Hey, smithx, welcome to the party! Put on a party hat! Blow a whistle! Take a dump...oh, you did. Uh, next time, pssst, use the bathroom, don't poop on the sofa, OK, not cool, not cool.
Very Best, Synchro
Bryan_S, WHATEV dude, whatev...welcome, hey, take smithx's party hat, OK? (oh, psst, don't sit on the couch)
Very Best, Synchro
Now, to address a post that's really brilliant:
gt35r: brilliant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
that's the most brilliant, truly relevent post on this thread yet. You have nailed it - I can't possibly advise a 25 year old, but I absolutely respect the quality of your thought and the integrity of your purpose, because, at 25, you are at the age where a few critical correct decisions can pay off in gigantic rewards over a lifetime, and you've immediately nailed the two central questions for a young adult:
whether you should take creatine, and
whether you should use C60.
Now, let's talk about creatine first. This is such a great topic, because it is a PERFECT example of how straightforward facts can be seen in very different ways according to the lens that you look at them through.
Through the lens of how our culture worships athletes, the answer is a no-brainer: of course you take creatine. It's been proven safe over many decades, it improves performance without question, it's completely accepted, and it has new evidence that it is beneficial in ways never imagined outside the realm of athleticism. Your parents and your coach would cheer you.
However, when we look at creatine through the anti-aging lens, all of a sudden everybody gets cautious. Why? It's not entirely rational, actually; it's just that now that we're in the mindset of looking at consequences over an entire lifetime, suddenly we're much more worried about longterm outcomes than we are when we consider a youth trying to get to the Olympics. it's cultural, not scientific or rational. The fact is that many Olympic athletes, as well as those who aspire to the Olympics but never make it, end up crippled in various ways for life. I know, because I've treated some of them. What do we do culturally? We applaud them, we praise their "great sacrifice", don't we? But, in fact, isn't it a little crazy to destroy your body to win a medal at a young age, long before you've even entered the middle of your life? But we culturally accept that without question, even though it really is a little crazy.
So, let's look at creatine through the anti-aging lens. The data looks strong: creatine appears to slow mitochondrial dysfunction, and it appears to lengthen lifespan. 9% in a mouse roughly equals 7 years in a human's life...that may not look like much to a 25 year old, but I can tell you that 7 years is a TON to a 63 year old; I'd gladly pay a million, if I had it, for the assurance of an extra 7 years.
Now, is it likely discoveries that will come along that will make your devotion to creatine, should you do it - it represents a lot of chugging over a lot of years, four times a day, every day, you know, and all the attendant expense over many years, it really adds up - a waste of effort? In this case, probably not - it is my own opinion that further advances will simply be additive or synergistic (more than additive) or complementary to creatine, so you'll just be that much ahead of the game. You may not have to continue creatine, but I don't see the cost or risk as excessive. By risk, I mean risk of wasted effort.
When we are young, we tend to think we have all the time in the world. So, we choose short-term pleasures over long-term, because humans have this irrational flaw built into them: we tend to be irrationally optimistic - so, we tend to hope for the best and have a false confidence we'll get it - and we tend to downplay negative consequences later on for self-destructive behavior now - both of which can, and often do, add up to very rude awakenings much later on.
However, any 25 year old that displays the guts and fortitude to embark on a creatine program in order to gain life extension is to be honored and taken very seriously; most young adults aren't even close to that level of seriousness and practicality about life.
The next question is whether creatine has downsides. The big question here is the kidneys. so, it is essential to make sure you have good kidney function before you start, because creatine does put an extra load on the kidneys, no doubt about it. However, if the kidneys are healthy, is it really a problem? I don't think so, up to a point. If it were me, I would personally do creatine after having a doctor check my GFR - if my Glomerular Filtration Rate is good (easy to check: just get a CMP - Comprehensive Metabolic Panel with an estimated GFR - eGFR - and then I'd limit myself to no more than 12 grams total a day, in four divided doses - 3 grams four times a day; upon awakening, noon, supper, bedtime.
hmmm, i seem to be stuck in italics lol. oh well, onward.
Oh, good, I fixed it. onward.
while you're checking GFR, just check for diabetes. If you're not diabetic, and your GFR is fine, you're good.
One last adviso: don't be on a kidney drug. That would be HCTZ or furosemide (lasix) or a calcium channel blocker or excessive use of an NSAID (aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen, lodine, etc) - those are nephrotoxic drugs, diuretics, blood pressure, pain pills, and you don't want to take creatine on top of a kidney-toxic drug, any of them.
Now, the final consideration: can you get off it quickly? If, for example, you suddenly found out that ACK!! EEECK!!! Creatine is no good!! (not bloody likely, in this case, but it DOES happen lol) - the question is...can you stop it quickly without harm? The answer is yes. You can stop creatine any time, it will be cleared out within 6 hours, and there's no hangover or tolerance effect. So, it's safe to stop quickly. That's always a concern of mine - if I find out I've goofed, can I get off the damn stuff in a hurry?
Now, on to C60. And that's precisely where the worry point is for me....I don't think you can get away from C60 in a hurry. it hangs on quite a while. Not terribly long, perhaps a few weeks, no? So, it's probably still OK, but it does give me some pause. I would suggest you look hard at the question of how long it hangs around and decide based on whether you think you can get off it quickly enough should it turn out to be a bad idea after all.
