescribable. They have never experienced anything like it, they've never taken creatine, their body's producing less creatine, and then they start taking creatine. These are not performance sports people, they are the use, the me's our friends, neighbors that start to take creatine for the first time. And it's like, wow. How do I remain like this? You have to keep taking creatine. It's a foundational part of your supplementation. Just keep taking what you know, three, five grams a day every day. If you take five grams a day, after about 30 days, you've saturated your muscles with creatine. Even with five grams a day, you've saturated your muscles with creatine, and then you have to maintain that level of saturation, and all you do is keep taking creatine. It's that simple. So yeah, it all it ultimately is about cellular energy production and enabling your body to optimize the production of cellular energy at any given life stage. I think there's a lot of kind of misunderstanding about what creatine does and why does it why do people feel these benefits? Why does it impact cognition, brain health? Why does it have an impact on fatigue both in the body and the brain? Why does it have an impact positive impact on sleep deprivation? The brain contains twice as many cells as a muscle. The brain has 2x the concentration, 2.5x the concentration of cells compared to muscles. Okay. And the concentration of mitochondria in the brain is much more than the concentration of mitochondria in muscles. So if you've saturated your body with creatine, and you can imagine the impact it's having on just generally not feeling as tired, I don't feel as forgetful. I seem to be remembering things. It's actually quite simple.

Brain Benefits Plus Women’s Needs

SPEAKER_02 23:26

It is. We know in our early say 20s, 30s, we've got 165 grams in our body, and that starts to diminish. Is it true, or is it fair to say, that in females this diminishes quicker than it does in males?

Creatine Dosing For Shift Work

SPEAKER_00 23:49

Yeah, it is. Women store less creatine and they synthesize or produce less creatine naturally within the body than males. The whole piece around women's health is really where a lot of the research now is focused. It's breaking boundaries. With good reason. Perimenopause, postmenopause. There's research that is starting to really indicate huge benefits when it comes to bone health, which is a huge need that women have as a result of the menopause. There's very early research that indicates that if you're pregnant and you supplement with creatine, it's incredible. I mean, this is early research. Some of that creatine is, you know, getting picked up by the placenta and it's improving and potentially having a positive impact on baby that's being formed because you're producing and you're increasing and optimizing cellular energy production for a pregnant lady that puts huge demands on the body from an energy perspective. Astonishing. So the research around women's health alone is going to change the perception of what creatine is, what creatine can be used for, and what the health and well-being benefits of creatine are in the main mass broader, broader population. It's an extremely exciting time to be engaged in working with creatine as it moves from where it has historically been for the best part of three decades into a new world, a new world of possibilities, a new world of benefit applications. And that's where the role that creatine can play can be crucial for a shift worker, the circadian rhythm, the whole challenge that shift work places on the human body, the metabolic, your metabolic health, and the need that you have to optimize cellular energy production. It's a very interesting world that you're in, Roger, when it comes to the need for shift workers. There are tens of millions of shift workers on the planet. They're doing the work that when I'm asleep at night, if I if if there weren't shift workers, the world would be a very different place when we woke up in the morning. But shift work places huge demands on the body, and creatine can play a very significant role in enabling shift workers to optimize their health, optimize their capacity to feel less fatigued, optimize and help them overcome things like sleep deprivation. Brain function is huge with creatine. And that's when the latest research is kind of indicating that you can potentially for brain function go to 10 grams a day or even 20, but you don't need to take 10 or 20 grams a day all the time. It's for the moments when you're really feeling fatigued, you've got extra shifts, then it's it's quite acceptable to say, okay, for the next three, four, five days week, I'm just going to take 10 grams of creatine instead of my normal three to five grams. If the symptoms are really quite severe, just two or three days of 20 grams will saturate your muscles and it will saturate your cells and you feel it. It's not you need to be on 10 or 20 grams a day permanently. It's to use creatine strategically when your body has a need. Because once you've saturated the muscles and you're optimizing cellular energy production, any extra creatine that you take, you can't store anymore. You're saturated, you will just push it out through your kidneys in your urine. So it it it's it's recognizing yourself that I think I need to up my dose of creatine for the next week, or I need to saturate at 20 grams a day for three, four days, and it's just for a moment in time, and then you feel the benefit, and then the maintenance will be enough of, let's say, three to five grams a day. Yeah, three to five grams a day is really the baseline, and it works. If you've never taken creatine and you start taking three to five grams a day, some people feel it within a handful of days. Other people, after 30 days, it's like unbelievable.

SPEAKER_02 29:50

They don't realize, do they? I'm with you on that. Now, just to reiterate what you've said there for our shift-working listeners, taking five grams a day, every day, is going to saturate your muscle and restore you back to that really good level at that five grams a day. And then when we know that we're going to go into a night shift or we are starting, let's just say we've had a brutal three or four days of very, very taxing uh demanding shifts. That's the time to start upping your creatine to 20 grams and then just drop back to your five grams a day again because you're back at that maintenance levels. So what you're doing is you're you're band-aiding and supporting your body through that busy time. I've got a question to ask you about that too. My understanding is that at that three to five grams, while you are saturating muscle, it is that extra boost that actually supports it crossing the blood-brain barrier. Is that correct?

