Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 068: Creatine Causes Testicular Cancer?

Episode Date: April 24, 2015

There is a recent study that has tied creatine use to testicular cancer. If you are a regular gym goer there is a strong chance that you have taken creatine. If you have, has it compromised your health? Sal, Adam & Justin look closely at the study and weigh in on its validity.

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Welcome back to Mind Pump, the most offensive fitness of podcasts in existence. So pisses people off. We piss people off and we don't care. We have. This is Salda Stefano with Adam Schaefer

and Justin Andrews. Flexin. Book of bo! Flex to your famous. Flex it out. Whoa. Guys, we gotta talk about something important here. So crazy, something crazy happened last week.

It was all over Instagram, all over Facebook. People of course family members are sending me emails and texting me this. This was a study that was done recently and it was just published and it tied supplements and testicular cancer. In particular, they said, creatine and adrenaline, adrenaline, what's it called? Andrew, send it down. Wow, I couldn't even say that for a second.

So what's the deal here, guys? I mean, so you guys hear this, first of all. Can you, I actually haven't read the actual study. Have you actually read it? Thank you. See, God, that's why I love you. Well, because here's the thing, the first thing, here's the flag that goes right out the gates of me right now.

When you say something, it's such a vague statement. There's a lot of ways that I can put this study or the controls of this study or the exactly and there's a difference between correlation, right? Is there okay? You could say in a salgated analogy before that, you know, if every time it rains, the San Francisco Giants lose in baseball and that doesn't mean that this because it rains, it makes them lose at baseball, it just happens to be that there's just happens to be that there's a correlation between the two of it. It doesn't mean it's causation. So, you know, the first thing I think of right away is that, you know, sure, there could be, there could be some, there could be a people that take creatine and supplements

that could be testicular cancer. But those same amount of people, those are people that are working out. If you're taking creatine, you're somebody obviously who probably works out and works on the gym, which also can increase the rate that you might be someone who takes anapolx steroids. We should also can increase, which somebody takes painkillers and drugs. Like there's a lot of-

They live near a nuclear plant. Yeah, it's right there, give them. All of them. Yeah, it's like- You're there's so many other things. So not to say that it's not true. So I mean, I hope hopefully Sal's right at it and he can break it down for me.

But that's the first thing I think of- You know what it's the first thing I think of you know It's the microwave Especially when I when I'm pretty familiar with what creatine is and creatine's pretty simple. It's found in food Okay, and it's it's it's a natural substance. Yeah, it's a natural substance found in food We concentrate a little bit obviously to make it in a pill form or powder form, but for the most part It's pretty natural and safe. And a lot of stuff has already been studied on it.

Well, so check this out. So I want to go into this study first, and then I want to go into supplements in general, because this kind of stuff pisses me off. First of all, if you see a title on a news article, they are trying to get people to read it. They're trying to get people to click on their link. And so they're going to make it sensationalist. And so they're going to say, Cray team linked to stick your cancer. Okay, well, here's the fire story. Here's the study.

First of all, it was all interview based, so it's it was reported. They didn't control anything except for what the people said. Oh, shut the fuck up. Okay, so this is already garbage. So the study, the study itself, the study itself, you should not make any conclusions from it. It should be a stepping stone. So what you would do after this is say, okay, there could potentially be a connection here. Let's look a little further. But let's talk about the connection they made first. The interview included an assessment of 30 different types of supplements, and they didn't

separate them out. So if you took protein powder, if you took androesthenidone, if you took testosterone boosters, if you took creatine, if you took, then they're all in this category. So what they found is that people who take supplements have a higher chance of testicular cancer. Well, that could be related to artificial sweeteners that are going in there. That's altering your gut floor and doing other things that we, you know, that we, very good.

