In a lab dish, adding insulin doesn’t make rat leg muscle cells take up more or less creatine, even when the insulin level is normal for a living body.

12

Pro

0

Against

Evidence from Studies

Supporting (1)

12

Community contributions welcome

12

Creatine uptake in isolated soleus muscle: kinetics and dependence on sodium, but not on insulin.

Cohort Study

Animal

1999 Jun

Scientists tested whether insulin helps muscle cells take in creatine, and found it doesn’t — just like the claim said.

Contradicting (0)

0

Community contributions welcome

No contradicting evidence found

Gold Standard Evidence Needed

According to GRADE and EBM methodology, here is what ideal scientific evidence would look like to definitively prove or disprove this specific claim, ordered from strongest to weakest evidence.

Source Study

Creatine uptake in isolated soleus muscle: kinetics and dependence on sodium, but not on insulin.

Score: 12

DOI: 10.1046/J.1365-201X.1999.00539.X

Similar Assertions

When scientists lowered the sodium levels around rat muscle cells, the cells absorbed much less creatine—showing that sodium is needed for creatine to get inside these muscle cells.

12

0

77%

Insulin helps your muscles take in more creatine by making blood flow better and boosting a pump-like system in muscle cells, which helps bring in more nutrients.

11

12

74%

When insulin is present, it tells muscle cells to pump more sodium and potassium around, which creates a better environment for the cell to pull in more creatine — a compound that helps muscles store energy.

6

13

73%

When insulin is added to rat leg muscle, it makes the muscle’s sodium-potassium pump work 23% harder, which lowers the sodium inside the cells by 27%—but it doesn’t create more pumps to do this job.

13

0

71%

If you take creatine along with a big dose of sugar (93 grams), your body releases more insulin than if you take creatine by itself — at least in healthy men.

32

0

71%