Bloating Hydration And Cramps

SPEAKER_00 30:55

Yes, it is, Roger. And one of the challenges with many compounds and metabolites that have an impact on cognition, whether it's caffeine, whether it's functional mushrooms, that really deliver a very strong sensory experience, is the crossing of the blood-brain barrier. And I think that's where the research around cognition has found itself, you know, at this 10 to 20 gram kind of, you know, the research is kind of saying, okay, we give people that are part of a study 10 grams or 20 grams. It's because in a study, a large amount of that 10 or 20 grams is crossing the blood brain barrier. Because you don't have time in a study to saturate people on three to five grams a day. No. You're trying to prove out a hype, a research hypothesis. Okay, yes. Crossing the blood brain barrier is the key. The great thing about creatine is that the way that it's transported within the body, the transporters are known, they're clearly understood. Creatine is extremely bioavailable in the body. Your body recognizes it, it knows it. Even when it synthesized creatine as a supplement, it understands exactly what it is, it knows exactly what it has to do with the creatine, and there is a transporter system that transports it from the liver into the muscle, and then the muscle knows exactly what it needs to do with it, it needs to be transported into the mitochondria. The human body is super intelligent, it's so intelligent that we we have one, I have one. I don't fully understand what's going on inside of my body and how sophisticated the human body is as a machine. It's it's incredibly intelligent and it's incredibly sophisticated that what's going on inside of the body. But the transporter system, the how do you transport it into the cell and into the mitochondria, all of that exists within our body. It's a known process. You supplement with creatine, the body recognizes what you're doing, it knows it's creatine, it knows what to do with it and where it needs to go. We can really complicate this with charts and tables to justify our existence as somebody that is uh, you know, uh in this world, but at a simplistic level, it's so simple what's going on, but the mechanisms behind what's going on are incredibly sophisticated. The mechanisms, the transporter, what happens in the muscle, what happens within the cell, what happens within the mitochondria that are within the cells, it's incredibly sophisticated. But we don't need to know that. That's what the body is capable of doing, and it can do this with other ingredients. You know, when you have a coffee or you have an energy drink, you feel something, it recognizes caffeine, it recognizes these metabolites, it knows what to do, it knows how to transport it to where it needs to go, and that the body is so intelligent in terms of knowing what it needs to do, why it needs to do it.

SPEAKER_02 34:11

The key from that, realistically, is that creatine is one of those substances that's in the body that the body instantly goes, I need this, and knows exactly where to take it, what to do with it, where to put it. It's not like it's something that just floats around and it gets used if it's going to get used. It goes, oh, we like this. Let's use it, let's get it to there. Can I just ask as well? Now, at the moment, we're going through a really interesting stage with creatine, and there's a lot of misinformation around creatine. And I know because, you know, I do follow creatine very closely as I have, which is the reason why I've got you here today. But, you know, things like it causes bloating, you know, it it causes kidney issues, or, oh, you know, you've got to cycle on and off it. Can you just explain to people what does the research actually tell us around you know, bloating kidney issues? Do we need to cycle it?

Rate Review Ebook And Coaching

Kidney Myths And Creatinine Tests

SPEAKER_00 35:06

Yes, that this is such a great discussion point. And, you know, I'm really glad that you've asked this question because we get a lot of inbound inquiries asking the same question. It's a question that, you know, back in the 90s was being asked, and here we are 30 plus years later, and people are still asking the same questions. It's like, wow, oh crikey, the need to educate and to provide information is as great as it was back then today, which I also find quite astonishing. But there's also there is a lot of misinformation about creatine out in the market, and especially with social media, it's it's a dumpster fire. Yeah. And so creatine, in the respect of bloating, I can talk about that with a degree of confidence and an understanding. So when your body, when you take creatine as a supplement, what's needed to support the transportation of creatine from where it's stored in liver to where it needs to get to the muscle, the cell, mitochondria is fluid. So your body and when you start taking creatine, you have to increase your intake of fluid, you have to drink more because the creatine creates it increases cellular activity in the body. That increase in cellular activity necessitates more fluid and water, so you have to drink more. What's actually happening is it's not water retention and it's not bloating, it's your muscles that require more fluid in order to optimize the transportation of the creatine. So your muscle is not dehydrated, it's a perfectly natural process. For some people, it's like, well, I don't want to have big muscles, but it isn't big muscles, it's the body's natural way of saying, you know, I need to transport this creatine to where it needs to get. That takes increased amounts of fluid, it will draw fluid out of your body into the muscle cell because there's more creatine and there's more cellular energy activity taking place. So it appears that you're bloating, but it isn't. There's more water in the muscle, but that water's needed to support the optimization of cellular energy production. You cannot experience the benefits of creatine and be dehydrated. There's a lot of need to talk about hydration, water intake, and what happens if you're dehydrated when you're taking creatine. It can lead to cramp, muscle cramps. Your body is screaming for more fluid, and you think I'm taking creatine and I'm suffering from muscle cramps. Drink more. You've got to drink more because the muscle is demanding more fluid because you're supplemented with creatine to optimize the production of cellular energy. It takes a lot of energy to produce cellular energy and to feel the benefit, and that transporter system draws water from wherever you've got water and fluid in the body into the place where it's needed because you're now supplemented with creatine. So muscle or water retention isn't as some people think. Well, I you know, I'm retaining water, my muscles look flabby or whatever. I've put on white. Yeah, it's you're not putting away. I mean, obviously, you have to the key with creatine is take creatine and exercise as well. You know, if you want to get the real bang for the buck, take creatine and move your body, do some resistance exercise. We're not talking going to the gym, we're talking doing things that put resistance demands on the muscle. Then you really start to feel the benefit. You're not doing this to build muscle, you're doing it to optimize muscle strength, muscle power, to ensure that you're not exposed to the effects of muscle atrophy and sarcopenia, which are very real as you age. It's a very, very real, you know. I'm I I look at my my muscles today, and I have to do more in order to maintain some level of muscular strength and muscle power. It's all part of the aging process. Bloating is actually quite interesting. Bloating is something that you sometimes feel around your stomach, your abdomen when you take creatine. And there are lots of you know, people that say, you know, I take creatine, but I seem to feel bloated around my around my abdomen, and I've experienced that. Okay, so it's not something that is a figment of someone's imagination. For some people, when they take creatine, they do experience abdominal discomfort. Okay, it's not unusual. I only experience that if I'm 20 grams a day, and if I think, you know, I'm gonna I need 20 grams a day for 10 days here. Then I experience the need to drink more. The first time I I really did this as a 60-year-old, I experienced cramps in my legs and was like, wow, what the heck's going on? And I was dehydrated without realizing it. So I up my water intake, no problem. But there are instances of people that do experience a degree of abdominal discomfort, and they can't quite put their finger on is it the creatine? Isn't it the creatine? What is happening? But it's not with everybody. Um, and once again, it it's dialing the dose up and down to find what works for you. There isn't a hard, fast three grams, five grams, ten grams, ten, twenty grams. You find what works for you, and you find what works for you, and it's individual to you. And and that's that's that's all I can really say about uh about that.

