It Not Only A Matter of Creatine
If you a smart athlete, then you know all creatines aren created equal. For years, companies have claimed the presence of creatine rather than the absence of impurities. Every company boasts 99% pure creatine. Whether that true or not is another story. What is true is that this claim only measures creatine. Through High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), it relatively easy to measure
how much creatine you have. It quite another matter to test for impurities. Keep in mind that, even with the latest HPLC testing methods, there still a 4% margin of error. That plenty of room for potentially harmful contaminants to creep in, and creep in they do. In fact, most companies do not perform a test for impurities. But my creatine looks pure and white, you say. Maybe it does. Creatine is like tap water or the air you breathe. You often can see the contaminants with the naked eye. If you buy your water, then you probably know that the water that comes out of your tap is most likely reprocessed sewage water that has been filtered and cleaned. Now, I don care how many times that water has been cleaned, I don like the idea of drinking the stuff I just flushed down the toilet. The pureness of anyone creatine has been, until recently, up in the air.
Patented Manufacturing Process
I spoke to the production guys at several companies, including Universal Nutrition. Independent lab test after lab test confirmed that Universal Nutrition creatine monohydrate is the purest on the market. Thanks to innovative and patented (#5,719,319) manufacturing technologies, their creatine has been tested as the best creatine in the world. In fact, when testing every manufacturer in the world, it was found that all other products were higher in creatinine, dicyandiamide, and dihydrotriazine. The reason for this is simple. 99% of the creatine on the market is only tested for the presence of creatine. Universal is also tested for the three major contaminants: creatinine, dicyandiamide and dihydrotriazine.
The Stuff Of Fertilizers
Creatinine (CRN) is a by-product of creatine synthesis. It is a waste product which is excreted in the urine. Creatinine has no ergogenic properties whatsoever. It also the stuff that you get when you leave creatine suspended in solution for a long period of time. Dicyandiamide (DCD) is a derivative of cyanamide. During creatine testing, large amounts of residual dicyandiamide indicates that the manufacturing process was either inefficient or incomplete. Like creatinine, DCD is excreted in the urine as a waste product. Premium creatine monohydrate should contain no more than 50 parts per million (ppm) of dicyandiamide. Where else might you find dicyandiamide? That easy?fertilizers, cleaning compounds, explosives, and detergents, among other less than appetizing products. In the presence of a strong acid, dicyandiamide, can convert into hydrogen cyanide gas (a common chemical warfare agent that highly toxic. Now if the stomach secretes powerful acids...you do the math. Dihydrotriazine (DHT) is another contaminant that results from improper creatine manufacturing. It belongs to a class of chemicals known as triazines and is a virtually unknown substance, pharmacologically and toxicologically. Until long-term studies are performed, we simply have no idea what dihydrotriazine will do to the human body.
Purity You Don Have To See To Know
The difference is CREAPURE creatine. When you see the CREAPURE logo on a bottle of creatine, you know you are getting 100% of the finest German creatine available, uncut and unadulterated. CREAPURE is guaranteed to be free of impurities and by-products, such as the ones mentioned above. I personally seen lab test results from nearly two dozen creatine manufacturers and distributors and the results weren pretty. The level of contaminants varied tremendously. One German company creatine contained less than 20 ppm of DCD, while a Chinese manufacturer topped the charts at nearly 20,000 ppm! Creatinine scores ranged from nearly 8,000 ppm to less than 50 ppm. DHT was not nearly as bad, with scores between 20 ppm and 500 ppm. The bottom line is that creatine quality can vary as much as water quality. Like I said before, you can drink pretreated sludge water or you can drink pure distilled water. With CREAPURE creatine, you know you getting what you paid for ?premium creatine monohydrate.