Anyone with a passing interest in living well for longer should know by now that strength training can help arrest the decline of muscle mass that naturally occurs with age.<\/p>\n
But new research suggests middle-aged adults can add muscle mass just by supplementing with creatine.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n A 12-week clinical trial<\/a> from researchers at Texas A&M found that taking it regularly builds and maintains muscle mass and strength in adults aged 45 to 65\u2014even if they weren\u2019t doing any kind of strength training.<\/p>\n Latest Videos FromFit&Well<\/p>\n The study<\/p>\n In the clinical trial, 64 healthy individuals were randomly assigned to take 10g of creatine monohydrate or a placebo each day.<\/p>\n Additionally, participants could choose to take part in a structured exercise program and calorie-deficit diet, or continue with their usual lifestyle.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n The results showed that all of the participants who took creatine, regardless of whether or not they were exercising, gained some lean mass. The non-exercisers gained roughly 2.4lb, while the exercisers gained 2.8lb.<\/p>\n Strength improved, too, with both creatine-taking groups showing improvements in leg press strength, bench press strength, and muscular endurance. However, the exercisers made more significant gains in this area.<\/p>\n Why this is good news for midlifers<\/p>\n Muscle starts to naturally decline in midlife, which can impact everything from your calorie expenditure to your likelihood of injury. Building and maintaining it is one way to future-proof your body\u2014and this small study suggests that taking creatine can help with that.<\/p>\n But the benefits might not just be physical. While this study noted some exploratory improvements in memory and processing speed, broader research<\/a> indicates that the supplement helps with cognitive function. There are growing calls for it to be tested further in older populations and patients with dementia and cognitive impairment.<\/p>\n I know a lot of people who swear by creatine as a brain and energy boost. One writer who took creatine while training for his first HYROX<\/a> wrote that \u201cit was like it extended the battery life of my muscles and my brain\u201d.<\/p>\n Another self-described \u201cenergy-zapped mom\u201d found creatine improved her strength, brain power and mood<\/a>.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been taking it for four weeks myself. I\u2019d like to say that it\u2019s improved my fatigue levels and concentration, but I have an eight-month-old baby who acts like she\u2019s allergic to sleep. I\u2019m too tired to tell if it\u2019s working, but I\u2019ll report back once she sleeps through the night.<\/p>\n Shop creatine monohydrate supplements in the Amazon Prime Big Deal Days sale<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anyone with a passing interest in living well for longer should know by now that strength training can…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[134,111,139,556,69],"class_list":["post-623111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nutrition","tag-health","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nutrition","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}