And it could also be, look, of all the, all the supplements, I'm gonna say something right now, creatine doesn't affect your balls, okay? It has nothing to do with your nuts. And, your balls respond to androgens. And there's something called a negative feedback loop with your hormones. So if I take testosterone, then my balls are going to shrink

because they're going to produce less testosterone as my body attempts to regulate and balance out the testosterone my body. When your balls shrink and grow, shrink and grow from going on off steroids, this has been connected to testicular cancer. They've tested in animals and it's loosely connected in humans. Okay? The only supplement I can even imagine that would cause something like that would be any some type of an andro and androgen like the andro stintedown. Which is the pro hormones which we've talked about before, which is worse than most

the most. Right. And by the way, the increased antisticular cancer is not much. It's significant in study sense, but it's not that much. So that being said, they didn't control for any of that stuff. I'll bet my house that it wasn't creatine. And why do you, let me ask you guys this, why do you think that the news article said creatine instead of, you know,

Andrastinidae owned or something else? Well, because you have more clicks. Exactly. Everybody knows creatine. So it's like creatine linked to to stick your other cancer. Exactly. Yeah.

Exactly. It'd be like an article saying beer makes you live longer. Right, right. Yeah. You're clicking on that shit, right? Everybody wants to read that so they can prove that it does, right? It makes you live longer.

Yeah, so that's the problem with that. But here's where I want to go. And then they talked about this in other articles that were actually quite responsible, as they talked about how impure some supplements can be. And this is based on a lot of studies, ladies and gentlemen, I hate to tell you this, okay? I am a huge supporter of the free market, of unregulation, of the free market regulating itself.

And supplements are incredibly safe. If you look at their history, they're incredibly safe. However, there's some unscrupulous supplement companies out there that are fucking it up for everybody, where they're testing these supplements and like, oh, we tested, I forgot what it was, was it target? I think they did, a bunch of target supplements or right aid supplements or like, oh, we tested. I forgot what it was. Was it Target? I think they did. A bunch of Target supplements or right aid supplements or whatever.

Yeah, yeah. It was one of the Walgreens. Walgreens. And they found that some of them didn't even contain the herb. They said they contain some of them contained other things in them. You listen, supplement company owners. Stop fucking the shit up because all you're doing

is you're giving the government an excuse to have expensive, ridiculous regulations for our quote unquote safety. Which number one is not going to make us any safer over the counter heavily regulated FDA drugs kill way more people than supplements ever have. And they have recalls on them all the time. I think Tylenol was recalled recently because of some impurity and that's regulated to shit. Number two, if you wanna pay $150 for a bottle of vitamin C, then let's go ahead and promote government regulation. Or number three, if you don't like your wonderful variety

of supplements you can get, then let's get regulated. Because I guarantee you about 70% of the supplements on the shelves will disappear if FDA gets their hands on that shit. So supplement companies, be responsible, make good supplements. And I guess the advice we can give, the listeners is go for reputable.

Yeah. Yeah. One thing I was trying to remember was the website that you could go to to kind of check a lot of these. Examines. Examines. Examines. Examines. Examines. Examines. the website that you could go to to kind of check a lot of these examin examin.com. Examin.com is a great website. Do a lot of your research there as far as what these companies are actually claiming

and it does a great job as far as kind of sifting through all that. That's right. And use, of course, use common sense. Something that's going to give you explosive changes in your body, it's probably going to cause other things to change as well. So there could be some side effects. And the other thing I think is a quick note that all supplement companies are guilty of doing is the claims of what the supplement does.

So saying something is a fat burner or saying something as a muscle builder is completely false. It's they're allowed to say that because it plays a role in that possibly happening in your body. You know, that's when you think about that, when you break down any all forces combined together. Exactly. When you think nutrition is on point, you think about pyruvae, liplotropic transport, all your, what else? Yeah, I do. What else is out there? That was, you know, everything's had its trend

where it's gone through and it's been the greatest thing ever. It's like, yeah, exactly. And all these things about how, no, they don't burn fat. It does not. And in fact, if you're in a caloric surplus all day long and you take those damn pills and shit gonna shit gonna happen, ain't gonna burn,

it's not gonna burn any fad at for you. No. So it doesn't work that way. And the same thing goes for taking the supplements that say it's gonna build a bunch of muscle on you. It doesn't work that way. You don't take a bunch of supplements and then work out and then it builds a bunch of muscle.

