Creatine provides food for thought

By STEVE CONNOR

The dietary supplement creatine - known to improve athletic performance - can also boost memory and intelligence, Australian researchers claim.

Scientists have found that adding extra creatine, a naturally occurring compound found in muscle tissue, to someone's diet can significantly improve memory as well as increasing general intelligence. Creatine has been popular with athletes looking for ways to increase fitness.

The researchers gave a group of 45 volunteers a creatine supplement for six weeks, and compared them with a second group who were given a placebo pill.

After the six-weeks ended, and a further six-week period of taking nothing, the two groups were asked to swap their supplements, without knowing who was taking what, for a final six weeks.

The leader of the study, Dr Caroline Rae of the University of Sydney and Macquarie University, carried out memory and IQ tests at the end of each six-week period to see if there were differences between the two sets of volunteers.

"The results were clear with both our experimental groups and in both test scenarios: creatine supplementation gave a significant and measurable boost to brain power," she said.

The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society Series B: Biological Sciences, supports earlier research showing that taking creatine in the diet can boost levels of creatine in the brain.

"Creatine probably works by increasing the energy supply that the brain has ... [it] ... basically increases your thinking capacity." Rae said there were disadvantages to eating too much creatine over long periods: it can exacerbate kidney problems and diabetes - and can give you bad breath and cause flatulence.

- INDEPENDENT