Kre-Alkalyn TM - Background / History

Creatine Monohydrate

History / Background: Creatine was discovered in the late 1800's. It wasn't till the 1970's that Creatine's true benefits were discovered by athletes who used it in the Olympics, to help maximise their explosive energy. Over the years it has become one of the biggest selling sports supplements in history.

The goal of every athlete is to maximize energy levels. One of the bodies primary short burst sources is adenosine triphosphate (ATP). The body uses creatine in its process of naturally replenishing ATP. When you exercise or tense a muscle, force is produced. That force is translated into a muscle contraction. In order for the muscle to function properly, it requires energy. The energy it uses comes from several different sources, but the primary source comes from the nutrients that you obtain from your diet. These nutrients are then broken down & absorbed; they will then continue on in the system for usage. One of the compounds that is formed, after several complicated processes and reactions is adenosine triphosphate (ATP). When muscle energy is needed, this ATP is broken down one step further into a chemical called adenosine diphosphate (ADP). When this process of ATP being broken down into ADP, energy is released and used by the contracting muscles. Without this in sufficient amounts, your muscle would not be able to work or perform properly. The body naturally produces creatine (about 2 grams per day).

Muscle can only store so much ATP, typically only giving about 5-10 seconds of muscle exertion before those storage receptors are depleted. This results in muscle failure along with bio energetic depletion or ATP depletion. When this happens, your body tries to restore its immediate source of ATP by borrowing a high energy phosphate from a chemical called creatine phosphate (CP). Muscle cells store the chemical CP in the same way it stores ATP. If high intensity exercise goes beyond 10 seconds, your body will continue to try and restore its ATP levels by a process called glycolysis. This process is complicated and is a slow method of restoring ATP levels, especially for the anaerobic athletes who require instant energy to maintain and sustain high-powered muscle contractions. By orally supplementing with creatine, you can enhance your body's storage levels of CP. As the muscle runs out of ATP it can recharge itself by borrowing this CP phosphate molecule. Research has shown that by supplementing with 5 grams of creatine, 4-6 times a day, for 2 or more days, the human body showed a significant increase in total creatine concentration.

Athletes discovered orally supplementing creatine boosted the body's stores and extended the length of explosive bursts and strength levels. Creatine monohydrate has proven itself a very effective nutritional supplement for many athletes. You cannot supplement with just ATP or CP, due to the fact that these chemicals are destroyed in the gut. Therefore, creatine supplementation is the best route to go. The main advantage of taking creatine is the fact that cellular concentrations after administration is stable and is not prone to being lost.

The most commonly used oral creatine supplement is creatine monohydrate. The most commonly used amounts has varied from 20 to 30 grams daily. It has been taken in powder, capsule, tablet & liquid form. With current creatine products, we have been instructed that creatine should be taken in water, with fruit juice, an acidic effervescent, and/or acidic fruit flavored drink mixes. The amount of fluid varies from 300 milliliters to mixing to taste. Other forms of creatine have also been used, such as creatine citrate, creatine phosphate & creatine pyruvate. The method of intake is recommended the same as creatine monohydrate.

Many so-called 'improvements' have hit the market place over the last 5 years, each claiming to be the best. Some advertisements have even started to inform us that impurities found in other company's products, contain higher amounts of creatinine (a poison and toxic by-product) than theirs. Yet the same side effects reported with creatine use in general, were also reported with this so-called pure creatine monohydrate.

As comforting as all these ads may seem, it is a far cry from the whole truth. Creatine Monohydrate is known for its stability, once manufactured, only if kept in a powder form and stored in a cool, dry place. All of their testing was done in a dry powder form and under strict lab conditions. Of course, this was creatine's only stable form.

What has not been known till recent, is that most of the creatine being injested had already converted over to creatinine. Once activated with water, juice or any other fluid, most of it converts over to creatinine. Athletes have been consuming as much as 20-30 grams of creatine to maximise the effect, but less than 1-2 grams was actually still creatine by the time they had swallowed it. The rest of it had already converted over to creatinine, which caused a number of side effects in some people including:- stomach cramps, indemia, being bloated, excess water retention, dehydration, cottonmouth, headaches, liver problems, lack of energy, creatinine poisoning and impaired renal function. The body's natural defense to a toxin is to try and dilute the toxin with water and flush it from the body.

Recent reports in the news media by a group of French scientists, claimed that using large amounts of creatine monohydrate, over an extended period of time, might cause cancer. They went on to state that this is due to the large amounts of creatinine found in the blood stream.

I wonder where the creatinine came from?

Kre-Alkalyn - Buffered Creatine Monohydrate

United States Patent # 6,399,661
New Zealand Patent #519305
Patent pending in Australia #2003203344
Patent pending in 29 countries worldwide.

A new ground breaking development in the Dietary Supplement and Sports Nutrition Industry is the use of NIR technology (Bran+Luebbe Infraprover II) for routine purity and stability tests. It provides accurate evaluation of ingredient quality through all stages of the manufacturing process without compromising the sample. The technology was being used by the team who developed Kre-Alkalyn, to test a variety of products available on the market. These same products were then tested after activation with fluid. What was discovered was that immediately after adding water or liquid to creatine, the majority of it rapidly converted over to creatinine. Most of the creatine serums and liquids had virtually no creatine left. The effervescent and fruit drinks were the worst, due to the low pH levels. Only a fraction of what is being consumed is still creatine, which the body can use. Worse, most of it has converted to the toxin creatinine.

Over 18 months the researchers developed and extensively tested a successful novel method of keeping Creatine stable after adding water or any liquid, which is now referred to as Kre-Alkalyn. Not only is Kre-Alkalyn stable in a powder form, but also is completely stable after water or liquid activation. This means it is safe (since it does not convert to creatinine), and you need much less since the creatine conversion loss problem has now been eliminated. This allows you not only to consume creatine without concern about creatinine levels in the body; you only need a fraction of what you have been using previously, to get the full potent effect. Because Kre-Alkalyn is a creatine source, which never converts, it can now be added to, and kept in liquid form, for extended periods of time.