"What's in your Creatine?"

By Will Brink

What I am about to tell you is not going to make me a very popular person with many supplement manufacturers. In fact, some of them are going to be down right pissed off at me. On the other hand, some of them are going to be happy someone spilled the beans and told the truth. Finally, some of them will be totally unaware of this information and will be shocked when they read it. Basically, I fully expect this article to cause a sh*% storm that will reverberate throughout the supplement industry.

The only people who I know are going to be happy about this article is the consumer, but I am getting ahead of myself. As we all know, creatine is one of the best bodybuilding supplements ever discovered. It increases strength, lean body mass, and, to a lesser extent, endurance. If that were not enough, it's relatively cheap to boot! What more could we ask for from a supplement? When creatine was first introduced it was sort of pricey, but no one really cared because it worked so well. As time went on and more companies began selling creatine, the inevitable price war began and prices came down.

At that point creatine was only being produced by a few companies, so creatine was basically creatine and the price was the only real consideration. As is typical of the market place, once creatine became big business, several new manufacturers popped up and it became no longer a price war as much as a quality war. The expression "creatine is creatine" no longer holds true. More on that shortly.

At this time there are probably four-five companies large enough to mass produce creatine for the sports nutrition market. These companies in turn sell their product in huge bulk amounts to various distributors around the world. As far as the mass producers are concerned, there is a large German company, two companies out of China, and two in the United States. Though there are various other companies, for this article we will basically concern ourselves with these five major producers which probably comprise 80-90% of the creatine production market.

Why I had to write this article

The supplement industry in the United States is by and large a self-regulated industry. Unlike other countries, we (the USA) don't have government constantly telling us what we can and cannot do with our supplements. Though they have been trying to discredit supplements for decades, the FDA and pharmaceutical/ medical industrial complex have largely failed to do so. As a self-regulated industry, we must do just that. Let me state here and now, I am all for self-regulation and totally against government regulation when it comes to supplements. When we find gross problems, we have to expose them no matter what the cost. Any supplement that is found to be potentially dangerous, terribly misleading, or otherwise a total scam, must be exposed as such.

If we don't do it, then we allow the "powers that be" (who have an interest in discrediting the supplement industry) to get one step closer to the Orwellian scenario of other countries. I thought long and hard as to whether or not I should write this article, but in the end, as a person of good conscience and ethics, I knew I had to. In the end, it will cost the entire supplement industry far more than any one loss could ever cost a single company if problems with a certain product are not exposed.

As far as I am concerned, this is us airing out or own dirty inter-industry laundry and policing our own, instead of waiting for the "don't confuse us with the facts" popular media or other groups to come after the supplement industry. I know it must sound like I am almost apologizing for writing this article, and in a way I am. It could potentially cost certain people a great deal of money. On the other hand, it could also make some other person a great deal of money, depending on where they fall (this will make more sense to the reader as you read along). In the end, the truth can never been denied, it can only be delayed. With each day of delay, the cost to everyone goes up. Nuff said.

Are you getting more than you paid for?

Most of us are always happy when we get more than we paid for, but in some instances, it's not such a good idea. If we are buying say vitamin C and the label says "500mg per capsule" and laboratory analysis reveals it contains 600mg, then that is a great thing. However, if we test a product and not only does it contain what the label claims, but several other compounds we did not know were in there and had no place being in there, then that's a completely different story. For example, when the amino acid L-Tryptophan was taken off the market for the death of several people, it was not because of the L-Tryptophan itself, but because of a chemical contaminant found in a batch of the L-tryptophan that was not supposed to be there. This was a perfect example of getting more than you paid for in the worst possible scenario. What I am going to write about in this article certainly is not as bad as the L-tryptophan fiasco, but it could be a potential health concern.

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