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i've been taking creatine monohydrate on and off for years... i get great gains off of it.. i've tried no xplode and tons of others to see if its worth it but never really thought it was worth the extra money..
but with CM i definitely get a lot of bloat... i read an article recently that said you dont get it with CEE as much and it more just keeps all the water in the muscles.. any truth to this at all or just more marketing BS?
Cheers
CEE sucks. Anyone thats in the know knows its all about Kre Alk PEROID!!! I will post later on it, gotta football game to watch. Sorry
Mono is the only product (and one of the very few on the market) with considerable scientific research conducted backing its efficacy.
Until someone can show me some peer-reviewed journals showing me that CEE or Kre Alk work, I will be hard pressed to give other creatines the time of day.
If you have gastric issues with creatine mono, buy a quality product. Gastric issues are usually owing to low quality ingredients. FYI, the supplement industry is full of absolutely terrible products as far as the quality of ingredients used.
Here's a read on CEE:
Creatine ethyl ester rapidly degrades to creatinine in stomach acid
Child R1 and Tallon MJ2
1Department of Life Sciences, Kingston University, Penrhyn Rd, Kingston-upon-Thames, United Kingdom. 2University of Northumbria, Sport Sciences, Northumbria University, Northumberland Building, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom, [email protected]
Creatine ethyl ester (CEE) is a commercially available synthetic creatine that is now widely used in dietary supplements. It comprises of creatine with an ethyl group attached and this molecular configuration is reported to provide several advantages over creatine monohydrate (CM). The Medical Research Institute (CA, USA) claim that the CEE in their product (CE2) provides greater solubility in lipids, leading to improved absorption. Similarly San (San Corporation, CA, USA) claim that the CEE in their product (San CM2 Alpha) avoids the breakdown of creatine to creatinine in stomach acids. Ultimately it is claimed that CEE products provide greater absorption and efficacy than CM. To date, none of these claims have been evaluated by an in***endent, or university laboratory and no comparative data are available on CEE and CM.
This study assessed the availability of creatine from three commercial creatine products during degradation in acidic conditions similar to those that occur in the stomach. They comprised of two products containing CEE (San CM2 Alpha and CE2) and commercially available CM (Creapure?). An in***endent laboratory, using testing guidelines recommended by the United States Pharmacopeia (USP), performed the analysis. Each product was incubated in 900ml of pH 1 HCL at 37? 1oC and samples where drawn at 5, 30 and 120 minutes. Creatine availability was assessed by immediately assaying for free creatine, CEE and the creatine breakdown product creatinine, using HPLC (UV)
After 30 minutes incubation only 73% of the initial CEE present was available from CE2, while the amount of CEE available from San CM2 Alpha was even lower at only 62%. In contrast, more than 99% of the creatine remained available from the CM product. These reductions in CEE availability were accompanied by substantial creatinine formation, without the appearance of free creatine. After 120minutes incubation 72% of the CEE was available from CE2 with only 11% available from San CM2 Alpha, while more than 99% of the creatine remained available from CM.
CEE is claimed to provide several advantages over CM because of increased solubility and stability. In practice, the addition of the ethyl group to creatine actually reduces acid stability and accelerates its breakdown to creatinine. This substantially reduces creatine availability in its esterified form and as a consequence creatines such as San CM2 and CE2 are inferior to CM as a source of free creatine.
In regards to Kre Alk you have not looked hard enough. This is copyed from a few threads down from at vet. THere are plenty of studies on Kre Alk and I myself can testify to it working.Quote:
Originally Posted by TR'05
Start Date: March 1st 2006th
Finished Date: April 30th, 2006
Dr. Kamen Stroychev & Neno Terziiski, Comparison of Kre-Alkalyn to Creatine on body composition, muscular performance, & safety: Dr. I.S. Greenberg Medical Center, Sofia, Bulgaria.
Objectives: The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of Kre-Alkalyn and Creatine Monohydrate on training induced changes in strength and body composition using Olympic-level weight lifters.
