Kre Alkalyn – Is It Really The Best Form Of Creatine? – A review by Kre Alkalyn

Kre Alkalyn (TM) is a proprietary creatine blend that is claimed to be 10-20 times more effective than pure creatine monohydrate at penetrating muscle cells. The patent holder claims that Kre Alkalyn uses a buffering agent to make creatine more active and stop the conversion to creatinine. Creatinine is a by-product of creatine metabolism and is considered a waste product that makes it undesirable for the bodybuilder.

Standard creatine comes in many forms that compete with buffered creatine such as creatine malate, creatine citrate, other creatine salts, creatine monohydrate, and creatine ethyl ester. These forms of creatine also claim to have close to 100% absorption and are also touted as better forms of creatine. To test the claims that Kre Alkalyn has better bioavailability, we can consult the scientific literature. Also, what does the scientific literature say about the claims that 90% of creatine is converted to creatinine and therefore useless? Is Kre Alkalyn worth the extra money?

According to their patent, buffered creatine uses one of the following ingredients to act as a buffering agent: sodium carbonate, glycerol magnesium phosphate, hydroxide, carbonate, bicarbonate, chloride, tree latex, or a phosphate. In theory, these buffering agents help stop the conversion of creatine to creatinine in the acidic stomach. This conversion is supposedly stopped by adding these buffering agents that counteract stomach acid.

Buffered creatine has some studies published on the All American EFX website. Do studies support the idea that Kre Alkalyn is far superior to creatine monohydrate or creatine salts such as creatine malate or creatine citrate and creatine ethyl ester? The first study may support a slight improvement over other forms of creatine when examined.

Using 24 healthy Bulgarian weightlifting competitors, buffered creatine showed an approximately 2% increase in weight lifted over creatine monohydrate. To put this in perspective, if a weightlifter gained 300 pounds in a squat, after 60 days, the creatine monohydrate group would lift 325 pounds and the Kre Alkalyn would lift 332 pounds. It’s not exactly the stellar performance differences and vastly different absorption that Kre Alkalyn’s friends claim. Sure, lifting 7 pounds over 60 days is impressive, but it’s not a life-altering weight, even for a well-trained athlete. Furthermore, this study clearly disagrees with their claim that 90% + of creatine monohydrate taken as a supplement is converted to creatinine in the stomach and thus inactivated.

While it’s significant to see a 7-pound increase in weight lifted, is it possible that the real reason Kre Alkalyn works better is due to the baking soda in the product? Personally, I think that makes more sense. Certainly more than 10% of the creatine monohydrate is active, contrary to Kre Alkalyn’s claims, so it is not the additional creatine that is having the slight improvement. Most likely it is the baking soda. As an ergogenic aid, bicarbonate is very useful for high performance athletes. If you don’t know, you probably already have baking soda. It’s called baking soda.

So maybe Kre Alkalyn’s “secret” is actually just 5 cents of baking soda, which we know is good for high-performance athletes. A study of sodium bicarbonate in high-performance athletes confirms this claim. “Sodium bicarbonate and sodium citrate appear to be effective in activities of sufficient duration to generate a difference in the hydrogen ion gradient, which is characterized by a very high intensity and which involves large muscle groups.” (1) Large muscle groups is exactly what was studied in Kre Alkalyn’s article, so for large muscle groups, clearly bicarbonate will increase performance and therefore may explain the added benefit achieved in the study of Kre Alkalyn.

I suppose this is a benefit of taking Kre Alkalyn, the addition of bicarbonate. However, for the extra price, it doesn’t seem like it’s worth any extra money. Considering that the Kre Alkalyn site study used 7.5g of Kre Alkalyn per day and that will cost you around $ 35, it doesn’t seem like Kre Alkalyn is a good deal compared to creatine monohydrate and a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda. sodium as a buffering agent. . Additionally, there are more advanced creatine complexes on the market that contain crucial creatine enhancing cofactors such as beta alanine and hydrolyzed amino acids. These complexes are usually cheaper and would certainly benefit from both standard creatine monohydrate and Kre Alkalyn. Hardly anyone takes pure creatine anymore, as there are advanced blends that have overshadowed them in performance by marrying creatine to numerous cofactors.

