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08.07.2023

Creatine supplementation makes the immune system more resistant to infection

Neutrophils are the shock troops of the immune system. The cells eliminate pathogens such as viruses, bacteria and parasitic microorganisms through processes such as phagocytosis and netosis. Creatine supplementation kicks up this neutrophil activity. This is shown by a Japanese animal study.

Study
In 2022, Suguru Saito, a virologist from Jichi Medical University, published a study in Bioscience of Microbiota, Food and Health in which he infected mice with a lethal amount of the bacteria Escherichia coli K-12.

Seven days before Saito infected the mice, the researcher started giving some of the test animals a daily amount of creatine. As long as the mice were alive, Saito would continue to do so. If the mice had been adult humans, they would have consumed roughly 4-6 grams of creatine per day.

Results
Eventually all mice died. However, the mice that had been given creatine lived longer than the mice that had not been given creatine.

Saito found fewer bacteria in the spleen and liver of the mice that had received creatine than in the organs of the other mice. Apparently creatine inhibited the spread of the bacteria through the body.

When Saito took neutrophil immune cells from the mice's blood and studied them, he saw how creatine inhibits the spread of the immune system. Neutrophils are immune cells that can kill germs via, among other things, phagocytosis [uno] and netosis [duo]. Neutrophils use free radicals [ROS] in both processes.

Saito found that creatine supplementation increased free radical production by neutrophils and stimulated phagocytosis and netosis.

Conclusion
"Creatine is easily supplemented orally in humans as a powder-based supplement," Saito writes. "Therefore, it can be used for self-maintenance of the immune system on a daily basis."

Of course, this is just an animal study. Human trials must first determine what creatine supplementation does to the human immune system, Saito thinks.

Source:
Biosci Microbiota Food Health. 2022;41(4):185-94.

More:
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