Creatine: Will it prevent muscle loss with aging?

Each muscle has millions of muscle fibers, and each muscle fiber is enervated by a single nerve. With aging, you lose nerves and with loss of each motor nerve, you lose the corresponding muscle fiber. So the treatment of muscle weakness with aging is to increase the size and strength of each remaining active muscle fibers. You do this only by exercising against increasing resistance.

Creatine will do nothing to stop the progressive loss of nerves that decreases the number of active muscle fibers. However, it can help you to exercise harder and longer, so it may help you to do the intense workouts that will build larger and stronger muscles. At this time we do not know whether there are any deleterious side effects in older people from taking creatine, so I cannot recommend it.

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Creatine can help to strengthen muscles, but athletes who take these supplements need to know how much they can take safely before they harm themselves. When you exercise and your muscles get as much oxygen as they need, they burn carbohydrates, fats and protein for energy. When you exercise so intensely that you cannot get all the oxygen you need, your muscles use creatine and ATP. So when you exercise so intensely that you can't get enough oxygen, you can delay fatigue by taking creatine and it allows you to do more work, which makes you stronger.

The body of a 160 pound man contains 120 grams of creatine and he takes in and uses about two grams a day. No good studies have been done to show what amounts are safe to take beyond what your own body makes, so let the buyer beware. Creatine may allow you to lift more weights and make you stronger, but it may harm you. Taking too much creatine can cause weight gain, increased insulin production and possibly kidney damage. High levels of insulin constrict arteries to cause heart attacks and affect the brain and liver to make you fat. The chemical process of extracting creatine in the laboratory forms toxic contaminants called dicyandiamide and dihydrotriazines, that have to be removed before humans can take them safely. The industry that distributes creatine is unregulated and you have no way to know what you are actually buying.

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Cold hands

If your fingers turn white and start to hurt when you're out in the cold, you may have a condition called Raynaud's phenomenon. On exposing your fingers to cold, the blood vessels close, skin turns white and their temperature drops. When the temperature drops to 59 degrees, your body tries to save your skin by opening the blood vessels and the skin turns red and starts to itch and burn. If you warm your hands at this point, your skin will not be damaged, but if you do not get out of the cold, the blood vessels in your hands can close and the temperature in your hands can drop to freezing, resulting in frostbite.

People who have Raynaud's phenomenon have blood vessels in their hands that do not open when the skin temperature reaches 59 degrees. Several diseases, smoking and using vibrating equipment can cause Raynaud's phenomenon.

Wear two or more layers of gloves and mittens. When your fingers feel cold, swing your arms very rapidly about your shoulder with your elbow straight. This will drive blood, like a centrifuge, into your fingers and warm them. The blood pressure drugs called calcium channel blockers, such as Nifidipine, can help to treat and prevent Raynaud’s phenomenon (Rheumatology, November 2005). Another option is nitroglycerin ointment that is used to treat angina. When applied to the forearm, it opens blood vessels leading to the hands. Check with your doctor to see if these prescription medications would be appropriate for you.

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Master athletes age better

Almost 50 percent of Americans die of heart attacks and strokes, diseases that are associated with a faulty diet and lack of exercise. Almost 80 percent are overweight or obese, which is also associated with lack of exercise. Yet only 13 percent of people over 65 engage in vigorous physical activity three or more days a week. Among those over 75, only six percent exercise regularly.

Master athletes are older men and women who compete in sports at a very high level, no matter how old they are. They are healthier than age-matched people in virtually every category that has been measured (Nutrition Today, Volume 40, 2006). Of course they are more fit, as measured by their maximal ability to take in and use oxygen. They have lower cholesterols, comparable to those of people in their twenties. They have lower glucose tolerance and HBA1C screening tests for diabetes. They have lower waist-to-hip ratios, decreasing their risk for metabolic syndrome and diabetes. They have far less body fat.

Many people who have never exercised are afraid to start an exercise program. They should check with their doctors and get a special exercise stress test. If they pass the test, they are at low risk for complications during exercise. Then they should join an organized exercise program. One study showed that 85 percent of middle aged Americans who start an exercise program quit in the first six weeks. Those most likely to remain exercised with a spouse or friend, used a personal trainer, or participated in classes such as aerobic dancing or spinning. Successful lifelong exercisers usually make their sports part of their social life, not just a tedious chore.

