Insulin and Creatine Effects on Fitness

Insulin is a hormone which affects almost every tissue in the body, but particularly the liver, muscle and fat. Its overall effects on ones fitness is the conservation of foods to the body fuels. It’s most obvious effect is to reduce blood sugar, reflecting the uptake, utilization and storage of glucose, amino acids, and fats after a meal.

For any athlete, understanding how to use and control insulin is one of the primary keys to enhancement of exercise recovery and sports performance. Consumption of glucose, whether in the form of a sports drink, sugar or may be your own favorite chocolate bar, will cause a release of insulin. It is well known within the scientific literature that creatine uptake in the muscles is related to elevated blood insulin levels in ones fitness.

This elevation can be achieved by a method popularly known as ’spiking’. Spiking involves the use of substance such as carbohydrates to increase insulin and so aid uptake of any food substance taken at the same time.

Spiking insulin to aid creatine absorption was first alluded to in the mid 1970s but has been confirmed by a variety of studies in the 90s. There is a generally held belief streaming from work of Steenge et al (1998) that 100g of simple carbohydrates are needed to increase muscle creatine stores effectively.

Anything lower than this would be no more effective than taking creatine alone. Okay, a new word to most of you, but this may be the next selling point as far as creatine is concerned. Insulin tropic is a term that refers to a substance that causes an effect similar to that of insulin.

These substances may also increase the release of insulin directly from the pancreas. The development of this area of nutritional manipulation was brought about by an effort to decrease the excessive caloric intake needed to increase creatine uptake and also as a very good gimmick to sell products. The only advantage that these products will give is to increase creatine stores to their limit 24-48 hours faster than creatine alone. They will not elevate levels higher than those achievable with creatine alone

Much of the research surrounding insulin mimics is a product of diabetes research. In this case of a-lipoic acid 99% of its specific backing comes from this area. More recent research has shown that these effects are not specifics to the diabetic, but can occur in the non-lipoic acid on creatine uptake.

As mentioned earlier, ingestion of creatine with carbohydrates can increase the rate of creatine uptake into the muscles. A similar study by the same research group demonstrated similar effects by combining proteins and carbohydrates with creatine. It is very important that we watch out our fitness in terms of what we eat and take in order to keep fit. Most of the food that most people eat is unhealthy therefore resulting to complications to the body. It is also important that we make sure that we do not exceed what we eat as well.