SPEAKER_02 41:20

I hope you're enjoying the show. If you are, please don't forget to rate and review once you've finished. This helps the show's reach enormously. And have you got my free ebook, The Best Way to Eat on Night Shift? Well, this is a comprehensive guide to the overnight fast, why we should fast and how to best go about it. I've even included a few recipes to help you. I've put a link to the ebook in the show notes. And are you really struggling with shift work and feel like you're just crawling from one shift to the next? Well, I've got you. If you would like to work with me, I can coach you to thrive, not just survive, while undertaking the rigors of 24-7 shift work. I also conduct in-house live health and well-being seminars where I will come to your workplace and deliver evidence-based information to help your well-being team to reduce unplanned leave and increase productivity in your workplace. I've put the links in the show notes to everything mentioned. You can find me at healthyshift.com or on Instagram at a underscore healthy underscore shift. Now let's get back to the show. Can you just explain to people, because a lot of people are really worried about oh no, it's going to damage my kidneys. Can you just put that to bed for us?

SPEAKER_00 42:45

Yeah, it the research is categorical, and the research around creatine and kidney damage has been something that has been researched and looked at almost from the very, very beginning, which is 30 years. And your body will convert creatine. So when the energy, so the energy production takes place, it creates a waste product called creatinine. So creatinine is the waste from creatine, and your kidneys just flush that creatine out of the body. It doesn't put any extra demand on the kidneys, even if you're taking 20 grams a day, as long as you're drinking water, you just flush that creatine out of your body. It doesn't damage your kidneys, it doesn't place demands on your kidneys that are putting you at risk from a health perspective. Your body, it knows what it is and it knows what it needs to do with the waste products. It is flushed out in your urine. It's a very, very simple process. It does not damage your kidneys. If it did, we'd be having a different conversation, and creatine would be under a whole different, you know, set of legislation in terms of can it even be a supplement? Is it safe to be used as a supplement? It is. There's so much research around creatine and whether or not it puts undue stress on your kidneys, and it doesn't. There is absolutely there is seriously no indication from any research studies that it's placing undue, unnecessary stress on your kidneys. If there was, we'd be having a different conversation. And I'd be saying, go look at this study, but it just isn't the case.

SPEAKER_02 44:32

Yeah, I know people that have seen their doctors been taking creatine. The doctors seen creatine in their urine and gone, oh no, you've got to stop taking that creatine. It doesn't make sense to me because it's a natural byproduct.

SPEAKER_00 44:45

This is where the whole education piece becomes absolutely crucial, Roger. And it's part of what we're developing within Generize is a whole education platform, not only for people like you and I to better understand, but also for practitioners to better understand. The level of confusion with practitioners, doctors, is quite astonishing. And when you have a checkup for something and they look at your testosterurine, and you've got a higher than normal level of creatinine in your urine, their default is something's happening in the body, something's not quite working. You have to tell them that you're supplementing with creatine, and there will be higher levels of creatinine in your urine because it's flushing out the waste product.

SPEAKER_02 45:34

Yeah, but it doesn't mean it's bad.

SPEAKER_00 45:35

It's a proof point that your kidneys are actually doing the job that they're designed to do.

SPEAKER_02 45:40

And it's showing that you've got high levels of creatine, which is what we want in our body. I think this is one of the biggest frustrations for me as well. I I've heard this. I went to my doctor and my creature uh creatinine levels were high. That's right, it's a byproduct. That's what you need. Yeah, it's showing that you've got high levels of creatine in your body, which is what we want. And because it's using the creatine, the byproduct is what your body is flushing away, which is why it's higher in your urine. End of story.

SPEAKER_00 46:09

Yeah, and it is honestly, Roger, it is that simple. Truly, it is that simple, but the level of misunderstanding and misinterpretation is so high, even with highly qualified medical practitioners, they're not trained, and part of their training doesn't include nutrition, nutrition science. That's not what they're trained to do, they're trained to cure people that are not well. And what wearing with creatine is prevention. We're in the space of prevention. We're helping people get to a point where they can go further in life and retain what we call vitality. How can they retain this level of Vitality for a longer period of their life, which contributes to prevention rather than needing an in a medical intervention, a pharmaceutical intervention. So, as you said, the higher if you're supplemented with creatine, your doctor needs to see that there's a higher level of creatinine because your kidneys are working.

SPEAKER_02 47:17

Yeah. Because if that creatinine is not in your urine, it means you are still not saturated to that point. Right? It just means you've probably got low levels of creatine in your system as well. Steve, what's the biggest myth that would frustrate you most of all out of creatine at the moment?

SPEAKER_00 47:33

Oh, that's a super question.