C60 has another interesting dimension to consider; it is very likely to be synergistic with creatine. Hmmmmmmmmm, now THAT'S interesting!!!! it is very likely that the two could give a much greater benefit than either alone. However, I must hasten to caution you that I don't think anyone has any idea whether that is true yet, it's just something that's strongly suggestive to me. You probably should wait until somebody gets around to doing the experiment: putting some mice on combined C60 and creatine.
however, just between you and me (shhh, there are some poopy-heads on here I don't want to hear this), if I were you...please note the IF....I personally would do this: I would start creatine, and I would establish some personal markers for how I was responding. Perhaps just body feel, perhaps some biometrics such as exercise tolerance - I am a great believer in body feel, but I've spent so many decades paying attention to what the heck something was doing to my body that I've developed it to a fine degree - but in any case, a new baseline on creatine that I feel confident about. Then I'd cautiously do a leeeeeeetle beeeeeeet of C60, and ..... wait. see. contemplate. meditate. ruminate. measure. think. reflect. consider....and then, maybe do some more...and take it a leeeeetle steppppp at a time, learning as I go. Maybe I continue, maybe i stop.
Your post has also delighted me because I have a personal story to share that is perfectly relevant to you, extremely relevant to you and any other younger person on this fourm.
When Linus Pauling published his first book on Vit C in 1977, I read his book. And I took it to heart. And I said to myself: "My God, here's the greatest chemist of the 20th century, one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century, and he's a guy that has made a brilliant, courageous, profound insight - vitamin C is absolutely crucial to human health". I decided to take vitamin C religiously, every day, three times a day, from that day on, and now, four decades later, my decision is paying off.
Even though I have had diabetes for over three decades now, mostly due to a combination of really lousy genes and really, really lousy nutrition, because I took Pauling seriously and made a life-long change, I now:
do NOT have coronary artery disease - clean as a whistle, verified by angiography;
do NOT have kidney disease - the number one killer of diabetics
do NOT have brain disease (well, some would debate that lol)
do NOT have amputations - my feet and legs are not perfect, but I still got 'em...many diabetics would have had them amputated by now
do NOT have peripheral neuropathy...well, just a leeeeetle beeeet of peripheral neuropathy, but nothing that needs treatment, not like the patients I see who are in agony and will take any drug to take away the pain....
So, some early decisions matter for a lifetime, and vitamin C is one of them. I'll let you read up on it for yourself, you couldn't do better than to get Pauling's books and read them - but I'd quickly point out a few things about vit C.
Vit C tends to be ignored, I think, because it doesn't have a direct correlation to lifespan. And that's true - there's no species-specific lifespan advantage to levels of vit C; dogs make more vit C in their own bodies than humans (by far), and it doesn't help them live longer. But, what vitamin C DOES DO is help you dodge the OTTCGY...."other things that can get you"....LOL, I just made that up, but I like it. I had a better one earlier, but I forgot it.
What vitamin C is critical for: improved brain function, greatly improved immune response to infections (white blood cells cannot effectively fight infections without vit C), heart protection, soft tissue and connective tissue strength, protection against viral damage (little known fact: if we would just give high dose Intravenous vitamin C in hospitals to people with viral infections such as polio, dengue, etc, we wouldn't need vaccines for them and we would be saving a lot of lives, but this will never happen within the current corrupt profit-driven medical system), and....on and on and on......
so, please, dear God, in addition to taking creatine, please take your vitamin C...at least 500 mg twice a day, but 1 gram four times a day is better. some cheap vit C's do cause flatulance (those made from sorbitol), and some expensive C's are absolutely not worth it (ester-C I have zero faith in as anything but marketing bullshit)...wish I could give better advice, I'm still strugging with what I think is the best source, for now I just go with Solaray and hope.
Anyway, back to Other Things That Can Get You.... when you get serious about rejuvenation/anti-aging, you have to consider the OTTCGY's - it's silly to get killed by a falling tree while you're taking creatine to try to live longer. So, when I decided I really did want to try to live forever, I had to give up motorcycles. Boy, did I hate to sell my BMW, but it had to go - I knew I had escaped death on the thing five times, no doubt about it, and I figured I was good for maybe 7 escapes-against-all-odds tops, so it was time to stop. If I make it to 300, I might say to hell with it and jump back on one, but for now...sigh, it's just not worth it.
Along the same lines, other things I have HAD to give up, some of them damn hard:
1. meat, eggs, dairy. Yup. they are all inflammatory, proven, no doubt, hard fact, tough shit. Inflammation drives disease, there's absolutely no doubt about it. As young adults, we think we can get away with it. We can't. The effects of inflammation are cumulative, and it def catches up with you over a lifetime.
2. don't have to give up whey protein. That's a lifesaver. along with pea and hemp proteins, and of course all the veggies.
3. excess sugar. yeah, that means ice cream at bedtime, but, hell, the dairy has to go anyway.
4. alcohol. occasional beer, occasional wine, but for now, until we have killer rejuvenation agents that laugh at toxins, alcohol really is a dangerous toxin; a recent article - some are good, not all of medicine is bullshit (just most lol) - showed conclusively that "there is no safe level of consumption of alcohol".
5. all oils in excess except coconut oil, ghee and very modest truly virgin olive. everything else is just not good for you, period. sorry. true.
6. staying up late. you really do need your delta stage sleep, and after 10 pm at night, you're just not going to get much. It matters, and it matters a LOT over a lifetime. No, you really can't fool mother nature, not when it comes to sleep. Someday, maybe we'll have a propofol-like strategy - start an IV, go to sleep for three hours, wake up fabulous, get back on it for another 21 hours....but not yet. We're not even close on this one yet.
Very Best, Synchro