Collagen supplements are top sellers, either alone or in combination with other vitamins and magnesium, especially in the sports supplement area. In theory, they are especially useful for maintaining and recovering tendons and joint muscles.

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If so, who doesn’t want to take advantage of that property? The problem, as often happens, is that all that glitters is not gold. Collagen supplements have not shown the expected benefits and in fact their mechanism of action has not been scientifically proven.

First of all: What is collagen?

Collagen is called a family of interrelated proteins, although they have different genetic origins. They are composed of different amino acids, especially proline, lysine and glycine.

In any case, when all these proteins are put together, collagen is the most abundant family of proteins in the body (25% of what we have), and these are the connective tissues of our body. It can be said that they make up the main factor of the skin, hair, bones or tendons.

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Its function is to create the basic structure that supports these tissues and, therefore, our entire body. Its function is to create the basic structure that supports these tissues and, therefore, our entire body.

The collagen in your body you have produced yourself

However, it is important to clarify that the collagen in the body is 100% self-produced. In other words, it is not produced from collagen ingested in food and supplements, but rather from cells using amino acids, which are the amino acids that make up proteins, according to RNA instructions.

This is because the collagen is too large for the protein to be completely absorbed by the walls of the digestive system. Therefore, in order to enter the bloodstream and from there to the joints, it must first be broken down into essential amino acids.

By consuming collagen, the body receives the essential amino acids that are used to make proteins. However, those amino acids are not necessarily used to produce collagen. In fact, some of these amino acids can be found in other foods, and many of them are produced by our own bodies, so you don’t need to consume collagen at all to produce it.

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what the studies say

Although some studies have conferred beneficial properties on collagen supplements in the treatment of joint pain, the majority are studies carried out by the supplement manufacturer itself (this time there is a conflict of interest), and in other cases the research sample it’s too small.

On the other hand, the European Food Safety Agency has no evidence that collagen supplementation affects the joints of active people, the health and smoothness of the skin.

Thus, if you are thinking of considering this type of supplement, either in the form of tablets or creams, think carefully. Our advice is to spend money on something else, for example gelatin. Normally, gelatin is basically made of collagen and although it is not a solution to joint problems, it is richer and, above all, it is much cheaper than other products that you can find.

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Creatine is one of those supplements in which a large number of myths and legends, both positive and negative, weigh heavily. This is quite curious since Creatine is probably the supplement with the largest number of studies and scientific evidence, so we will take advantage of all this evidence to shed some light and summarize the benefits of creatine, mentioning the studies that exist in this regard and giving some recommendations for proper use.

What is creatine?

Creatine is made up of three amino acids: L-arginine, Glycine and L-Methionine. Amino acids are the basic building blocks of protein and our body is capable of synthesizing a small amount of creatine per day, around 1 gram. The remainder of the creatine must come from diet and supplementation.

There are quite a few foods that have a significant creatine content, basically meat or fish, highlighting the following:

• Herring: 0.7g of creatine per 100g
• Pork: 0.55g of creatine per 100g
• Cow: 0.45g of creatine per 100g
• Salmon: 0.45g of creatine per 100g
• Tuna: 0.4g of creatine per 100g
• Rabbit: 0.35g of creatine per 100g
• Chicken: 0.35g of creatine per 100g
• Cod: 0.3g of creatine per 100g

Como podrá comprobar, ningún alimento tiene una gran cantidad de Creatina. To get to 5 grams of creatine we would need just over 700 grams of herring, which is why creatine supplements are so popular.

How does creatine work?

Before talking about the benefits of creatine or recommending how to take it, we must understand how it works and the effects it has on our body.

When creatine enters our body (or after being produced by our body), it binds to a phosphate molecule to create creatine phosphate. ATP (Adenosine Tri-Phosphate) is the body’s source of energy. When the body oxidizes any macronutrient, it does so to make ATP. It is responsible for driving almost all the bodily processes that exist.

By hydrolyzing a phosphate molecule, energy is released to power whatever process we are carrying out, for example contracting a muscle. Having lost a Phosphate, it is no longer Tri-Phosphate (ATP) but Di-Phosphate (ADP), which by itself is pretty useless.

This is when creatine comes into play, which will “donate” its phosphate molecule so that ADP can be converted back into ATP. With this new source of energy we will be able to train longer and harder!

Creatine benefits.

Now that we know how it works, we can move on to listing the benefits of creatine. Our goal is to clarify the picture rather than contribute to mysticism about creatine, so we will rely only on effects with scientific evidence.

