Published by the Students of Johns Hopkins since 1896
August 11, 2025
August 11, 2025 | Published by the Students of Johns Hopkins since 1896

Creatine usage growing among students

By Patrick Kerns | April 15, 2004

The growing use of creatine by college students without involvement in specific sporting activities, along with a renewed national focus on steroid use, has brought greater attention to this controversial dietary supplement.

Students desiring to "bulk-up' are increasingly turning to this product, which has a proven track recorded of assisting muscle building and athletic ability.

Creatine, a derivative of the building blocks of proteins and muscle, has been available for approximately ten years now, gaining much of its current popularity in the late '90s.

Tests of creatine supplements have demonstrated that users can increase muscle mass and improve strength faster than non-users.

In the body, creatine is stored as phosphocreatine and provides an energy reservoir for rapid muscle exertion. This type of exertion, also know as anaerobic, consumes energy in muscle cells in the form of ATP (adenosine triphosphate, widely considered the energy currency of the cell) faster than it can be produced by normal, oxygen consuming mechanisms.

At this point, phosphocreatine is used to rapidly regenerate ATP in cells. Having a greater amount of phosphocreatine on hand in muscle cells theoretically allows anaerobic exertions to be longer, stronger and easier to recover from.

While it is undeniable that creatine supplements produce results in many users, sports teams and trainers are not 100 percent confident in recommending it to athletes and amateur bodybuilders. This is because there have been few long term studies on the effect of creatine supplementations 10 or more years down the road.

Sophomore Jeff Diamond said, "Players may be sacrificing their long- term health by using supplements like creatine in exchange for performance, since not much is known about its long-term effects."

Critics of the supplement also say that much of the weight acquired with creatine use is retained water, not new muscle.

Recommended doses of creatine are usually approximately 20 grams per day for a week, which is known as a loading period, and then two to five grams per day as a maintenance dose.

During the course of a day, a person with an average diet consumes about one gram of creatine.

It is important to note that there are strong indications that caffeine will negate any potential benefits from creatine use. The supplement can cause trouble for people with existing kidney problems.

Claims have been made that creatine use can contribute to a variety of muscle injuries, with a chief complaint being painful muscle cramping.

However, a study published in the journal Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry determined that there was no relationship between creatine use and muscle cramping.

The supplement can be expensive, with a 1000 gram bottle costing between $20 and $50 on average, while higher priced creatine products are not uncommon.

One major point of confusion in the public sphere is the difference between creatine and the steroid Androstenedione because the Cardinal's baseball star Mark McGuire used both of the supplements.

Androstenedione, or more simply "Andro," is a member of the androgen family of male sex horomones.

Andro is a direct precursor to the normal production of testosterone and taking Andro has been shown to increase the amount of testosterone in the body.

For this reasons Andro is also known as a "prohoromone," because it leads to testosterone production. Andro is banned by the NFL and the Olympic National Committee, while creatine has yet to be banned by any major sporting organziation.

Distribution of creatine to NCAA sporting teams, however, was banned because of the lack of evidence of the supplement's long-term safety.

According to a publication by the University of Florida, high school and college-aged students have been increasingly using creatine with more students using it in an attempt to become "buff" and muscular.

Remarking on this trend, Hopkins freshman Aaron Schlothauer said, "It's their body, and they can do whatever they want with it, but it's not what I would choose."

The use of creatine in professional sports is widespread. Many of the New York Yankees, for example, have or currently do take creatine supplements.

When asked about whether he thought the use of creatine by professional athletes was acceptable, sophomore Zach Hutzuylak said, "If baseball players are allowed to use steroids and cork their bats, then who gives a [expletive deleted]?"


Have a tip or story idea?
Let us know!

News-Letter Magazine