creatine-growth-hormone

Creatine loading following by 22-27 weeks of maintenance (3g creatine and 7g glucose) followed by another loading phase prior to competition failed to significantly improve sprint performance or prolonged swimming performance. There was a decline in growth hormone associated with the loading phase, but this was attenuated with maintenance and IGF-1 was unaffected.

Creatine loading in amateur athletes improved their swimming performance on a single 50-m sprint (by 4.6% relative to placebo) but failed to improve the 100-m sprint. When all hormones were measured in a rested state, neither growth hormone nor cortisol had changed significantly, but testosterone had increased by at least 15%.

In athletes who reported (retrospectively) creatine usage for up to four years, there was no significant adverse effect on healthy markers, although a nonsignificant trend to increase testosterone and decrease LDH (lactate dehydrogenase, a liver enzyme) was noted.

This small unblinded (crossover) pilot study has noted that acute oral ingestion of 20 g of creatine resulted in a high growth hormone spike (83±45%) in healthy males.