[obrick]

I have been dealing with this company for most of this year. Their creatine transport system and their weight gainer have both been pretty good to me. But I find the creatine has a pretty terrible dissolving rate (at least in the shaker not the body) is there any other reasonably priced creatine? And do you guys buy this new AKG stuff? It seems jsut like propaganda to sell more supplements. It seems the rate the body can take is pretty constant and can not be improved upon any more.

[Palmetto]

Try some micronized creatine if the dissolving rate bothers you. Seems to dissolve faster. If you want some great creatine though, try some CEE (creatine ethyl ester) Seems to work great for some people and I saw good things from it, more than any other creatine product I have tried. I used mine in pill form and still worked great. Try it out bro.

[obrick]

Yeah I have heard of that stuff, but I am on kind of a tight budget here while I am still in school. Do you know what the compounds ard in the ethyl ester? As far why it is easier to turn into creatine phosphate in the body?

[ricomike]

Champion Nutrition Creatine is tasty but ya you're right its doesn't dissolve well. I liked VPX CEX creatine ethyl ester.

[Flex]

Originally Posted by obrick

Yeah I have heard of that stuff, but I am on kind of a tight budget here while I am still in school. Do you know what the compounds ard in the ethyl ester? As far why it is easier to turn into creatine phosphate in the body?

Creatine Ethyl Ester HCL (CEE) is creatine monohydrate with an ester attached. Esters are organic compounds that are formed by esterification - the reaction of carboxylic acid and alcohols.


What does it do and what scientific studies give evidence to support this?
Regular creatine monohydrate has been shown effective at increasing lean muscle mass1,2,3,4, muscle strength5,6 and athletic performance.7,8

However, regular creatine monohydrate is absorbed poorly by the body - and its effectiveness is dependant upon the cells ability to absorb it. The poor absorption rate of regular creatine monohydrate requires the creatine user to ingest large dosages of creatine to achieve desired effect.

Because creatine draws water to the cell, and because most ingested creatine monohydrate is not absorbed, unabsorbed creatine will sit outside of the target cell with the water, and this will result in the "creatine bloat."

Long-term clinical studies have proven that creatine monohydrate is safe for use by persons free of medical complication9, but why would you want to ingest more creatine monohydrate than you have to simply because your creatine is inefficient?

Creatine ethyl ester is creatine monohydrate with an ester attached. The attachment of an ester is significant, because esters are found in the fat tissue of animals. But, why is this important? What role does this have in the absorption of creatine?

All substances that you put into your body will affect its operation. There are three ways that substances can affect a cells operation. They are:

Ligand binding to protein receptor sites.
Secondary messenger / metabotropic systems
Passive permeation of the cell wall via lipids
When a substance enters the body and affects the bodies operation, it is known as a ligand. The soma and dendrites of the cell have protein receptor sites to which ligands can bind. The process of a ligand binding with a receptor site is akin to a lock and key: only keys of a certain shape work with certain locks. When they work and cause the cells stimulation they are called agonists. When they block the cell from functioning they are called antagonists.


When a ligand binds with the receptor site of a target cell, the cell, in the simplest of cases, changes its shape, opens up its ion channels and changes its function. In so-called "secondary messenger" or metabotropic cells, the ligand binds with the receptor site and an internal protein known as a g-protein is released. This released protein then binds to an internal site inside of the cell, and then the cell changes its behavior by opening its ion channels. Cells that operate in this way are known as metabotropic cells because their operation requires metabolic energy.

Passive permeation is a process that describes the diffusion of a substance across a cell membrane through the use of lipids as transport mechanisms. Because no "work" is being done by the cell in this model, this model is called passive permeation.

Creatine monohydrate utilizes lipids to permeate the cell wall and enter the cell. Because of this, the esterification of creatine, and the presence of esters in animal fat tissue, becomes significant.

Creatine monohydrate is semi-lipopholic. This means that it inefficiently uses fat as a transport mechanism. The esterification of substances will increase their lipopholic abilities, and thus esterified creatine will use fat more efficiently to permeate the cell wall and exert its effects upon cellular function than its unesterified creatine monohydrate counterpart.

This means, simply, that not only will dosage requirements be lower, but the absorption of esterified creatine will be increased and the infamous "creatine bloat" will be eliminated!