• Improves sports performance: as we explained previously, greater access to Adesonine Tri-Phosphate provides us with more energy so we can train longer and with greater intensity. It is especially beneficial for high intensity and short duration exercises, such as weight training, crossfit or calisthenics. There is scientific evidence in the form of two meta-analyses (meta-analysis 1 and meta-analysis 2 to ) who conclude that there are benefits in this regard. It is the most sought-after benefit of creatine and it is the one with the most evidence, so it is worth taking creatine for this alone.
• Increases muscle mass: creatine has been linked to a greater amount of muscle mass, however this may be due to increased fluid retention (study). It may also be due to the fact that thanks to the previous point, muscle mass increases due to a greater intensity of training.
• Post-workout and post-injury recovery: Studies suggest that creatine helps prevent muscle damage and improves recovery after injury. It has also been related (study) taking creatine with antioxidant effects that reduce cramps and with brain rehabilitation or other injuries.
• Muscular dystrophy: strong a 2013 review of 14 studies found that people with muscular dystrophy who supplemented with creatine had an 8.5% improvement in strength compared to subjects who did not take the supplement.
• Depression: a study carried out in South Korea with 52 women who added 5 grams of creatine to their antidepressant treatment and experienced improvements in their symptoms after two weeks.
• Cognitive habilyties: strong a 2003 study published evidence that creatine can improve cognitive performance. After supplementing with 5 grams of creatine for 6 weeks, the subjects who did not take a placebo among the 45 people who participated in the study, obtained better results in tests of memory and intelligence.
• Other benefits: studies have been published that support the benefits of creatine in lowering cholesterol levels and diabetes, accumulation of fat in the liver to , and homocysteine levels.

Does creatine have risks?

It is very difficult to find another supplement with greater safety guarantees than creatine. There are a number of studies that show that there are no short-term problems with fairly high creatine intakes, up to 20 grams. There are also studies that do not report any long-term problems with more reasonable doses of 5 grams.

It is common to think that creatine can be harmful to the kidneys, an idea refuted by several studies. There has been talk of a relationship between creatine and increased baldness from this study, but it does not really establish a direct connection nor are there other studies that corroborate this idea.ea.

Which, how and when.

To take full advantage of the benefits of creatine, there are some guidelines to keep in mind when taking creatine, but it is not as complicated as it may seem.

First, there are several types of creatine: monohydrate, hydrochloride, ethyl ester, creatine phosphate, creatine nitrate, creatine citrate, creatine gluconate… the creatine that has the most scientific evidence behind it is creatine monohydrate, so that’s it. the one we recommend. There is the Creapure seal of approval which is more expensive than normal monohydrate, so we can only recommend Creatine Monohydrate and Creapure Creatine.

The recommended dose of creatine is between 0.8 and 1 gram for every 10 kilos of weight, that is, a person weighing 80 kilos would take 8 grams of creatine. Much has been said about the need for a loading phase consisting of 5 days taking 20 grams of creatine, there is no clear evidence in this regard and in any case it would only accelerate the filling of our creatine reserves, so at a recreational level it does not seem too much. necessary.

Greater benefits have been reported from creatine taken with carbohydrates or carbohydrates and protein and after training.

Despite all these benefits that we have talked about throughout this article, it may be that you are part of the percentage of non-responders to creatine, which is between 20 and 30% of the population.

conclusions.

Despite all the noise that surrounds sports supplementation in general and creatine in particular, the benefits of creatine are evident and proven, as well as the safety of its consumption both in the short and long term. However, we always have to start with the assumption that supplementation is a very small percentage of our success compared to the three factors that really make you progress: nutrition, training and rest.

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The supplement industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, and in the case of BCAAs (Branched Chain Amino Acids), it is growing on the premise of improving anabolic state by stimulating protein synthesis. Aside from its effect on increasing muscle mass, much has been said about its effect on reducing muscle damage and reducing central fatigue, but how true are these claims?

What is an amino acid?

Second, proteins are macromolecules that are part of every cell in the body and, in addition to producing enzymes, hormones, or neurotransmitters, they are also parts of blood, bone, or muscle.

There are 20 amino acids, 9 of which are essential. This means that the body cannot synthesize large amounts of itself and therefore must be taken from the diet. The rest of the amino acids are known to be non-essential and can be produced in adequate amounts by the body on its own, so there is no need to include them in the diet.

The organism for the synthesis or construction of proteins, whether muscular or of any other type, needs amino acids. A limiting factor in protein synthesis is that the body has sufficient amounts of all the essential amino acids, since the body itself can produce the non-essential amino acids.

