5 grams of Kre-Alkalyn is equivalent to about 10–15 grams of ordinary Creatine”; that it is “an alternative to all the bloating, cramping, and other side effects associated with traditional creatine supplementation”; and, that it is “the world’s most potent creatine” [28]. The manufacturer cites several clinical studies on their website performed in Bulgaria to support their claims [28, 30]. However, we could find no peer-reviewed articles cited in the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed related to “Kre-Alkalyn”,

or “buffered creatine” from the purported study authors or anyone else. One paper that was presented at the International Society of Sports Nutrition annual meeting in 2007 reported that the conversion of creatine to creatinine from CrM at a pH of 1.0 and 37°C was less than 1% after 5, 30 and 120 minutes while KA had a 35% greater conversion to creatinine under Selleckchem 4SC-202 similar conditions [31]. However, full details of this study have yet to be published. Our research group has extensive

experience in conducting clinical research studies on the efficacy and safety of supplementing the diet during training with various NVP-LDE225 cell line forms of creatine [9, 25, 26, 32–39]. As a result, AlzChem AG (Trostberg, Germany), a primary raw material provider of pure creatine monohydrate, provided a grant to our university to conduct an independent research study to compare the effects of supplementing the diet with KA at recommended doses (1.5 g/d for 28-days) and creatine equivalent loading (20 g/d for 7-days) and maintenance doses (5 g/d for 21-days) of KA to CrM (20 g/d for 7-days, 5 g/d for 21-days) on muscle creatine retention, body composition, strength, anaerobic capacity and markers of health status. We also sought Acyl CoA dehydrogenase to determine whether ingesting the purported buffered

form of creatine would be associated with fewer side effects than creatine monohydrate as claimed. Theoretically, if KA is indeed a more efficacious form of creatine, the recommended doses of KA (1.5 g/d) would be as effective or more effective than consuming standard loading (20 g/d for 7-day) and maintenance doses (5 g/d for 21-days) of CrM on increasing muscle creatine levels and training adaptations with fewer side effects. Additionally, ingesting creatine equivalent loading and maintenance doses of KA would theoretically promote greater effects with fewer side effects in those ingesting standard loading and maintenance doses of CrM. Methods Experimental design Table 1 presents the general experimental design employed in this study. The study was conducted in a double-blind, randomized controlled manner. The independent variable was the type of creatine ingested.