SPEAKER_02 47:35

There are so many. One that you see, and every time you see it, you go, Why? Why is this still around?

SPEAKER_00 47:41

I think I can I can talk from the what we call the in band that we're getting. These are emails, these are messages that are coming to generize. And I do find it astonishing, but I shouldn't really, because I live in the world of creatine. So when you're living in the world of creatine, you become quite familiar with what is really possible and what isn't. But I would say the myths that still surprise me are people that are convinced that creatine is a steroid. It isn't a steroid, it's a naturally occurring substance found in the diet, it's found in meat and fish. It's a combination of three amino acids that create creatine. It's not a steroid, it has no anabolic properties whatsoever, zero anabolic properties. It's not an anabolic agent like anabolic steroids or testosterone. It's not bucketed in that world. If it was, it would never have been approved to be used by athletes in 1992. Period. It's a compound that's found naturally occurring in the diet and in and in the human body, but it's not a steroid. It's not classified as a steroid. But that myth continues and it's propagated by social media.

SPEAKER_02 49:04

It's ignorance. It's just ignorance, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 49:07

Well, all the information, if you want to go online, you can find all the information about what creatine is, what it isn't. Is it a steroid? Isn't it a steroid? Does it damage the kidneys? Doesn't it damage the kidneys? Can I give creatine to my 17-year-old rugby playing or cricket playing son that is an elite performance athlete? Is it safe to use? All of the information is there. But some people don't want to do that research. They just want it to be high level. Give me the main points. Is it a steroid? No. Is it okay for my 17-year-old son who's a sport talent to start taking creatine three grams a day? Yes. So it's you can get you can actually distill this down to almost yes-no answers at a very simplistic level. And I think that's what people want. Just give me the yes or the no. The yes or the no. Yeah, my daughter's a swimmer, she's a high performance athlete, she's 16 years old. Is it okay for her and safe for her to start to supplement with creatine? Yes. That's the OG saying yes. Yes, it is. It will have no adverse effect on her whatsoever. If anything, it will have a positive impact on that athlete.

SPEAKER_02 50:25

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 50:26

Fatigue, ignition, recovery, the recovery improvements with creatine are staggering. It all comes back to cellular energy production and optimizing cellular energy production. The bigger demands that you're putting on your body to produce cellular energy, irrespective of how old you are, the more justification there is to supplement with creatine. As you age, as I mentioned earlier, your body is naturally synthesizing and producing less creatine. So to supplement with creatine as you're aging is a real game changer, more so than it is with sports people. It is so significant with just regular people that have never taken it before when they're in their 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s. It's transformational for people as they're going through life stages because cellular energy production is gray beard. I'm producing less cellular energy, so my beard goes a little bit gray, or your hair goes silver gray, you feel tired in the morning. Yeah. It's not a silver bullet, but it's extremely powerful in the role that it plays.

SPEAKER_02 51:41

I agree. So a majority of our audience are actually females, and they range between like that 25 to 45-year-old age brackets do. Can we just talk about women for for a minute in relation to creatine? Because I wanted to ask you this. Are there any unique benefits for females that they often overlook in relation to taking creatine?

Daily Rituals Plus Gummies Reality

SPEAKER_00 52:05

Yeah, I think I think once again it we can cover this with some of the myths. So for a lot of women, the myth around water retention is very, very real. It's a very real concern. And as I mentioned earlier, it it is a myth. You know, women that are taking creatine, one, they store less creatine than men. Two, they synthesize within the body, produce within the body lower amounts of creatine than men. However, women have a higher need for creatine than men. Menopause, raising a family, being pregnant, the aging process. It's really interesting when you when you kind of look at this through the lens of the difference between men and women. It's just a fact that we're not the same. Visually, we're not, but also within the body, there are fundamental differences where it's now starting to be proven, but the research is still going through some sort of its early, early, early, early kind of process of repeating the study, replicating the study with a larger sample group. But from a female perspective, taking creatine is more important for a female than it is for a man. Because of the demands that are placed on a woman's body, the menopause being a key one, perimenopause, postmenopause, the whole process of what's going on within the body is putting huge demands on the body's cellular energy system, metabolic health. I think it's for me, and I've mentioned this on other podcasts, it's the most exciting area of where creatine can create a significant benefit for a huge percentage of the global population. 52% of the global population are female. It's like, wow. And they have a need for creatine that's higher than what it is for men. They feel the benefit in different ways. The cognition benefits are there, but it's at a deeper level where it becomes extremely noticeable what creatine can do, what it does, and the benefits that it can bring into the life or into the lives of women. Yeah, and it's at any age, it's not only in your 40s, it's you know, 25, 18, 26, 32. It's quite astonishing. And the biggest area right now of growth with creatine is women that are finally realizing it is for them. That's the biggest growth of creatine, is with women realizing this is for me. I understand why it's for me, and I now feel I have enough confidence to start to take creatine every day as a as a as a female, and that's a good thing. Oh, I agree. For me, it's the most exciting part of where creatine is going to go, is the impact it can have and will have on women's health.

SPEAKER_02 55:21

Yeah, totally agree with you. And as we've seen new research now around bone health, as oestrogen drops in a in a uh female that's um going through the menopause or you know, perimenopause, as oestrogen drops, the creatine again, creatine, this cycle, um supporting a healthy cycle, creatine. You know, like it's just something that I highly encourage clients to take it. I not only encourage it, but I almost insist that there's three supplements that they need to be taking. Creatine's one of them. I talk about this on my Instagram. Creatine's not something that you should, you don't just take it in your pre-workout when you're gonna train. It's something that you've got to take every single day. Like every single day. On that, how do you recommend that people take it to remind them to take it? Now I know you're gonna say, oh, you can take it this way, this way, but what's the simplest format for people to remember to take it every single day?