If you don't feed the body properly, then all that stuff can get thrown right out the window. So that to me, that's my number. When people ask a lot of supplement questions, I don't want to go like, well, let's talk about your diet a little bit. Let's first talk about that before we talk about all these different supplements that you could be taking because really that competitive edge that you're going to get from them, you're not going to get, you're not going to get it because there's, you're not even doing the foundational shit. If you're not doing the foundation, unless you're like insanely dialed in already.

Exactly. That's how I feel that. If there's room for improvement on your diet, and I mean improvement. So to me, you need to be pretty dang dialed to be adding in all these random supplements into your diet, just in my opinion. I think you can make healthier, smarter, cheaper choices by learning how to eat correctly first. And then you can try and add, it's there maybe supplement where you have a really hard time getting something, you know, maybe you don't, you know, you have a heart,

you struggle with getting enough protein, so you're taking some sort of a away protein supplement, you know, that's why you utilize it, or you know, you're training really hard, because you have some competitive thinking when I was here hitting double days, so maybe you're taking in some glutamine and some branch chanamino acids

because you need help with recovery. And you know, it's not where you really should do if you weren't training for something specifically is take a day off and rest and feed your body. Like you know, naturally do it. Like there's no need for any of that. But you know, if you are moving forward in a competitive sport and you don't want to take any time off

and you're begging the body up, then yeah, those supplements can give you the edge and help you out, but dude, it's so... Well, let me give you an example. So I'll give you an example. They'll take a group of people and they'll find that people who take a multivitamin live longer. So if you're selling a multivitamin, if you're a company that sells

multivitamin... What do you say? So then you're going to say, take multivitamin to live longer. But what they're not telling you is, what kind of people tend to take a multivitamin? Right. These are people that are already doing fitness and nutrition. Thank you. People who tend to eat right, who tend to exercise, and they take a multivitamin because they're concerned about being healthy.

So what is most likely contributing to the longevity? Is it the multivitamin or is it the fact that they have an active lifestyle and they eat right into all those other things? Here's another one. We've been told for a long time now, consume lots of calcium for stronger bones. And this is where, again, sometimes science messes up,

because they'll take two separate things and they'll say, okay, calcium is used to build bone. So if we give you more calcium, you should build more bone. Not true. I'll use a different example. Protein intake. Protein is used to build muscle. Does that mean if you eat more protein,

you'll build more muscle? Yeah, it's a big one right there. No, you have to have this. Or you'll have to have this in injection. Right, you have to have this signal. So if you're taking calcium, but your body doesn't want to build more bone, you're not going to build stronger bones.

You could take calcium, you could take as a shitload of calcium. It's not going to do anything for you. If the signal to build that bone isn't there. Now on the vice versa, if the signal to build stronger bones is there, you don't need a lot of calcium to do it. Your body wants to build stronger bones. It tends to find a way to do it unless you're at its severe deficiency. As a matter of fact, they're finding now all these recommendations for all this calcium

that they were telling people is contributing to potentially to heart disease and macular degeneration. Now some stuff's coming out. So you're kind of better off, you know, like Adam was saying, really focusing on that nutrition aspect. And if you're dialed in, then those supplements can give you that little extra push. Yeah, it's a little catalyst. It is, everything else.

Absolutely, and I take supplements. You know, I take a branching in the glasses, I take glutamine, I take creatine, but that's because I'm at a level where those things will make a difference. If I were at a lower level, it wouldn't make that big of a difference. Yeah, no, absolutely.

