Rhonda Patrick’s Creatine Brand, Type & Dosage

Rhonda’s been talking a LOT about creatine in recent times.

She currently supplements:

• 10 grams of creatine per day – typically split into 2x 5 gram doses
• On high demand days she takes 15 to 20 grams – such as when dealing with travel, poor sleep, or when she needs extra cognitive support

The brand Rhonda mentions taking is Thorne – Creatine, which uses creatine monohydrate, the most common type.

Her rationale for choosing this is:

• NSF certification – it’s third-party tested and consistently has no Prop 65 (lead) warning when shipped to California.
• Contains “Creapure” – German-made form that she calls it “really clean” and is the only brand she’s found that reliably meets her contaminant standards.

In terms of how she takes the creatine:

• Rhonda mentions commonly putting it into her coffee. I haven’t seen her mention how else she consumes creatine. I assume she must put it into water or other drinks also, as it won’t just be coffee.
• She notes that, according to discussions with Darren Kandow, the heat from coffee won’t damage the creatine. That would only occur if the creatine was boiled for a prolonged period.
• She says she does not have GI issues, so she doesn’t need to take it with food/carbs.

With Thorne you’re paying a bit more for the brand and because it’s NSF certified. Below we compare it’s price per gram to other brands:

Powders – Creatine Monohydrate

Capsules – Creatine Monohydrate

If buying from iHerb links above, see this 5-20% iHerb discount coupon.

Her View on Creatine Gummies

Rhonda says (in Q&A #75) she’s not a fan of creatine gummies for 3 key reasons:

1. To make gummies, as part of the process, you have to heat the gelatin or pectin base to around 70-90°C. With vitamins, this can stop them working. However, creatine is relatively heat stable, but it does have another issue. If you subject it to heat + moisture it can convert to creatinine – a product that doesn’t have the benefits of creatine. This could (and can) happen with your gummies.
2. Multiple recent analysis have found the majority of creatine gummies they tested have little to zero creatine in them.
3. Assuming you find gummies that contain the amount of creatine they purport to, you still have the issue that you need to eat a lot of gummies to get to the 5g – 10g daily dose that she’s using.

Why Rhonda Takes Creatine

She quotes the following reasons for taking it:

• It boosts ATP production to fuel your muscles, enhancing muscle strength and recovery.
• It sharpens cognitive function.

She also has at least one APOE4 allele which puts her at greater risk for Alzheimers. This study showed a nearly 5% improvement in cognitive function in Alzheimers patients in 8 weeks of 20g/day creatine supplementation. However, note that no placebo group was used, which would be necessary to confirm findings.

Roundup

Hopefully the above covers your questions on Rhonda Patrick’s creatine interests.

For more information, see the creatine topic on her site.

If you’ve got any questions or comments, please leave them below.

Further reading: See our article on Rhonda’s full supplement stack