Creatine facts for kids

Creatine is a natural substance found in your body and in some foods, like beef. It's made from three special building blocks called amino acids: methionine, arginine, and glycine. Think of creatine as a super helper for your body's energy system. It helps create something called adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is like the fuel your muscles use to move and work hard!

Your body naturally makes creatine every day. It then changes creatine into a stored form called phosphocreatine. This phosphocreatine is kept in your muscles, ready to be used as quick energy. Your body has different ways to get energy, and creatine is especially important for activities that need a lot of power quickly, like sprinting or lifting weights.

How Creatine Helps Your Body

Creatine has two main ways it helps your body, especially your muscles:

Growing Stronger Muscles

Creatine can help your muscles look bigger. This happens because muscle cells that store creatine also hold onto more water. This extra water makes the muscle cells swell a bit, making your muscles appear fuller and larger.

Helping Muscles Recover

Creatine also plays a role in helping your muscles heal and grow after exercise. When you work out, your muscles get tiny tears, and they need to repair themselves. Creatine gives your muscle cells extra energy during this recovery time. This boost of energy can help your muscles absorb more protein, which is essential for repairing and building new muscle tissue faster.

Where Creatine Goes in Your Body

Creatine travels all over your body through your bloodstream. While many parts of your body use creatine, your heart and skeletal muscles are the main users. Skeletal muscles are the ones you use to move your body, like your arm and leg muscles. They need a lot of energy, and they need it fast, which is why most of the creatine your body makes is stored there.

Your body produces about two grams of creatine every day. About 90 to 95 percent of this creatine travels in your bloodstream to where it's needed. The small amount that isn't used is simply lost.

Images for kids

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  Creatinine is a substance related to creatine.

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  This picture shows how creatine helps move energy around inside your cells.

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  This graph shows how much creatine is in the blood over time after someone takes different types of creatine.

See also

In Spanish: Creatina para niños