SPEAKER_00 56:15

Yeah, it's a great, it's a great, great, great question, Roger. And the best way I can explain this is to find a way that enables you to integrate creatine into an existing daily ritual that you have. A lot of people say, well, you've got to, it's a new habit. You've got to look at it. No, it's not a habit. There are things that I like to do, and things and moments in the day when I have my afternoon cup of tea, my morning coffee, my smoothie, whatever the heck it is. With powdered creatine, integrate the creatine into an existing ritual. Don't create a new ritual around creatine. So if your morning ritual is a nice cup of herbal tea or a coffee, put your three to five grams in, mix it up and drink it. That's your ritual. You've integrated it into something that you already do and you enjoy doing it. Yes. For me, I had my creatine every day into my oatmeal porridge. So do I. And it's the last thing I mix in. Right at the very end, I just put three grams of creatine, mix it into my porridge and eat my porridge because it's a ritual that already exists in my life. I'm not having to create a new habit. Where it gets really interesting, Roger, is developing new forms of product that deliver creatine that are super convenient. So it's how do you create products that make creatine super convenient? What does that look like? Because for a lot of people, it's a powder, they don't want to mess around with a powder. They're looking for, well, can I take it in other forms? And that's where gummies with creatine have really taken off.

SPEAKER_02 58:00

It's a bit topical though, Stu, aren't they?

SPEAKER_00 58:02

Yeah, there's a huge backlash against gummies because there are many companies claiming to put a gram in a gram in a gummy and they're not putting any creatine in.

SPEAKER_02 58:11

James Smith's done a lot of work on this and actually called them out with the YouTube, and he's done a fantastic job. Call the companies out, put his name behind it, put his brand behind it, put his own research behind it, and said there's no creatine in those. And that's why I sort of be a bit careful around the gummies. But there are some companies, well, he's released his own now. Of course he has.

SPEAKER_00 58:31

Yeah, but what I know. But what a lot of creatine gummies and what a lot of companies that have developed or launched a creatine gummy have underestimated is that when creatine is exposed to moisture or to liquid, it breaks in. It starts to degrade into its waste product. So there are companies that have put creatine in a gummy, but if you test that gummy a year after it's been manufactured or even weeks after it's been manufactured, some of that creatine is already degrading into its waste product creatinine. It's very difficult to stabilize creatine in an environment of moisture or liquid. It requires technology, it requires an understanding of the parameters of the pH that you can operate within to give the creatine the best chance of remaining stable. In some instances, it requires quite advanced encapsulation technologies to be used. Gummies are super convenient, but it's not the optimum way to take creatine.

SPEAKER_02 59:35

It's expensive too, Steve. Yeah, sure. You can take them. And if you've got the money, do that. And not only that, but I think people don't really read the labels as well. Like when you're taking capsules, to take three grams, you've got to take like six capsules or three capsules, or you can't just take one and it doesn't last. What looks like a big container doesn't last. I think I know personally, yeah, there's different methods, but to me, it's the scoop of the creapure into the well, I put it in my wheat bicks and yogurt, you put it in your porridge, done. You know what I mean? And I think and it just doesn't matter when I mean I know there's minor evidence about taking it with 80 grams of carbs post-exercise, but you know, the bottom line is just get it in every day.

Sleep Loss Caffeine Traps Night Workers

SPEAKER_00 1:00:16

Yeah, and and you've you've hit the nail on the head, Roger. It's take three to five grams a day, integrate it into an existing ritual, and do it every day. It's extremely simple. It's very easy to overcomplicate everything in life. You know, complexity is a business model for some people. The fact is with creatine is that you can pretty much mix it and add it to anything. You can add it to, you know, a pasta sauce, you can add it to soup, you can add it to pudding. It just goes on and on and on. You can't add it to soup and then leave the soup standing around for a few days because the creatine will start to degrade. But if you put a scoop into a bowl of a dish of soup when you're eating it and you eat the soup, within 15-20 minutes, if you've put five grams in, your body will consume five grams of creatine in soup. A lot of people don't realize that it's not just put the powder in water and drink it, which is not nice to do. It tastes bitter. It's horrible.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:17

It's not it's grimy, you can stuck in your teeth.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:20

It is, yeah. So it's integrated into an existing ritual, a moment that you do every day, and that is the moment when you can add creatine. You know, there are already products in the market that are proteins that contain creatine. It's it's really down to the individual in terms of what they want to do, in terms of where they're getting their creatine from. And ultimately, it's what works for you as an individual. There are no how to fast rules on time of the day doesn't matter. You can take creatine before you go to bed, it won't keep you awake. It's not a stimulant like caffeine, it's not a stimulant like you find in functional mushrooms. It does not have any stimulative effects on your body whatsoever. Zero. So time of the day doesn't matter how you integrate it into a ritual. It actually does not matter.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:11

That's really good to know that we can take it at any time, just take it. The one thing that really interests me at the moment, and particularly for this audience that's listening today, is the connection between sleep loss and creatine. Now, my shift working community really suffers with sleep deprivation purely because of the time of day they're trying to sleep, the circadian misalignment and everything else. So, what is the connection? Does it help? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:38

