The Weekly Thread: muscle loss and cardiovascular disease, creatine to cure the effects of sleep deprivation, and thank you for your work.
Does muscle loss increase risk of cardiovascular disease?
An interesting study I came across titled, Two-year changes in body composition and future cardiovascular events wanted to understand more about the relationship between body composition and the risk of cardiovascular events.
Some quick background on the study and its methodology…
- The study included 1,048 participants between the ages of 50-80 years.
- It had a male; female split of 43.51%:56.49% respectively.
- All participants (and this is key) had to be without any overt signs of cardiovascular disease and were given two examinations during 2013-14 and 2015-16, and were followed up with until 2022 for reported cardiovascular events.
- A bioelectric impedance analyzer was used to calculate fat% and FFM% (fat free mass %). During the 5.5 years of follow ups, 86 cardiovascular events occurred, or in 8.21% of participants.
Now, for the results…
The study used a “Hazard Ratio” (HR) to evaluate the increased risk a respective change in body composition created for a cardiovascular event, with the two most significant measurables being a gain in fat % (no surprise there), and the second being a loss in fat free muscle (FFM) % (muscle + bone).
Here’s where it gets real noteworthy.
The study found that a fat % gain > 2% resulted in an HR of 2.07x, or a 207% greater likelihood of a cardiovascular event.
The study also found that an FFM % loss > 8% resulted in an HR of 3.83x, or a whopping 383% greater likelihood of having a cardiovascular event.
In short, both a gain in fat % and a loss in fat free mass % will increase the likelihood of a cardiovascular event as you age.
Here are my takeaways and conclusions:
It’s no surprise that a gain in fat % will increase the likelihood of a cardiovascular event, so there’s not much to glean there, however, the results showing that not only does a loss in fat free mass % also increase your risk of a cardiovascular event, but may actually be a stronger risk factor than a gain in fat %, was quite noteworthy.
Body fat % has a strong tendency to increase as we age, however, what many of us don’t pay attention to is Sarcopenia, the decline of skeletal muscle with age, which means there’s a chance many of us are seeing a gain in fat % and a loss in FFM % as we age, meaning you now have two compounding factors for an even greater risk of a cardiovascular event.
Tips to Build and/or Maintain Muscle as you Age
✔️ Resistance (Strength) Train. Ideally 3-4x per week for 30-45 minutes
✔️ Eat lots of protein. Ideally you want to eat 1g of high-quality protein per lb. of body weight. This actually becomes even more important as you age and become vulnerable to the effects of Sarcopenia, because with Sarcopenia also comes reduced muscle protein synthesis, which means your body becomes less adept at synthesizing the protein you eat for use in supporting your skeletal muscle.
✔️ Hack your Sleep. Sleep is more so about quality over quantity. You want as much of your sleep as possible to be in the key “Deep” and “REM” sleep cycles respectively. Obviously, the more sleep you get overall, the more likely you are to achieve greater time in Deep and REM sleep cycles, however, there are ways to hack your sleep to be more efficient at achieving greater time in these key sleep cycles in less time. (More on “sleep hacks” in future editions of The Weekly Thread)
And on the topic of quality sleep, here’s an interesting treatment or hack for when you are inevitably sleep-deprived…
A paper published in the esteemed journal Nature earlier this year titled, “Single dose creatine improves cognitive performance and induces changes in cerebral high energy phosphates during sleep deprivation”, shared some pretty noteworthy findings on the benefits that high dose creatine supplementation can have on mitigating the cognitive issues and brain fog associated with sleep deprivation.
Creatine is widely becoming known as more than just an athletic or training performance supplement, and is gaining serious momentum as an anti-aging, longevity inducing staple. (More on that in the next segment)
Much of the new research is focused on cognitive performance, and its potential for long term health benefits when supplemented with over time, to reduce the risk of neurodegenerative diseases like Dementia and Alzheimer’s.
That said, all of the positive findings have been a result of research focused on long term supplementation.
This study aimed to find out if a high, single dose of creatine could be used acutely to improve cognitive performance immediately, and to test this, they used subjects who were sleep deprived for 21 hours, so a pretty significant amount of time.
All subjects were subjected to 21 hours of sleep deprivation, and then one group was given a placebo, and the other was given a high dose of creatine, 0.35g/kg of body weight to be exact.
After administration of either the placebo or high dose of creatine, subjects were then asked to perform various cognitive tests.
The study found that a high, single dose of creatine does in fact yield positive benefits on cognition that include improving overall cognitive performance and processing speed.
The authors of the study go on to state, “These outcomes suggest that a high single dose of creatine can partially reverse metabolic alterations and fatigue-related cognitive deterioration.”
A quick recommendation…
The study implemented a dose of creatine based on body weight and gave recipients a dose of 0.35g/kg of body weight.
I’m 260lbs, and a kilogram is equal to 2.2lb., so I weigh roughly 118kg.
At 0.35g/kg, I would have been given a dose of about 40g of creatine, or 8 standard scoops from your creatine powder.
I’m a large individual at 6’4”, 260lbs, so let's say a more standard dose for a more normal sized human being would be 20-25g per this study, to fight the negative effects of sleep deprivation.
I would recommend starting a little smaller to see how you handle a mega dose, as that high of a dose could make some run to the bathroom.