I've taken all kinds of supplements, probably only with every supplement of the sun, and I probably take the least amount, I've taken all kinds of supplements, probably only in every supplement of the sun. I probably take the least amount, but right now, the way I supplement is I kinda have just like all those things on my counter and it's as supplement as needed. I'll go sometimes weeks without having any supplements

because I've been just hitting day in, day out, real good on my nutrition. And I'm feel happy and I'm training and resting, I'm doing this, then the other times where I'm like, you know, I'm under, I'm not getting enough rest, I'm pushing the body too hard, like my meal timing isn't where I want it to be. I'm not quite getting the amount of macronutrients

I'd like to get into my body. So yeah, so I'm adding some things that kind of help me with that. Other than that, like it's, I'm always searching for to get everything I can nutritionally first. Now to circle back with creatine, in terms of creatine, creatine is one of the,

if not the most studied, ergo genic supplement. It's got hundreds of studies being done on it or have been done on it and continue to be studied. So far up to now, creatine has been shown to be extremely safe unless you have a health condition, let's say you have impaired kidney function,

then you can pretty much take it and you're fine. They're finding that it's got antioxidant properties for the rest of the body, including the heart. They're finding that it helps people with cognitive issues. Wow, has an oxidant properties? I didn't know that. Yeah, so they're also looking at giving it to people with Alzheimer's and stuff, because it actually improves cognition. No other, all these studies, all these studies that have happened

have shown no ties to any types of cancers, including testicular cancer. So this last study that came out, it wasn't focused on creatine, they didn't really control specifically for creatine, and they found a increase in Antistacharic Cancer. And I think it's, if it's due to any supplement, it's due to Androgen-based supplements, supplements that affect the hormones, because that's what happens. That's what affects your testicles, is hormones. Other than that, I'd say, keep taking it. It's safe, you know, you don't want to take a shit load

of every day, take it as advised loading. I don't think you should load crating. I think that's a load of shit, to be honest with you. I think that was the way to get through the supplement to take a near faster. It's about it. Just start taking, you know, between two to five grams a day. And I don't even take crating on the days I don't lift weights.

If I don't work, if I don't lift weights on a day, I don't take the creatine. I do the same, yeah. Yeah, I don't think it's necessary. Once your muscles get saturated with creatine, you don't need to take a shit load all the time just to keep them saturated. How hard was it for you to dig up that study?

Was it attached to the article, or did you have to go find it? All I did is Google Cratine and Testicular Cancer because it was all over the news. Oh yeah, I mean, people were spreading on Facebook. And so I'm sure a lot of the listeners have seen it. All I did is Google to stick you to a creating and to stick your cancer because it was all over the news. Oh, yeah. I mean, people were spread in on Facebook. And so I am sure a lot of listeners have seen it. Yeah, I've heard people asking about it and talking about it. I hadn't seen a natural study myself. So that's why when you said it brought it up, I actually examined.com broke it down for me. And I

recommend that you know, that's one of the best websites for objective supplement review. If you want to take a particular supplement, just look it up on examin.com and they will list not only with a list of all the studies that are done on it, they'll rank the studies. So they'll say this is a C, this one's ranked as a C and it shows some muscle growth, which you're not going to take as serious as an A, you know, graded type study. And then at the bottom, so they have easy to read charts, and then at the very bottom, they go into depth in terms of, you know, with the scientists'

state think or how certain things work or whatnot. So it's the most comprehensive site that I found, and that's where I get a lot of my information. It's extremely objective. I really enjoy it. That's actually really cool. I didn't even know that. Yeah, I've never I've never used that before. Exam examin.com. Examin.com. That's where I'll go. So lucky little plug you got there. I know. Hey, you know, getting some love for my brain. You're getting big hair. You might want to squands. I would you send us a check in the mail. Check in the mail.

Rinse to. Come on, plan. Rinse to the new place. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. For more information about this show and to get valuable Rents to the new place. you