As anyone who has been following my stuff over the decades knows, I’m not a fan of liquid creatine products or ready-to-drink products that contained creatine. Why? Because creatine is not stable in liquids and test after test of products claiming they were stable, was demonstrated to be false. A few tests and additional thoughts on that topic can be found HERE. Now, I have not seen tests for every single liquid creatine/liquid product containing creatine on the market, but the many that I have seen over the years, had high levels of creatinine and low levels of creatine, or virtually no creatine having converted completely to creatinine. Hence, my faith in liquid creatine or liquid products that contained creatine hovered at zero. For those not familiar with the topic of creatine -> creatinine conversion, refer to the link above for more info.
The only real drawback to creatine monohydrate (CM) is that it has poor solubility, which is a major reason companies are always attempting to come out with new and improved forms of creatine to compete with CM, usually claiming it’s 9,193,027 better absorbed than CM, but I digress. CM is absorbed fully and to date, not one new and improved wiz bang high tech competitor to CM has demonstrated any superiority to CM, which is a topic I have covered HERE if interested via The Creatine Graveyard.
With that introduction, has someone finally cracked the code to produce a creatine product that’s stable and soluble in liquids? Glanbia Nutritionals is a company best known for producing high quality whey, but is also involved in a wide array of research and development of sports and health related products, a company that’s science oriented and has solid reputation all around. If anyone would crack the code I have faith they’d do it, and they appear to have gotten further than anyone else. They have developed a product called CreaBev ™ which is a stabilized soluble creatine product designed to be added to ready-to-drink products, . They have tests showing it remains stable up to a year in neutral PH beverages with approx 30% creatinine conversion at one year. So, a full year shelf time, there’s still an active dose of creatine in the product. While of course I’d prefer to see 90-100% stability at 1 year in liquid, 30% at one year considering how rapidly creatine converts to creatinine normally, is pretty darn impressive. It should be noted that while creatinine does not have the health and ergogenic effects of creatine, it’s not harmful to ingest for healthy people.
How did they achieve this voodoo? I don’t know frankly, and understandably, the company is keeping that info proprietary and close to the vest. I have my theories as how that’s achieved, but not going to stress over it. Knowing the company as I do, I have little doubt the figures they’re supplying are well vetted on their end.
The product is available to companies looking to add creatine to ready-to-drink products and is not available via individual sales. It will likely be found in various retail products in the near future, so keep an eye out for that. For additional information, hit link supplied above.
Will Brink is the owner of the Brinkzone Blog. Will has over 30 years experience as a respected author, columnist and consultant, to the supplement, fitness, bodybuilding, and weight loss industry and has been extensively published. Will graduated from Harvard University with a concentration in the natural sciences, and is a consultant to major supplement, dairy, and pharmaceutical companies.
His often ground breaking articles can be found in publications such as Lets Live, Muscle Media 2000, MuscleMag International, The Life Extension Magazine, Muscle n Fitness, Inside Karate, Exercise For Men Only, Body International, Power, Oxygen, Penthouse, Women’s World and The Townsend Letter For Doctors.
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Thanks for the update. The Bang Energy Drink With CoQ10 & Creatine claims to contain creatine. Should I assume it’s unstable liquid creatine?
Thanks
Jerry Bruton
Without seeing the actual tests, I’d be highly skeptical
Thanks for the reply. I had my doubts above the product.