Creatine Interactions

Daily high-dose caffeine taken throughout a creatine loading week may modestly blunt creatine's strength benefit, but ordinary pre-workout caffeine in someone already taking creatine daily is at worst neutral and often additive. There is no safety concern at normal intakes.

Creatine raises muscle phosphocreatine to regenerate ATP during very short, explosive efforts, while beta-alanine raises muscle carnosine to buffer the acid build-up that limits efforts lasting tens of seconds to a few minutes. Because they address different limiters of high-intensity performance, the two are commonly stacked, and the added benefit is modest and additive rather than dramatic.

Taking creatine together with carbohydrate raises insulin, which increases how much creatine skeletal muscle retains by stimulating the sodium-dependent creatine transporter. The effect mainly speeds up the loading phase; long-term muscle saturation is reached either way with daily consistency.