Q: Someone who is a medical professional, but not a doctor, told me recently that he advised against creatine use because it could cause micro-tears in the heart muscle and create cardiac issues – even heart attack – if it’s used at all. That has me worried. True or not?

A: I’d like to see the studies that actually outline that finding. This is the kind of thing that people perpetuate irresponsibly, because they are ignorant and don’t know. A little knowledge is dangerous. I’ll bet it was your nutritionist and he’s a strictly “by the book” guy with no practical experience. The heart is a muscle and the mechanisms of creatine, and how it works, expanding muscle tissue via expansion of cell volume, via fluid. So technically speaking, it could happen, since micro-tears in muscles can happen. But remember that the heart is a different kind of muscle than skeletal muscle. I shouldn’t cite studies I can’t go back and find, but I am sure I have read that there have been studies where cardiac-protection is the end result of sensible creatine use. Also, the prevention of Type II Diabetes.

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