Methods: Using a random, double-blind design, 24 healthy men from the Bulgarian National Weight Lifting Team were selected and assigned to ingest 10 capsules x 750 mg of Kre-Alkalyn daily (for the test group) and 10 capsules x 750 mg of creatine monohydrate (for the controlled group). Verification of purity was assayed by an independent laboratory. Body weight was monitored, even though participating athletes were on strict diets due to their Olympic status of competition. Muscular performance was measured in the snatch, clean & jerk, high snatch, & back squat. Lifts were performed at maximum resistence for 1 repetition. The duration of the study was 60 days. Measurements were taken on baseline day and every day throughout the study per each athlete’s schedule. The best lift during the administration part of study was used for the comparison. Each athlete was required to maintain their normal dietary and training patterns during the study.
Results: The Creatine Monohydrate group showed an average increase over baseline of 8.39% for the snatch, clean & jerk, high snatch, & back squat. The Kre-Alkalyn group showed an average increase over baseline of 10.76%. By comparison, the average increase in total lifts for the Kre-Alkalyn group in the snatch, clean & jerk, high snatch, & back squat was 28.25% over the Creatine Monohydrate group.
Additionally, the Kre-Alkalyn group appeared to be healthy without any side effects from daily Kre-Alkalyn administration. No significant changes in body weight for either the Creatine Monohydrate group or the Kre-Alkalyn group were noted.
Conclusion: Within the framework and context of the current experimental design, this study concluded that subjects in the Kre-Alkalyn group increased their weight poundages by an average of 28.25% over subjects in the Creatine Monohydrate group. It should be noted that it is quite difficult for high-caliber Olympic-level athletes to produce considerable improvements in their muscular performance in such a short time-frame. Therefore, a 28.25% increase is considered to be a significant value
Effects Of Creatine Supplementation On Cellular Protein Metabolism In Vitro
“Kre-Alkalyn -vs- Creatine Monohydrate”
January 31st, 2008
Dr. Kamen Stroychev, MD (Greenberg Medical Center, Sofia, Bulgaria)
Objectives: The anabolic properties of creatine supplementation are well established, and we sought to determine the effects the stabilization process (used to manufacture Kre-Alkalyn) might have upon these metabolic effects.
Methods: To address this issue, established monolayer cultures of muscle cells (RD) or chondrocytes (SW1353) were subcultured in a deficient medium containing only 2.5 % fetal calf serum, instead of 10% which is mandatory for the optimal cell growth and maintenance in vitro. Thereafter, cells were exposed to either culture medium (controls) or 0.5 mmol conventional creatine (Creatine Monohydrate) or buffered creatine (Kre-Alkalyn). At different exposure periods (12, 24 or 48 h), the cells were detached from the cell culture flasks via trypsinization, washed thrice in PBS to remove residual protein from the culture medium and counted. Thereafter, the protein content in each sample was determined using the method of Lowry. The results were calculated as mg protein/106 cells and expressed as percentage of the untreated control (set as 100 %).
Results: Evident from the results obtained, both creatine formulations (conventional creatine and stabilized Kre-Alkayn) caused a significant time dependent increase in the protein content of either muscle or cartilage cells. In all experiments, however, the Kre-Alkalyn formulation caused a more pronounced augmentation of the protein anabolism, as compared to the non-stabilized counterpart (Creatine Monohydrate) (Table 4.1.; Figure 4.1.).
Appendix 4.
Experimental data for the effects of creatine supplementation on cellular metabolism.
Table 4.1. Effects of creatine supplementation on the protein synthesis of human muscle or cartilage cells cultured in FCS-deficient medium.
Exposure period (h) Protein content (% of untr. control)
Conventional creatine Kre-Alkalyn
RD muscle cells
12 109* ± 4 111* ± 1
24 112* ± 3 121*# ± 4
48 117* ± 2 124*# ± 2
SW1353 cartilage cells
12 105* ± 4 110*# ± 3
24 111* ± 4 117*# ± 3
48 115* ± 3 122*# ± 4
* Statistically significant (p<0.05) vs. the untreated control; # Statistically significant (p<0.05) vs. the equivalent concentration of conventional creatine (Student’s t-test).
Figure 4.1. Effects of creatine – conventional (white columns) or stabilized Kre-Alkalyn (grey columns) on the protein content in cells (upper plot) or RD cells (lower plot), cultured in FCS-deficient medium after a 12, 24 or 48 h incubation period. Each column represents the arithmetic mean ± sd of 4 independent experiments.