And I think one of the things that we kind of don't fully understand are the demands that you're putting on your body as a shift worker. You know, your your body has a circadian rhythm. And we expect people to be at the best level of their work performance at a time when your body is saying, I really should be sleeping now. Really? I should be sleeping now, even though I've been sleeping during the day, you're forcing your body into an unnatural rhythm. Okay, you're putting huge demands on your metabolic health, huge demands on your body's needs for cellular energy. It really is very, very demanding for shift workers. And I think this is what's really good about your podcast, Roger. I think having conversation with people around the healthy shift and acknowledging the demands that shift work puts on the body, acknowledging that your body is basically saying, I can work at night, I can I can do what you're asking of me, but you're gonna pay a price for it. You will feel tired, you will sleep during the day, but it won't be the same as sleeping at night because you're trying to force a new rhythm that your body is saying, Well, I've got to sleep because I'm fatigued. You're asking me to sleep when it's broad daylight, when I should be out getting vitamin D. And we underestimate the demands that that's putting on a human. They're very significant, and that needs to be acknowledged, it needs to be understood, and it needs to be treated with respect. And addressed. And addressed.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:27

Yeah. Yeah. And that's what I try to do, Steve. I know everything that you've said there, and this is why I bring the education that I bring, because research in the past for shift workers has been done on shift workers with zero education and support, right? They they're just going about it. Even today, policing agencies, paramedics, nurses, anybody working at like uh flight attendants, um, uh pilots, people packing bags, working airports, driving Ubers, driving taxis. You can go on and on and on. You put that Amazon order in, you want it delivered tomorrow. Someone's doing that, right? So now what I'm my goal is to bring worldwide education so that we can make it better and optimize people around it. Yeah, I'm the I'm acknowledging that it's detrimental, but I want to optimize it right for people. I want to support them, I want to help them. One of the main reasons why I have you on this podcast here is because I'm massive on circadian alignment. Even though you're on night shift, it's still about regular sleep and getting up at the same time, regardless. But what I want to do is use and bring the message from you about creatine, but how it supports that cognitive function and that brain cellular energy in those moments of high demand on your body, so that it can actually help your body.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:56

This is such a great topic to discuss, Roger. And you know, I've got friends that are shift workers. My wife worked in healthcare for many, many years and worked night, night, night shifts, like for years, night shifts. That was what she did. Night shifts, night shifts. So I I understand the the the demands and Uber drivers, taxi drivers, healthcare workers, police. It just goes on and on and on, you know, keeping the lights on. Millions of people are working when they should be sleeping. One in five, Steve. One in five. Yeah, it's it's hundreds of millions of people. A lot of them bridge their shift work to get through their shift work by drinking coffee, having a couple of energy drinks. And what happens, and it's quite normal to do this for a lot of people, they have like three to five coffees during a shift, and then they can't sleep during the day because the half-life of the caffeine is not allowing them to have the deep sleep that their body needs. And it's just like a vicious circle of, well, I've got to keep awake. My body's telling me to sleep, I'm not sleeping as well during the day. Yeah, because you've got this half-life of caffeine that's still in your body, and it's you're trying to go to sleep, but you're not quite getting into the depth of sleep that you need. And ultimately, it has a huge impact on your metabolic health. It will lead to some kind of health breakdown where something will happen, and it could be a myriad of things. There are many things that can be the result of putting huge demands on your body and forcing your body to stay awake when it's not meant to, using stimulants, not the way to go. There are other ways to approach this that are kinder to your body, more aligned with what your body can utilize to adapt to a circadian rhythm that enables somebody to remain healthy as a shift worker, and creatine is part of that. Okay, so creatine isn't a stimulant, no half-life, but it will help you optimize your cognition, focus, uh, memory as a shift worker. But it's not a stimulant, it's very different to being stimulated with caffeine, which is quite short, quite a short burst of caffeine stimulation, and you're gonna have another coffee because you feel yourself flagging. It's like, I need another coffee. I can't, I can't get through the night. I need one more before I go home. And creatine provides you with sustainable cognition, sustainable uh ability to not feel that mental mental fatigue. It's one of the big upsides of it, actually. And until you reached out to me, Roger, and you know, I understood what you do and what healthy shift is about, and I really started to think about creatine and shift workers. I don't think, even though my wife has has worked in healthcare and has done shift work on and off during her life, I don't think I've really made the connection between the needs of shift workers and the role that creatine can play. And it's really good because you've opened my mind up to another need that a huge number of people have that is perfect for creatine to help them address. Okay, because ultimately the role of what you're doing, Roger, is to help shift workers remain healthy.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:47

Yep, as much as I can. I know it's less than optimal, right? Yeah. I just want to help them to optimize it. And what I do is I don't come out here and saying, and this is where it's important, and I'm really humbled by what you've said there too, Steve. And it didn't, it wasn't lost on me, but I appreciate that. That having these conversations gets the brain ticking. Oh my God, there's another area here, right? Like in Asia alone, Asia alone, there's 1.2 billion shift workers, right? In Asia alone. Now, if you think of productivity 24-7 in Asia, there's a whole market there, right? There's a whole market there for shift workers with and people that we can help. Now, American population, you know, somewhere between 18 and 22% are shift workers now. That's huge. We've got over three million shift workers in Australia alone. Now, it's massive, and I'm not even 100% sure of the figures in Europe. But the thing is, we now know that of the world population, it's almost one in five are shift workers now working outside regular hours. That I believe that creatine can really help at a cellular level to support their body. Now, let's simplify this. On everything that you've told us before, one of the things that we do as shift workers is we absolutely torture our bodies. We torture it, right? And we are depleting everything at cellular level. And what are we doing to support it? Nothing, right? We go to exercise, we get some fresh air, we don't do anything. Now, if we were to start to align that circadian rhythm and start to get some daylight, get some movement, and we were taking creatine at the levels that we know, it's very simple. We're supporting cellular energy to support our body. That's the point I wanted to make. It's very simple, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:39

