Bite Size: What Creatine Actually Does to a Desk-Bound Brain | Dr Tom Buckley

0:00Welcome to Performance Intelligence, the show that unlocks potential for everyday life. If I say the word CREATIN to you, you might think a gym bag and a protein shake. That's about to change. Dr Tom Buckley has spent his career researching human performance. And in this conversation, he talks through a body of research on CREATIN that has nothing to do with building muscle. A recent meta-analysis found measurable improvements in memory, attention and processing speed in adults taking cruising, completely separate from any strength benefits. Now, Tom is careful and so am I. This is not a claim that CREATIN makes you smarter. The research does not support that and Tom says so directly. What it does show is specific and is really useful for anyone whose job is mostly mental or cognitive rather than physical. For a desk-bound brain rather than a gym-bound body, this reframed a supplement most people have never thought to take unless they're going to the gym regularly.

1:04What the research says and where the evidence is strong and where Dr Tom thinks people are already heavily science is what we discuss in this episode. What have you found out about brain performance? Because a lot of the emerging science behind CREATIN talks about brain energy metabolism. There's even been some studies looking at depression, sleep deprivation and aging brain. So hot off the press after doing meta-analysis and digging deep like you do, Dr Tom, hit us. What are you seeing around the psychological benefits? I think there's enough evidence now that it would be fair to say that CREATIN may have a newer protective effect and certainly enough evidence that it does enhance cognitive function, particularly in tasks requiring short bursts of intense mental effort. That makes sense when you think about how CREATIN works. Remembering that our brain, I've heard you often say that Andrew and your talks, we're not brains on a stick, you know, it's all into relationships.

2:05So it kind of makes a lot of sense when you think about it. There was a systematic review meta-analysis in 2024 in frontiers of nutrition. And it had 16 studies in there or randomized control trials. So you know, trying to control for those other confounders. 492 participants in there. So a reasonable sample size, broad age between anywhere from 21 to 76. So a broad range of healthy individuals and some patients who had specific diseases. And what they found there that there were significant positive effects on memory, attention time. So memory and attention time being two of the big ones. But really, importantly, improving processing speed time. So processing speed time to me is a little bit like the mental equivalent of being in the gym. You know, it's high demanding cognitive task. They didn't find any effects overall in overall broader cognitive function or executive function.

3:09And it seemed to be more beneficial in from a mental or cognitive function individuals with diseases. So they may have had deficits already. And those under the age of 60 seem to have the biggest benefit. And also in females, interestingly here when it came to cognition. I think too, I looked a bit broader than that. And you know, one of the highest journals, medical journals, showed that even a single effect, single dose of creating improved cognitive performance during high energy or high cognitive tasks. So I think we can say there is good evidence. Now does that mean everybody will get it and every time you can't guarantee without any supplement. And you know, but there is definitely enough evidence to say that there's a strong association with creating supplementation and high mental cognitive tasks.

4:09I knew it, putting creatin in my smoothie most days is making a huge difference to my cognitive performance. So I've seen the shift. Have I been... I get nervous when you laugh like that. It's your nice word saying, let's move to the next chapter. And Andrew, you're always uncomfortably, physically, mentally. So of course I didn't know it was just... I'm actually... I'm not. You need to see me on the holidays. It takes me about a day now to downregulate maybe one and a half. And by the end of the holiday, like it really is... It's interesting. If we could do another podcast on that, just when we talk about that pulsing between high static load and then recovering. At the end of the holiday and I come in on the first day, I thought it was Monday this week. My brain was misfiring. It takes a while to pick it up again. Yeah. Yeah. But that cycling, we should do it. Everything we do, right? Tides rise, tides falls. There's seasonal change, summer, spring, winter, autumn. I think everything we do then needs to be a seasonality around it.

