Does the cell biosynthesizing creatine (ESPECIALLY in vegetarians, who lack creatine) consume methyl donors, and if so, can supplemental creatine reduce DNAm age by allowing methyl donors to focus on methylating DNA instead?

#1

(from a post made to my facebook wall): "
Creatine has many benefits like improving vascular health and boosts ATP production. One benefit is it takes about half your available methy donor groups to make the creatine you need so supplementing should help boost the availability of methyl donors for converting homocysteine to methionine, and other crucial biochemical processes. I’ve got chronic fatigue and just started loading on 20g a day and after five days will go on to 5g a day. I have NMN in the fridge, but since discovering it can sabotage your NAD+ salvage pathway which is your main available source of NAD+ I’m not sure what to do with it. I’ve recently added apigenin and was already on curcumin extract and high-dose melatonin and quercetin and N-acetylcysteine to lower inflammation and boost glutathione. Actually the antioxidants and anti-inflammatories have been too effective in lowering my iron, a side effect I wasn’t trying for, and I found out this week I have low iron for the first time ever. Something else to add to my daily stack, and something to think about getting tested if you are also on the above supplements, or even just 1g of vitamin C daily. I’m now looking forward to the energy boost I should get by boosting my iron back to normal."

#2

Alex K. Chen “This is REALLY deep if true - source? This could ALSO mean that supplemental creatine could reduce epigenetic age”
The endogenous synthesis of creatine requires methyl groups. An adult human synthesizes about 2 g of creatine daily and if you get 2 or more grams daily from diet/supplements then you can spare the body from needing to synthesize it and spare it from using the methyl groups it would require to do so. Instead the body can then use the methyl groups to reduce homocysteine. See this study as an example:
"creatine synthesis does account for approximately 40% of all of the labile methyl groups provided by S-adenosylmethionine (SAM) and, as such, places an appreciable burden on the provision of such methyl groups, either from the diet or via de novo methylneogenesis. "

Reply
1hEdited

I take 6g of betaine daily to help with my Hyperhomocysteinemia, but not consistently. I found too many beneficial supplements for it to be easy to take them all daily, so I often just ‘pulse’ for a while.

Reply
10m

“creatine synthesis does account for approximately 40% of all of the labile methyl groups provided by S-adenosylmethionine (SAM)”, so creatine could be a far cheaper way of boosting methyl donors than taking SAMe. I was surprised to find the connection, as I’ve taken creatine occasionally for years and never realised the methyl donor benefits. Since being diagnosed with Hyperhomocysteinemia I have had a big interest in boosting my methyl donors, as they assist in turning the homocysteine back into methionine.
Reply
4m

#3

Have you checked your methylation genes, on something like 23andme?

I am homozygous C677T, which raises my Homocysteine (HCY) risk. My first HCY was only 8.4.

I started on a supplementation stack: Homocysteine less than 6 - ApoE4.Info Wiki

And now HCY is 5, sufficiently low.

Have you explored this?

2 Likes