BCAAs in particular are part of the essential amino acids and there are three types: leucine, isoleucine and valine. They receive another name due to the peculiarity that they have branched side chains in their structure. The growing popularity of BCAAs in the supplement industry is due to the fact that BCAAs, or rather leucine, have a strong ability to stimulate one of the most important anabolic cell signaling pathways, mTORC1 (a target of rapamycin in mammals). Increasingly complex 1 or mammalian cell targets of rapamycin).

BCAAs and protein synthesis

First of all, it must be said that most of the work observing the positive effects of BCAAs on protein synthesis is done in rodents. The procedures and doses used in these studies are not applicable to humans due to differences in physiologic and cellular signaling pathways.

However, in humans, the administration of BCAAs, whose leucine content is the main cause, can stimulate protein synthesis, but it is known that the administration of the remaining essential amino acids is necessary to optimize the response. Being done. In the cited study, the response in protein synthesis when BCAAs were administered was 50% lower than when whey or casein protein was administered. BCAAs increased protein synthesis by 22%, but not as much as complete protein.

All this can be explained because the body needs all the essential amino acids to build muscle protein. Even large doses of BCAAs cannot increase protein synthesis beyond a certain point due to one or more restricted amino acids. It is not enough to support this process.

In English, the concept of limited or speed-limited amino acid provides a large amount of BCAAs and limits the remaining essential amino acid. The quality of synthesis is not due to the contribution of BCAAs but to an insufficient contribution of essential amino acids. It is also necessary that the duration of the dwellings be high. It’s cool, but more for building a house:

In any case, the bottom line is that building muscle requires better protein synthesis than breaking it down, and to trigger long-lasting protein synthesis, not just the three essential amino acids, but the whole gamut. It is required.

BCAA and mTORC1 anabolic signaling pathways

As mentioned above, BCAAs stimulate mTORC1, one of the most important anabolic cell signaling pathways, due to their leucine content. Protein synthesis and cell signaling are not the same, but both are necessary with strength training to trigger muscle growth.

This needs to be explained, as many believe that flipping a ‘switch’ in the mTOR pathway is enough to trigger muscle growth, but this is not the case. In that case, you don’t even need to train.

To explain the relationship between protein synthesis and cellular signal transmission, we must compare it to the work of the building, and to the beginning of all work that can be done. It may be called: mason, electrician, carpenter or pipe builder… but when they arrive, they are assembled. They discover that everyone has a bag of tools, a handful of cables and pipes, and they all understand it. What is needed (transmission of cell signals) to build the building (protein synthesis) contains only a small amount of that substance (the remaining essential amino acids). Sin BCAA)

In summary, BCAAs can stimulate the mTOR pathway but not maximize protein synthesis either in size or duration.

Maximize muscle protein synthesis (MPS)

What effect do BCAAs have on muscle recovery?

Another benefit that results from BCAAs is the positive impact on training recovery due to the attenuation of muscle damage. In fact, the scientific community has not yet agreed on this issue. Some studies look at these effects and others do not.

A recent study found that BCAAs reduced myalgia after intense eccentric training, but these effects were negligible if the protocol was repeated on a diet containing at least 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. Era. Here you can see how important your total daily protein intake is to your BCAA intake.

In another 2010 study, BCAAs reduced muscle soreness in untrained men who participated in the study after taking 14 grams of BCAAs daily for 3 days post-workout, but with no change in muscle function. It was observed that this was not the case.

However, the International Association for Sports Nutrition (ISSN) needs further study to see if BCAAs are supplements that can improve post-workout recovery, especially in high-protein diet situations. There is.

How do BCAAs affect fatigue in endurance aerobic sports?

These fatty acids are transported by the protein carrier albumin and can also transport tryptophan. This competition between fatty acids and tryptophan leaves more free tryptophan in the blood that travels to the brain, crosses the blood-brain barrier, and increases the synthesis of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that increases fatigue.

A transporter is required for tryptophan to cross the blood-brain barrier. This transporter is the same transporter that BCAAs use to cross this barrier, so increased BCAA consumption competes with tryptophan, many of which cross the blood-brain barrier and cause fatigue. It’s supposed to go away.

However, to date, this hypothesis has not been proven, because there is only one old study from 1998 that observed better performance when taking BCAAs.

So should you take a BCAA?

In fact, if your diet already provides enough protein, it’s not necessary. It’s relatively common for us to cover these amounts for protein amounts of 1.5 to 2.5 grams per kilogram of body weight, depending on the person, physical activity, and goal, and it’s easy for most people.