5:12It does. And also I think there are periods where your ability or your need to memorize a lot more things can change over time. Your ability to be focused and have high attention can change. You don't need to be 100% focused in high attention seven days a week, 24 hours a day. And there are times and roles and jobs and tasks where you're sort of processing speed. I quickly can work things out, become critical. And in those times, the evidence would suggest a creating supplementation could play a role there. It's not going to make you more intelligent. It's not going to increase your IQ. It's not going to increase your executive functioning, but it may help you optimize what your capabilities are. And I found that fascinating in the nature of research article, how even a single dose really improved cognitive performance and process of speed. I found that fascinating. But that may shouldn't really surprise us, Andrew, because when you were, you know, when you were a national level athlete and you're getting ready for the national 1500 meters,

6:20what you ate or drank before that race would have had a direct relationship with how you performed too. You know, if you went into that and you hadn't eaten correctly and fueled for that race, then you weren't going to perform. And I guess we should expect the same with the brain. And it's long term. I'm glad you pointed out it's really reaching what we would say is your performance intelligence or your performance potential. It's not going to give you this superpower that you don't already have. It's tapping into what you've got and optimizing that. And just before we get into the effects of CrayoTain on the brain, let's go to a quick ad. Hi, it's Angela from the Performance Intelligence team. We hear a lot about people leaving Andrew's keynotes inspired, but it's what they do after the event that really counts. Here's Peter, who met Andrew at a recent road show he presented across the country, sharing how one talk completely shifted the way she approaches her life and work. It was a very easy period workwise.

7:21I was quite sety and then quite low energy. And then having this very energetic guy talk to us about why we needed to take time out for ourselves and initially I found Andrew a bit confronting. Like I've got two young kids, got this big job where I'm working extended hours. I was certainly very time poor. That he basically said like your life is about the everyday habits. And if you're not giving permission for yourself to adopt better habits, then think about what your kids are seeing. And that is really what resonated for me. I myself lost quite a bit of weight, so I was definitely the heaviest side of it being. Like I said, I was really poor energy and I lost at least 10 kilos myself over that period of time. And I've been able to keep it off, so that's been definitely an added benefit. What's great about this is that Peter didn't just listen. She acted, redesigning her work rhythms, building in recovery breaks and setting clearer boundaries around protecting time.

8:27And the result? Boosted energy levels, sharpened focus and showing up as a more present leader for her team. Peter is now much more conscious of the choices she makes on where to invest time and energy. Not just at work, but also at home. And this has made a big difference. Andrew's Keynotes don't just motivate. They create lasting change you can see and feel. Visit andromay.com to find out more. Now back to the podcast. I do have a couple of questions for our listeners and our viewers on YouTube. In our workshops and our executive performance and leadership capacity workshops, you and I are always banging on about how the brain uses so much energy. That's why we start with that energy blueprint because you said rightly, it's not physiology, psychology separated. It's this whole intertwined mixture. And the more work we do together, we more realize, look, some people are head down, some are feet up. We would like to get everyone heart-centered so you can go up and down, change their picture. But when you look at the brain using so much energy, just give us a bit of an overview.

9:28How does creatin help or does it not help with this whole energy use and the brain? If you look at your heart, it's continuously beating, non-stop from birth till death. It's non-stop, it doesn't rest, it doesn't stop. So it's really the greyhound or the canyon long distance runner of the body. And it will take its fuel sources in a way that you can actually close down blood supply for a period of certainly minutes. It will continue to move from aerobic to an aerobic. And provided that doesn't go on more than 20 minutes, those heart cells can actually be salvageable. So it's a long distance, athlete, and yes, it needs blood supply and it needs nutrients. But it's not like the brain, the brain, the brain uses a lot more glucose. So the brain is far more glucose dependent. And so you think about an individual who has diabetes and they get a hypodlycineic attack, either blood sugar drops.

10:34Brain function will drop before heart function drops. Does that make sense? In other words, that heart isn't as dependent on glucose for energy as what the brain is. So the brain has a high metabolic demand and needs a constant supply of blood, constant supply of glucose, constant supply of energy. And therefore creating that improves that ability to synthesize the energy, to make the ATP, to keep the brain, it makes a lot of sense that in high demand, such as processing speed or memory or high cognitive demands, it makes sense that if you have optimized the nutrients and the brain, and you've optimized the factors that facilitate the making of energy that creatine would have an effect there. Hi again, it's Andrew and I hope you've really enjoyed that episode. We would appreciate if you helped to amplify the performance intelligence podcast by sharing episodes with your friends and with your colleagues by going to iTunes and leaving a rating and review.

11:38This really does help get the message out to a wider audience and I love reading the comments as well. If you'd like to know more about booking me as a speaker at your next annual conference or company offsite or purchasing one of the books I've written, including Matchfit, or if you'd just like to receive my monthly e newsletter, the performance pots that has stacks of information specific to all things human performance, go to performanceintelligence.com and we'll see you on the next edition of Performance Intelligence. You