Conclusion: Kre-Alkalyn proved to exhibit a greater anabolic effect compared to regular creatine. Thus, considering the equivalent controlled conditions of the experiment, the observed greater anabolic effects of Kre-Alkalyn could be ascribed solely to the superior stability afforded
bobybuilding.com ftw.
The only places I can find these studies published in English are on bobybuilding.com and krealk.net. These are a far cry from the studies done on CM- countless peer-reviewed studies at some of the world's foremost educational and research institutions.
I am bot saying kre-alk doesn't work- far from it. Who am I to tell people whether or not a supp works for them?
I have tried kre-alk once and simply not noticed any difference; everyone is different.
Would I be willing to try it again? Yes.
What is the market's top kre-alk product w.r.t quality?
I appreciate you taking the time to post the articles, Reed. They were interesting reads.
But regardless they are still evidence, it just has not been out long enough for the amount of studies CM has. In any creatine product I have taken I don't notice any difference as you would say with an anabolic. Its when I stop taking it that I do. A lot of factors are drawn in with anyone that has experience. I have taken both and they both work but for me the bloat and sides off CM makes me lean toward the Kre Alk. I had an entire year of no anabolics what so ever (natural) and about the middle through the year I discontinued the Kre-Alk and dropped enough strength that it was noticeable.
Definitely interesting. You would expect the kre-alk to aid in continued training progression which, presumably, it did. To regress considerably after discontinuing use of the product is strange.Quote:
Originally Posted by Reed500
I can't comment on with or without AAS, as I am a natural trainee.
I have serious qualms with all supplements these days.
It's tough to tell what supplement companies are up to these days with the flexibility "proprietary blends" give them. Kre-Alk has been out for a while now. The M.D. who performed the tests is clearly working in some degree with Kre-Alkalyn.net, as all their studies are conducted by him. They are the only studies which I can find. Are they evidence? Biased evidence, yes.
Supplement companies are are putting products of piss-poor quality on the market- even the ones with the unbiased research backing them. Most people don't realize that most of the negative sides from taking CM can be avoided by taking a quality product.
Pub Med turns up 0 studies for Kre-Alkalyn and 256 for CM. Is this to say that it's too early for research to be conducted? Definitely a possibility.
The supplement industry is EXTREMELY shady- we all know that. A multi-billion dollar industry is rife with absolute garbage (from poor quality whey powders to the comical claims of 20lb of lean muscle in 6 weeks). When it comes to spending money on products, I personally will certainly spend my money on supplements that I know- based on unbiased scientific research- will prove efficacious.
Will I try other products and come to my own conclusions? Hell yes and I give you all the credit in the world for doing likewise.
Anyways, to the thread starter: forget the CEE bro.
Yes I totally agree with all your points.
For me I progress more than anything by my diet, of course, but the supplements are there to help along, nothing more. I remember a few times during that year now, discontinuing the Kre Alk and strength falling. I have taken both and I guess I expected to gain strength and weight anyway due to the progress of my diet and training so I can't say that any creatine had a dramatic effect (seems thats what we look for) on it but regardless it did help.
And I agree ditch the CEE
TR05 what quality CM do you recommend? And Reed500 what Kre-Alk do you recommend?
I'm currently on CEE on the 6th week and don't believe I'm noticing anything compared to how I felt on CM in the past.
The four brands that don't leave me pissing out my ass:Quote:
Originally Posted by free_spirit
Labrada
Beverly International
Biotest
Poliquin Performance
I rotate throughout the year.
Hope for clarification...Quote:
Originally Posted by TR'05
The CM I take makes me thirsty, I drink a lot of water and go to the bathroom every 30 minutes. Or do you get diarrhea?
Definitely can clarify, I think.Quote:
Originally Posted by FallenWyvern
Creatine mono gives many people gastric distress. The four brands I listed DO NOT give ME any gastric distress (i.e. no diarrhea). They are the higher quality brands IMO.
I piss all the time too owing to drinking lots of water.
Not sure if this is the clarification you needed? Let me know, FallenW'.
great follow ups guys.. i may give Kre-Alkalyn a try and see how it goes
krealkalyn works. so does monohydrate, but if you get mono make sure its micronized.
Got it. Didn't know about the gas. I have to check that out.Quote:
Originally Posted by TR'05