There are other studies from the Kre Alkalyn website that show, in fact, that this form of creatine with a buffering agent is stable and non-toxic, which is to be expected. Another study shows that Kre Alkalyn again performs slightly better than creatine monohydrate in a VO2 max test, but again this is probably due to the increase in bicarbonate in the mix, not the creatine itself changing from some way or better absorbed.

Based on this study, Kre Alkalyn appears to be missing a key factor from creatine monohydrate supplementation, increased DHT levels. This increased DHT levels in young men may be what makes them cranky on creatine, but it can also increase their penis size and potentially make them taller (4). This benefit is apparently negated by buffered creatine for some strange reason. Perhaps the added acidic environment pushes the body to produce more DHT from sources other than testosterone, which is a very good thing for young people. The fact that this healthy benefit is denied is a blow against buffered creatine.

So what about the claims that Kre Alkalyn is better absorbed due to creatine monohydrate being almost 90% broken down in the stomach? The scientific literature completely discredits this claim. In fact, scientific studies show that creatine monohydrate can certainly be 100% absorbed, a study stating that “creatine appears to be fully absorbed as creatine or creatinine was not detected in the stool.” (2,3) and creatine salts such as creatine citrate and creatine malate have also been shown to have close to 100% absorption (3). This completely debunks the myth by All American EFX, the maker of Kre Alkalyn, that buffered creatine is a better form of creatine for absorption and debunks the claim that 90% or more of standard creatine monohydrate is converted into the waste product, creatinine. Using muscle creatine levels as the standard, it was shown that almost all forms of creatine are absorbed and used.

All of this serves to really debunk the claim that unbuffered creatine is inferior to Kre Alkalyn. The data seem to indicate that any benefit from Kre Alkalyn is likely due to the bicarbonate or other buffering agent. The small amount of bicarbonate makes the supplement work slightly better than standard creatine monohydrate, but the differences are very slight even in high-performance athletes. If you really wanted buffered creatine, bicarbonate can be obtained from any kitchen in America as “baking soda.” You can make your own Kre Alkalyn by adding 1 teaspoon of baking soda to your creatine drink.

A serious shortcoming of most Kre Alkalyn supplements on the market is that the various advanced cofactors found in most pre-workout drinks seem to be lacking. These cofactors, like beta alanine, show greater improvement over pure creatine, making them a key component of any pre-workout creatine drink (5). The lack of things like beta alanine makes most Kre Alkalyn supplements inferior to the current leading pre-workout powders.

Creatine is great for you and should be used by any serious bodybuilder. It is a proven supplement with benefits for weightlifters, bodybuilders, the elderly, and middle-aged men and women. Regardless of which form you use, be sure to add this impressive nutrient to your workouts and enjoy the many benefits.

References:
1. Sodium bicarbonate and sodium citrate: ergogenic aids? J Fuerza Cond Res. February 2005; 19 (1): 213-24. Requena B, Zabala M, Padial P, Feriche B. Department of Physical Education and Sports, University of Granada, Spain

2.Jäger R, Harris RC, Purpura M, Francaux M. Comparison of new forms of creatine in increasing plasma creatine levels. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2007 Nov 12; 4:17.

3.Deldicque L, Décombaz J, Zbinden Foncea H, Vuichoud J, Poortmans JR, Francaux M. Kinetics of creatine ingested as a food ingredient. Eur J Appl Physiol. January 2008; 102 (2): 133-43.

4. 5 alpha-reductase deficiency in patients with micropenis. J Inherit Metab Dis. March 1997; 20 (1): 95-101. Gad YZ, Nasr H, Mazen I, Salah N, el-Ridi R. Department of Human Genetics, National Research Center, Dokki, Giza, Egypt.

5. Effect of creatine and beta-alanine supplementation on performance and endocrine responses in strength / power athletes. Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab. 2006 August; 16 (4): 430-46. Hoffman J, Ratamess N, Kang J, Mangine G, Faigenbaum A, Stout J. Dept. of Health and Exercise Sciences, The College of New Jersey, Ewing, NJ 08628, USA.