Mayo Clinic Studies Creatine Use Among Youth Athletes

ROCHESTER, Minn.--In the December Mayo Clinic Proceedings (75:1257-1263, 2000), researchers studied the prevalence, frequency and patterns ofcreatine use among high school athletes.

A six-question survey was filled out by 328 students between the ages of 14and 18 in Minnesota, where the Rochester Mayo Clinic is based. Out of thattotal, 8.2 percent (26 males and one female) reported using creatine, with 14students still using creatine at the time of the survey. Of creatine users, 21were football players and 19 respondents believed creatine improved performance.Side effects, including diarrhea, loss of appetite and muscle cramps, werereported by 20 percent of users. These findings are similar to a surveyconducted on 1,100 New York youth and creatine use presented by Jordan Metzl atthe combined meetings of the Pediatric Academic Societies and the AmericanAcademy of Pediatrics.

Researchers, led by the Mayo Clinic's Jay Smith, M.D., were most concernedthat male and female athletes as young as 14 years old used creatine. Also,creatine users may believe that creatine improves performance based oninsufficient information passed along by friends. According to the researchers,this is the first formal epidemiological survey of creatine use among highschool athletes. The researchers also noted that using a self-reporting formatmay lead to erroneous or incomplete information; they concluded that alarge-scale study is needed. For more information, visit www.mayo.edu/publication/proceedings/prologue.html. For more information on the survey presented in May, call Metzl at (212)606-1005.