I’d start with a 5-10g dose, and then do another in a couple of hours, and then another in another couple of hours to stagger out the dose a little more.
I’m actually a bit sleep deprived as I type this today, not terribly, but enough to feel some of the effects, and I actually took a smaller 10g dose of creatine with 10g of essential amino acids (EAAs) prior to writing this segment, and even at that dose, I felt a noticeable “pick-me-up”, so I can attest to the validity of this research on a smaller scale, even in this very moment.
In short, if you’re waking up short on sleep, try mixing up a larger dose of creatine in the AM to give your brain the extra cognitive fuel it needs when it’s not fully recovered and detoxed from the previous day.
Now, more on all of the incredible benefits of creatine…
Creatine: A Conditionally Essential Nutrient
Widely considered a sports supplement for athletes, and anyone looking to improve their workout performance and recovery, there is growing research (“growing research” being the keywords, as it means we’re most likely just scratching the surface on the importance of this molecule and its role in optimal function of the human body) showing the critical role creatine plays in optimal function of the human body, and is quickly being recognized as an essential nutrient for everybody.
So how does creatine work?
In a fairly recent paper published on PubMed titled, Perspective: Creatine, a Conditionally Essential Nutrient: Building the Case, it describes creatine as “a major component of energy metabolism that is abundant in human skeletal muscle, brain, and heart.”
In short, creatine plays a critical role in the reuptake of ADP back into ATP in your cells.
ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate) is the source of energy in your cells. So, the more ATP you are producing at the cellular level, the more cellular energy you have, which makes everything in the body work and perform better.
Ultimately, the human body is a bag of bacteria, water, and about 30-40 trillion cells.
When your cells use up their ATP, the byproduct is ADP. Creatine helps your cells turn ADP back into ATP.
You can see why this extra cellular energy in your muscles is beneficial for athletes, but who wouldn’t want to also benefit from more muscular energy in your workouts, and in your everyday life?
We also now know that muscle is actually the largest organ system in the body, and plays a critical role in disease prevention and overall longevity.
Your heart (another organ where creatine should be abundant) is the hardest working muscle in the body, which means more creatine can help it produce more cellular energy, which in turn, allows it to work less hard, relieving it of stress, and potentially lowering the risk of a severe cardiovascular event over time.
Finally, there’s an estimated 86 billion cells in the human brain. Imagine the improvement in daily cognitive function, and the potential for lowering risk of brain/age related disease if all 86 billion of those cells were producing more energy on a daily basis, over time. (Or the immediate, short terms benefits a high dose of creatine can have when sleep deprived)
For more info on the growing research on creatine and it’s benefits on cognitive function, check out this paper on PubMed, Creatine supplementation and brain health.
It’s becoming pretty clear that we all need creatine for optimal health and daily performance, so let’s dive in a bit more about how we get creatine.
Creatine is synthesized in the body naturally, so it’s a critical molecule that is required for growth, development, and overall health no matter the individual.
Okay, so creatine is a necessary molecule for optimal health, and it’s produced internally, so you’re good right?
Not so fast.
The growing research on creatine has surfaced two important dilemmas concerning the endogenous synthesis of creatine within the body, and the amount of creatine required for therapeutic and ergogenic (enhancing performance, stamina, and recovery) benefits.
Dilemmas
- Some people contain a fairly common genetic snip that negatively affects the body’s ability to synthesize creatine naturally.
- It appears that even those who do not contain this genetic snip, (meaning they don’t have any issues with internal creatine synthesis) still do not synthesize enough creatine to yield optimal therapeutic and ergogenic benefits.
What does this mean?
This makes creatine an “essential” nutrient for the body under most conditions, and should be treated as such.
An essential nutrient is a nutrient that is required for normal function of the body, but is not produced within, or not produced in adequate amounts for optimal health, making an essential nutrient, a nutrient you must consume through food or via supplementation.
In the case of creatine, it’s conditionally essential because it appears we don’t produce enough of it internally to meet the demands of the human body for optimal function.
How to get more creatine through diet or supplementation.
Creatine is found naturally in red meat, so if you eat solid amounts of red meat, you are probably getting enough in combination with what you synthesize internally, for more optimal function and benefits.
However, research has shown that loading creatine around strenuous activity (e.g. exercise) yields the most benefits systemically. Because of this, even though I consume a lot of grass-fed red meat and wild game, I still supplement with creatine prior to workouts.
Also, if you are on a vegan or vegetarian diet, you may really want to consider supplementing with this conditionally essential nutrient for muscle, heart, and brain function, as there are no plant based whole food sources for creatine.
Thank you for the work you do.
As we head into the Labor Day holiday weekend, I’m taking time to reflect upon the immense gratitude I have for the work all of you do.
Regardless of what you do for a living, you are all equally important, and I thank you for that.
Yes, there are issues facing our culture and society, and we all have our differences with one another, (this will most likely never change), however, collectively, I think we’re doing alright.
Ultimately, I think we live in an amazing country, ripe with opportunity, and to keep it this way, it requires all of us showing up and embracing our individual roles to make this whole thing work.
And by and large, it does.
And so I thank you for your efforts, for the work you do as an individual, to make this whole thing we’re all participating in known as the human condition, so incredibly amazing to be a part of.
