"What's in your Creatine?"

So after that long, cryptic, and bizarre introduction, what am I getting at? Recently, a company tested the five largest creatine manufacturers products and tested the products of various distributors from the USA, Germany, Great Britain, and other countries. At this time, the company who did the testing wishes to remain anonymous, lest they be accused of throwing stones at the supplement industry. However, this is a very large and reputable company and they stand behind their test results.

Also, I know this company to be one of the worlds most reputable companies, so I had no problems with their testing results or methods. The test results came to me through the back door so to speak. So what was tested for and what did it reveal? The creatine products were tested for: Dicyandiamide, Creatinine, Dihydrotriazine, and sodium content. What did the tests reveal? It revealed that there is a wide range of differences between creatine products from different manufacturers. The purity level of all the creatine products were also tested and they generally fell between 88 and 92%. Now before you go off yelling "but my creatine says 99% pure creatine monohydrate on the bottle," you have to remember there is a small amount of water in creatine monohydrate.

Before we bother with the results, we need to take a look at the chemicals that were tested for-and subsequently found- in these samples. What really bothered me was the fact that there is little safety research on some of these chemicals, most notably the dihydrotriazine. I did Med-line searches, looked through various chemical data related books (i.e. the Merck Index and other publications), made many phone calls to chemists, spent hours on the internet, and was amazed to find so little real safety data on some of these materials.

Considering the fact that some creatine products contain fairly high amounts of these chemicals, the lack of solid safety data did not make me feel very comfortable. The major point of this is really the amount of creatine ingested in relation to the amount of contaminant present. It's not that a compound has a small amount of some contaminant per se, but the levels of the contaminant is found in relation to how much of the product is consumed is the real question. In the December issue of Health and Nutrition Breakthroughs (p12, 1997) Dr. Podell addressed the same concern regarding creatine as I have when he stated "...there is the potentially important issue of product purity. Given the high doses of creatine most people take, even a minute toxic impurity could have a dangerous effect. Unfortunately we cannot be sure of a manufacturers' quality controls."

As we all know, people don't just take 500mg (1/2 a gram) of creatine, they take 10,000mg (10g), 20,000mg (20g), or even 30,000mg (30g) of creatine per day, so even a small amount of a contaminant (such as the dihydrotriazine) can add up quickly. For example, one creatine product contained as much as 18,000 parts per million (PPM) of Dicyandiamide. If a person is taking in ten grams per day of creatine, that's 180 mg of this chemical a day. If you are taking in 30g a day of creatine-as is often the case during the loading phase-you would be getting a whopping 540mg a day of dicyandiamide!

The Chemicals

Dicyandiamide (DC): DC is actually a derivative of one of the starting chemicals (cyanamide) used in creatine production. DC is formed during the production of creatine products, and large amounts found in a product are considered the result of an incomplete or inefficient process. A quality creatine product will contain very small amounts, less than 20-50ppm. At this time, DC does not appear to be a particularly toxic chemical. Oral studies with animals (rats and dogs) lasting up to 90 days have not shown serious toxicity or carcinogenic effects, and acute poisoning also takes very high amounts. DC appears to have many uses in the chemical industry. Some of the more interesting is the use of DC in the production of fertilizers, explosives, fire proofing compounds, cleaning compounds, soldering compounds, stabilizer in detergents, modifier for starch products, and a catalyst for epoxy resins.

At the concentrations found in some of the creatine products (see below), it's a good thing this stuff does not appear to be particularly toxic. However, as far as I am concerned, I don't want to be eating the stuff. One interesting point as it relates to DC and toxicity is, if one looks at the safety sheet on the stuff it states that DC breaks down into hydrogen cyanide gas when exposed to a strong acid. Hydrogen cyanide gas is very toxic and has been used as a chemical warfare agent! As Bruce Kneller points out (see side bar), stomach acid, which has a PH of 2, is a very strong acid. Is even a tiny amount of hydrogen cyanide gas produced from the intake of large amounts of DC? The chemist I spoke to did not seem to think so and the safety data with animals would tend to support this, but who knows. Bruce might be overreacting a bit on this, but it's better to lean on the cautious side with such things. Bottom line, it's best not to be eating large amounts of DC in this writer's opinion.

Dihydrotriazine (DT): DT appears to be the real mystery chemical as far as potentially toxic contaminants found in some creatine products. One company had it listed as "...Dihydrotriazine is often found in various creatine products. This substance is a byproduct of non-optimized creatine productions and consequently widely spread over creatine products. Dihydrotriazine is a compound with unknown pharmaceutical and toxicological properties." It was virtually impossible to find any useful safety data on this chemical.