Bone Abstracts

Objective: We investigated the effect of creatine administered in the diet for 10 weeks on bone turnover and bone quality in male Wistar rats.

Methods: Rats were divided (after approval of Ethical committee 9814/2008–30 and 30793/2010–30) into four groups, ten animals in each group. G1 SLD-A group were fed a standard laboratory diet (SLD). G2 SLD-B group were fed SLD and 12 h before rats were sacrificed diet was removed. G3 CREA-A group was fed with 10% creatine (CREA) enriched SLD. G4 CREA-B were fed CREA and 12 h before rats were sacrificed diet was removed. The bone mineral density (BMD, g/cm²) was determined using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. The femurs were used for biomechanical testing. Bone marker concentrations were examined of N-terminal propeptide of procollagen (PINP; pg/ml), bone alkaline phosphatase (bALP, ng/ml), bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP-2; pg/m), the carboxy-terminal cross-links of collagen (CTX, pg/ml) and insulin-like growth factor (IGF; pg/ml) in bone homogenate using the ELISA method. Results are expressed as the mean or median.

Results: Differences results in biochemical tests in rats A and B suggest that standard preanalytical conditions are essential particularly for analytes PINP, BMP-2 and IGF1, more resistant is bALP and CTX. Decrease of PINP and increase of IGF1 was observed in CREA-A and CREA-B in comparison with SLD-A and SLD-B groups. BMD did not show differences between groups. Body fat was higher in in SLD-A 17.830 (S.E.M. 1.298) versus CREA-A 10.920 (S.E.M. 0.669). Biomechanical properties of bone tended to decrease in CREA-A and -B in comparison with controls.

Conclusion: The results suggest that the use of products with the addition of creatine, often used by bodybuilders affects bone metabolic rate and long-term use can be expected to change BMD.

Acknowledgements

Research project PRVOUK 37/11 Charles University in Prague, SVV– 2012 – 264902.