It is simple, Roger, and you you've packaged that up really well. Very succinct, very clear. And I think what I would say as as we're wrapping wrapping up this incredible conversation is we're very accessible at generized. We're very accessible. You know, if people want to reach out with a message, an email, a question, we're very accessible. Look upon us, Roger, as being a resource for the work that you're doing. I will. Look upon us as being we can be a resource for you. We can develop white papers and documents and all sorts of things that are specifically designed and talking to and addressing the role of creating and the lives of shift workers. Because it's ultimately about I don't even call it educ education. I think it's just making sure the information that needs to be made available is available, and it's easy for people to access that information and for them to interpret that information. And if they have a question, they can go to somebody and ask a question and get a very clear, straight answer to the question that they're asking. And I think this is this is quite exciting, actually, Roger, in terms of what it's possible to build on following this conversation. I'm accessible, we're available, we see and understand more about the demands and the needs that shift workers have than we did six weeks ago, two months ago when we first connected. We feel a responsibility, uh, the way that we've set set generize up is to support people on this journey to make sure that not only do they understand why they need to be taking it, but some of these myths surrounding creatine are better understood and are articulated in language that people can interpret and understand and see themselves. That's me. I'm a shift worker, I do feel fatigued. I am bridging my shift work on coffee and energy drinks. I do struggle to sleep during the day because the half-life of caffeine hangs around for many, many hours and it impacts the quality of your sleep. And a lot of people they just don't know this. It's like, wow, so I drink coffee on my shift, maybe three a night, maybe even more, and there's a half-life. Yeah, there's a real half-life for hours after you've had coffee, it can be nine hours plus that that half-life is still there. You're not gonna have the kind of sleep during the day that it is possible to have. Oh no. So even if we can help people optimize sleep during daytime hours because they're not bridging their shift work to perform with stimulants, that's a huge step forward.

Creatine 2.0 Stories And Closing

SPEAKER_02 1:14:41

Oh, massive. Oh, it's massive. Yeah. My goal is to get people to naturally nap twice between night shifts, right? That's what I want them to do. I don't want people to aim, I think it's very disordered in today's society to expect people, because I think it creates disordered behaviors when you say to someone, you must get seven to nine hours sleep. Now that's just not possible for a shift worker. It's ridiculous, right? They've been awake all night and you're sleeping against a circadian rhythm. So, my role now, and I'm trying to change, and I'm I'm communicating with a researcher around this, and we are changing the language now that you nap twice. You go home and you release the sleep pressure, then you get up and you get on with your day, and then you have another nap, release the sleep pressure, and then you go and work that night. You get into and out of night shift as quickly and efficiently as you possibly can. Creatine can help with the cellular energy. And the more I think about it, and the more I've learned from you today. I know that our listeners will have learned today in relation to the role that creatine plays at a cellular level, which I think is important. We start off with a certain amount of creatine in our body. It rapidly deteriorates as we age, 40, 50, 60. We need to supplement with it. And for females, it deteriorates even more and quicker. And females go through the menopause, and therefore they need higher creatine levels to help them through that. There's a lot that we can do here, a lot that we can do moving forward, and we will communicate in the background beyond that. I just don't want people to get their advice from goddamn freaking TikTok or even like, and and people do this, and that's the saddest thing, and it upsets me greatly. But and this is where the confusion comes from. Steve, you have said quite categorically that creatine needs a news story. What do you mean by that?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:40

Yeah, it's another great, great question, Roger, and I think we've articulated much of the news story during this call. It's shifting the perception of who is creatine for, what can creatine do, why should I take it? It's when when we talk about creatine 2.0, creatine 2.0 isn't a new form of creatine. No, creatine 2.0 is reimagining what the story is so that creatine has more appeal and better understanding with people that historically have never taken creatine and don't fully understand why they need to take it. Creatine 2.0 is kind of an overarching way that we're reframing the way that we understand creatine. Women's health being one of the big ones. That's a huge new story that's required. So it needs to be handled with care, it needs to be handled with grace. It's how you handle that story so that the people that you're reaching out to, they can see themselves in the story. That's me. They're talking to me, and that's the the new story for us, really, is it's maybe story isn't the right word, but it's people being able to see themselves as a participant in the story.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:08

Yeah, and with the solution and offering the solution to it.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:12

With the solution, and and for us, the best feedback that we can get from people, and we get this from people, is that one you've made creatine understandable for the first time ever. And two, you know, when we do our monthly blog posts, which are real life human stories, it's to capture stories about people where others can see themselves as that person. That's me, that's my life. Then they have a context. It's like, oh, okay, so that's how they use creatine. But that's she's a woman, she's in her 50s, but that's how she uses creatine. We all need these examples of others that are like you that are using a product, whether it be creatine or something else. The human story piece is huge in what we're doing and in what generizes is working towards creating. It's ultimately anchored in human stories.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:07

Yeah, that's good. Because that's that's what makes it relatable. I just want to wrap up with a couple of things, and I just want to recap because I had questions that I wanted to ask that you've covered absolutely beautifully all the way through. So I haven't backed over a lot of them, right? So our shift workers, who are people that now they're often running on empty, they're missing sleep, they're chronically fatigued. You've articulated and covered this really well, right? Because I wanted to cover up recent studies are showing that creatine really can help maintain cognitive performance during sleep deprivation. That's a fact now. It's not even, oh, studies are starting to show it is now written. It's fair enough to say it's written in concrete. Fair enough? Do you agree with that?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:48