However, if you want to get BCAAs, it is important that these are accompanied by the remaining essential amino acids if your goal is to gain muscle mass.

If you’re an endurance athlete and think it’s worth trying to reduce fatigue, your typical intake is about 20 grams of BCAAs and at least 2-10 grams of leucine. The time of consumption can be before, during or after training.

BCAA supplements are usually sold in a 2:1:1 or 4:1:1 ratio and there is always more leucine present. A 2:1:1 supplement is sufficient. More leucine than we have seen so far does not produce additional effects.

Let’s start with a simple answer: L-carnitine doesn’t help you lose weight faster or easier. For all those who continue to search for the Holy Grail of the Great Man, this substance is not even a philosopher’s stone. But is it useful for anything? Let’s talk about what we know about this substance, its use and its consequences.

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What is L-Carnitine?

Levocartine, or L-carnitine, is an organic substance that is an amine (a fourth-class amine for chemistry lovers). In other words, the stereoisomer of D-carnitine is “Dextro” carnitine and is not used biologically in animals. This substance is an indispensable component of cellular energy metabolism.

Its function is to mediate the transport of fatty acids into the mitochondria, which are organelles involved in cellular respiration. In these processes, molecules such as fatty acids are “consumed” and converted into energy, but these molecules are inside to enable their transport.

For this reason, L-carnitine is essential and our body produces it in sufficient quantities thanks to the kidneys, liver and brain. Its formation is composed of two essential amino acids, methionine and lysine, but it is also obtained from animal products such as milk and meat (its origin).

Vegetables do not contain carnitine, with some exceptions, but under normal health conditions supplementation with this substance is not required (except in children, as some studies have shown). As a general rule, the L-carnitine we produce is sufficient for proper physical function. So far everything is CLEAR. But, what if we talk about using it as a sports supplement?

What is L-Carnitine used for?

L-carnitine is a supplement that many people use for weight loss. We want to review supplements of this type, to give us an idea of ​​the value they offer. However, is there a reason for this?

We have known for a long time that carnitine is necessary for the proper functioning of the body. Its deficiency can cause very serious problems. In mild cases, L-carnitine deficiency leads to weight gain and fat accumulation. It makes sense if you consider it an important element of fat metabolism.

Therefore, it is not surprising to assume that the additional amount of this metabolite in the body helps to burn fat more quickly. But that is not the case. Numerous studies in both animals and humans have shown that L-carnitine supplementation has no discernible difference in weight loss and fat mass. Not even when used with people suffering from obesity.

Therefore, it can be fairly stated that L-carnitine does not lose weight (nor does it speed up the process). This is also very logical since it speaks to the internal mechanisms of mitochondria, one of the most intimate organelles of cells, and provides one of the most basic processes that exist.

And how about the exercise?

We read a recent study in which researchers have shown that consuming 4 grams of L-carnitine over several months significantly increases the concentration of carnitine present in muscle. This, again, could indicate that we may achieve greater muscle performance after this continued supplementation.

While nothing has helped you lose weight before, it means improving the performance of trained muscles, improving fatigue and muscle energy economy. But soon after, another study overturned these conclusions. This time, the researchers tried to interpret what this increase was associated with and look at things like muscle conditions and metabolites present.

As a result, I’m a bit disappointed. At the moment, increasing the concentration of carnitine in the muscle does not seem to have any effect. This is inferred from an analysis of high intensity exercise, but since the metabolism is the same, the results can in principle be extrapolated to other types of exercise.

So what is carnitine for?

As I was saying from the beginning, L-carnitine, in very simple terms, is essential for life. Without it, we could suffer from fatigue, muscle failure and, in the worst case, many problems that can have fatal consequences. How about supplementing with L-carnitine? It is used to treat various diseases.

L-carnitine is used to treat certain medical problems and conditions, but to date no ergogenic effect has been detected.

L-carnitine helps the proper functioning of the liver in people with non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, a medical condition that is difficult to solve and has very serious consequences. It is also useful as a treatment for sperm motility and addiction caused by valproic acid, a substance used to treat epilepsy.

However, what we are looking for has to review whether it helps manage body fat or improve physical efficiency. At this time, carnitine supplementation does not show any type of ergogenic help (improving the body’s energy production) or sports performance.

Despite the voices that continue to advise its use, its effectiveness has been seriously questioned and there are good scientific reasons to keep its advocates out of the spotlight. To date, there is no good reason to supplement a diet with carnitine unless it is medically necessary. And it is that this issue of sports supplements is already known: “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is not”.