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Why do athletes use asthma inhalers?

Drugs called beta-2 agonists, such as salbutamol, salmeterol and terbutaline, open the closed lungs of asthmatics and help them to breathe. They also increase the amount of fat in the bloodstream to increase energy sources of exercising muscles, help to preserve the muscles’ store of sugar, and help muscles to contract with more force. The common inhaled asthma medication called albuterol has been shown to improve athletic performance.

These asthma medications are potent stimulants, so they could cause irregular heart beats. It is illegal for Olympic competitors to take albuterol pills. However, asthmatics need their medications, so the Olympic medical committee allows asthmatics to take these same medications by inhaler, provided that a doctor informs the Olympic committee beforehand that the athlete is an asthmatic and is taking this medication. Needless to say, there are unprecedented numbers of asthmatics registered with the Olympic committee and other authorities in sports that monitor drug use.

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Exercise prevents diabetes

A recent study shows that lack of exercise is a major risk factor for diabetes in overweight women, and these women can help prevent diabetes by exercising, even if they don’t lose a lot of weight. Before insulin can do its job of driving sugar from your bloodstream into cells, it must first attach to small hooks on cells called insulin receptors. Having extra fat in your body prevents insulin from attaching to these receptors, and prevents insulin from lowering blood sugar levels. Therefore the cells of overweight women cannot respond to insulin as well as those of their leaner counterparts. Researchers at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst showed that overweight women who engage in vigorous exercise can respond to insulin as well as leaner fit women (Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, October 2006). Thirty-five percent of North Americans will become diabetic, and staying in shape may be an even better way to prevent diabetes than controlling weight.

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Caffeine increases endurance

Caffeinated drinks increase endurance during long events such as a marathon, triathalon or bicycle race. A study from the University of Birmingham in England shows that caffeine helps the body use more carbohydrates from drinks that you take during exercise (Journal of Applied Physiology, June 2006). Those who took sugared drinks with caffeine were able to absorb and use 26 percent more of the ingested sugar than those who took the same drinks without caffeine.

Previous studies show that caffeine helps athletes run faster in both short and long-distance races. In short races, it makes athletes faster by causing the brain to send messages along nerves to cause a greater percentage of muscle fibers to contract at the same time. In longer races, it delays fatigue by preserving stored muscle sugar. Muscles get their energy from sugar and fat in the bloodstream, and from sugar, fat and protein stored in the muscles. When muscles run out of their stored sugar, they hurt and become more difficult to coordinate. Caffeine causes muscles to burn more fat, thus sparing stored muscle sugar to delay fatigue.

Nobody really knows how much caffeine you can take in without harming yourself. At rest, caffeine is a diuretic, but during exercise it does not increase urination. Caffeine is a potent stimulant that can cause irregular heartbeats in people who already have heart disease, and raise blood pressure in people with hypertension. Most research shows that it doesn't take much more than one or two soft drinks to increase endurance. Caffeine loses its beneficial effects with repeated exposure, so athletes who want to gain maximum advantage from caffeine during competition should avoid drinking caffeinated beverages when they are not exercising.

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Lactic acid is good for you

Lactic acid is the most efficient fuel that your muscles can use, even more than sugar. When you exercise as hard as you can, it helps you to go harder. A paper from Aukland University in New Zealand reviews the latest research showing that lactic acid is good for you (Sports Medicine, Volume 36, 2006). Your muscles use carbohydrates, fats and proteins for energy. Enzymes in muscles break down carbohydrates in a series of reactions that release small amounts of energy at a time. More than 80 percent of the energy used to power muscles is lost as heat, so burning fuel instantly for energy would produce so much heat that it would burn your muscles.

Enzymes require oxygen to turn food into energy. When you exercise so hard that you can’t get all the oxygen you need to break down food for energy, lactic acid accumulates in muscles and spills over into the bloodstream. This makes muscles acidic and it is the acidity that makes muscles burn and forces you to slow down. However, muscles require very little oxygen to turn lactic acid into energy. So when your muscles produce lots of lactic acid, they use this chemical for energy and require less oxygen. As soon as you slow down, you catch up on your oxygen debt and recover. So lactic acid is good for you. It helps you to exercise with less available oxygen.

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