I do, and I've I've experienced this myself because you know I'm I'm working super long hours across five time zones right now. And when the demands are really high, I will my creatine from three grams to 10 or even from three to twenty for a short moment in time to make sure that my cells are my brain cells to get as much as I can across the blood-brain barrier. And when you do that, it's really profound. You feel it, and it's very quickly. It's almost like if you do that, if you take 20 grams of creatine, but you're already onto three to five grams a day, and then you up it to 20 grams because you are feeling really fatigued and you are experiencing real sleep deprivation. If you take 20 grams a day, it's almost immediate that you start to feel the benefit. Agreed. Yeah, but you don't need to take 20 grams a day all the time.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:41

No, not all the time. No, just during those moments. But the thing is, what I love for our emergency services as well as our nurses and things like that as well, is that it's also shown to support reaction time, our mood stability, mental clarity when we're under stress and fatigue. And I've had a light bulb moment, which I'm going to do more content around in relation to this, is the more we feel like we need a lot of our young guns are all on the energy drinks, the Red Bulls, the Monster Whites, all the rest of it, and they're drinking it. The more they drink those, the more jittery they get. Jittery. But creatine can have the same effect without the jitters. You know, that's the thing. And the questions are, from your perspective, how could creatine help people who work through the night or regular schedules? We've covered that. It is gold increasing over that period of time. Is there any reason why shift workers should approach dosing differently? Yes. When you're going into periods of sleep deprivation or when it's really taxing, bump it up to 20, 10 or 20 grams just for that short period of time. We've talked about the best way to take it. We've talked about the future of protein in everyday drinks or snacks and things like that. Stu, what a chat. Is there anything that we've spoken, not spoken about, that you would like to just cover off on at this point in time? I think it's been a great chat. We've covered plenty, but is there anything that's been booning that you want to talk about?

SPEAKER_00 1:22:04

No, not really. I I think at the end of the day, it's you feel incredibly privileged being invited onto a podcast and talking about a subject that is very important and being given this opportunity. I don't think there's anything else that I'd I need to add, to be perfectly honest with you. I think it's it's like I mentioned a few minutes ago. People can reach out to us, they can reach out to you, they can reach out to us. It's just basically holding people's hands and taking them across into this world of they now understand why they need to take creatine, they understand how much they really need to be taking, they realize that they can integrate it into an existing ritual. No, there's there's nothing really that I need to add apart from creatine is safe. If it wasn't safe, it would not be permissible to put creatine into supplements, it would not be permissible for creatine to be FDA approved as something that can go into snacks and beverages. It wouldn't have what is called EFSA approval in in Europe, which is a whole novel food approval that approves creatine to be used in the food and supplement industry. It's gone through all of those safety checks and it's safe to use. And there's no reason why somebody that's never taken creatine can't start taking it, you're never too old to start taking it. That's a good point. Where what about my grandfather or what about my pet my dad who's in his 80s? Is it too late for him to start taking creatine?

SPEAKER_02 1:23:36

Absolutely not. No, absolutely not. And your 16-year-old child playing football, soccer, um, as an athlete, doing whatever can be taken, small doses of creatine as well to support them and help them. It's got a high degree of efficacy. It is got so much research behind it. I would ask this question of someone what have you got to lose by actually trying it? Nothing. You've got nothing to lose and everything to gain by actually trying it. Steve, I finished this chat with this question to every single person, Brian. Now, because you you feel humbled to have been on the podcast, but I'm humbled to have you as a guest on it. And because I'm now a multi-billionaire, having had you on the podcast, if I bought you a holiday house anywhere in the world, but you had to live there for six months of the year, all right, and I'm going to build it for you, and I don't care where it is, where do I build it for you? Where would you like to live for six months of the year?

SPEAKER_00 1:24:36

Yeah, I mean, it would it would be in a in a part of the world that enabled us to escape from these cold, dark, damp European winters. So it would be in a location that had an abundance of great food, an abundance of great nature, and the sun was shining when it's gray and dark over here in Europe. It could be, it could be in your part of the world, it could be, you know, South Island, New Zealand, it could be it's it would have to be Southern Hemisphere, or if you're getting down into South Africa. But yeah, I mean, there's so many amazing places in the world, like unbelievable places in the world where that would be, but it would be primarily somewhere where it's going to be sunny when it's not sunny up here in the Northern Hemisphere.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:25

Well, that could be 363 days of the year, Steve, in fairness, right? It could be anywhere other than those two days that it is summer there. Yeah. That I'm having a dig, obviously, but you haven't nominated anywhere. But uh we'll build you a house somewhere where the sun shines, and you can watch on the monitor somewhere how dark and grey it is. Steve, it's been a pleasure. I will put all of your um your Instagram, I'll also put Generizer's website in there. I'm actually on your mailing list, and it is worth getting the emails and having a read. I do sincerely appreciate your time coming onto the podcast today and talking about a product that you are. I'm fascinated by how it came about and like you said, being in the right place at the right time. Great story. What a happy ending it's got as well. And I hope to be working with you in the future as we go forward.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:17

Yeah. Let's see what's possible. And yeah, thank you so much, Roger. Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:22

Steve, it's been incredible to hear the story behind creatine from the guy who brought it to the world stage. And for anyone listening, if you've ever wondered whether creatine is just for those gym junkies, today you should have made that very, very clear. It is for all of us, and especially for you as the shift worker. If you're active, aging, or you are working at a regular hour, then that's it. Now you can learn more about Steve and his work at Generize, and I will drop all of the links into the show notes. If you found this chat helpful, and you better have done because it's been a great chat and something that's very, very important. Please share it with someone that you know who could use a bit more energy, a bit more focused, and a lot more resilience in their body during the day. Thanks for listening, and I will catch you on the next episode of A Healthy Shift. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe so you get notified whenever a new episode is released. It would also be ever so helpful if you could leave a rating and review on the app you're currently listening on. If you want to know more about me or work with me, you can go to ahealthyshift.com. I'll catch you on the next one.