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Just thought I'd add this... Creatine is naturally produced in the human body by amino acids. Just because you're a vegetarian, it doesn't mean you suffer a sh

Just thought I'd add this... Creatine is naturally produced in the human body by amino acids. Just because you're a vegetarian, it doesn't mean you suffer a shortage of the particular amino acids required for producing creatine. Most vegetarians fall under the "ovo-lacto" umbrella, meaning they will eat egg and milk, and pretty much anything else made by animals, just not the animals themselves - being a vegetarian myself, I often say: "I'll eat food made by animals, just not food made OF animals" - and many vegetarians also use various "fullworthy" protein supplements containing all the essential amino acids, guaranteeing them all the components needed to produce creatine while being a vegetarian. I myself use protein supplements to ensure, together with food, that I get a bit more than 1 gram of fullworthy protein per kilo body weight a day, and that is an amount that actually even meat-eaters, without supplements, can have a hard time reaching on a daily basis. Addendum: Digging a little bit on Wikipedia, I found the three amino acids (of which only one is essential) that Creatine is produced from in the body: Arginine (non-essential) - vegetabilic sources: "wheat germ and flour, buckwheat, granola, oatmeal, peanuts, nuts (coconut, pecans, cashews, walnuts, almonds, Brazil nuts, hazelnuts, pinenuts), seeds (pumpkin, sesame, sunflower), chick peas, cooked soybeans." Glycine (non-essential) - synthesized in the human body from Serine, also a non-essential amino acid. Methionine (essential) - vegetabilic (and animalic) sources: "High levels of methionine can be found in sesame seeds, Brazil nuts, fish, meats and some other plant seeds; methionine is also found in cereal grains." Judging from this, it seems that a vegetarian has to maintain a really lousy and unhealthy diet in order to suffer a Creatine shortage. Maybe the test subjects were university students on a Ramen diet.

araneae 17y ago
Just because your body CAN produce creatine doesn't mean that all it needs to produce enough is its building blocks. People here seem to be acting like our bodies have perfect feedback loops for every nutrient, but if in our recent evolutionary history we always got enough, that might not be the case. You have to remember that were one of only three mammals species that has completely lost the ability to synthesize vitamin C. If we lost synthesis of one necessary nutrient, don't you think it might be possible that we also lost some mechanisms for regulating the amount of another?
- hackermom 17y ago
  I just don't see where you are going with that text in the context of Creatine production. Vegetarians HAVE Creatine in their system, fully produced by the body. They just don't have the same amount as the meat-eaters, __because red meat contains Creatine itself, as a form of Creatine supplement__. Ergo, vegetarians are fully capable of producing the necessary amount of Creatine they need, by the ingestion of the required components. (otherwise there'd be no Creatine in their bodies.)
  - gwern 17y ago
    > Vegetarians HAVE Creatine in their system, fully produced by the body. They just don't have the same amount as the meat-eaters, __because red meat contains Creatine itself, as a form of Creatine supplement__. Ergo, vegetarians are fully capable of producing the necessary amount of Creatine they need, by the ingestion of the required components. That's quite a logical leap there. I 'HAVE Money in my wallet', so ergo, I am 'fully capable of producing the necessary amount of Money I need'? (You should know I dream of living like a billionaire.) Humans can produce vitamin D or omega-N oils on their own, yet, it's established fact that many humans are persistently deficient.
    - hackermom 17y ago
      I consider it just a small leap in logic compared to your knee-jerk parallel regarding money in the wallet. We know that increased oxygen in the blood speeds up healing of damaged tissue - this is why you get a tube up your nose blowing extra oxygen into your respiratory system when you come out of surgery. Does this by your logic mean that we're persistently oxygen deficient in our natural state, just because ADDING oxygen gives a higher effect? What IS the nominal level of creatine in the body? Do you know? I don't. Pure creatine supplement from meat ingestion can so far only be proven to be an _added aid_, rather than going by the logic that vegetarians turn dumb when they stop eating red meat.
      - natrius 17y ago
        I don't understand how you can argue against the research that shows that vegetarians who supplement with creatine perform better than vegetarians who don't. Vegetarians do not produce "enough" creatine on their own. If you want to disprove that, find research that shows otherwise. The wallet analogy wasn't that great. Allow me to try. I have all the exercise equipment needed to stay in great shape in my house, but that doesn't mean I'm in great shape.

araneae 17y ago

Just because your body CAN produce creatine doesn't mean that all it needs to produce enough is its building blocks. People here seem to be acting like our bodies have perfect feedback loops for every nutrient, but if in our recent evolutionary history we always got enough, that might not be the case. You have to remember that were one of only three mammals species that has completely lost the ability to synthesize vitamin C. If we lost synthesis of one necessary nutrient, don't you think it might be possible that we also lost some mechanisms for regulating the amount of another?

hackermom 17y ago
I just don't see where you are going with that text in the context of Creatine production. Vegetarians HAVE Creatine in their system, fully produced by the body. They just don't have the same amount as the meat-eaters, __because red meat contains Creatine itself, as a form of Creatine supplement__. Ergo, vegetarians are fully capable of producing the necessary amount of Creatine they need, by the ingestion of the required components. (otherwise there'd be no Creatine in their bodies.)
- gwern 17y ago
  > Vegetarians HAVE Creatine in their system, fully produced by the body. They just don't have the same amount as the meat-eaters, __because red meat contains Creatine itself, as a form of Creatine supplement__. Ergo, vegetarians are fully capable of producing the necessary amount of Creatine they need, by the ingestion of the required components. That's quite a logical leap there. I 'HAVE Money in my wallet', so ergo, I am 'fully capable of producing the necessary amount of Money I need'? (You should know I dream of living like a billionaire.) Humans can produce vitamin D or omega-N oils on their own, yet, it's established fact that many humans are persistently deficient.
  - hackermom 17y ago
    I consider it just a small leap in logic compared to your knee-jerk parallel regarding money in the wallet. We know that increased oxygen in the blood speeds up healing of damaged tissue - this is why you get a tube up your nose blowing extra oxygen into your respiratory system when you come out of surgery. Does this by your logic mean that we're persistently oxygen deficient in our natural state, just because ADDING oxygen gives a higher effect? What IS the nominal level of creatine in the body? Do you know? I don't. Pure creatine supplement from meat ingestion can so far only be proven to be an _added aid_, rather than going by the logic that vegetarians turn dumb when they stop eating red meat.
    - natrius 17y ago
      I don't understand how you can argue against the research that shows that vegetarians who supplement with creatine perform better than vegetarians who don't. Vegetarians do not produce "enough" creatine on their own. If you want to disprove that, find research that shows otherwise. The wallet analogy wasn't that great. Allow me to try. I have all the exercise equipment needed to stay in great shape in my house, but that doesn't mean I'm in great shape.