 The average blood levels of homocysteine in men is about one and a half points higher than in women. Maybe that's one of the reasons why men tend to be at higher risk for cardiovascular disease. Women don't need to make as much creatine as men since they tend to have less muscle mass, and that may help explain the gender gap in homocysteine levels. If you remember from my last video, in the process of making creatine, your body produces homocysteine as a byproduct. Maybe for people with stubbornly high homocysteine levels that don't sufficiently respond to B vitamins, perhaps creatine supplementation may represent a practical strategy to draw homocysteine levels down into the normal range. It seemed to work in rats, but in humans it worked in one study, this one, but didn't seem to work in another study, this one, or this one. And in this study, homocysteine levels were even driven up. So this whole suggestion that taking creatine supplements would lower homocysteine was called into question, but all those studies were done in non-vegetarian. So they were effectively already supplementing with creatine every day in the form of muscle meat. So they were basically just testing higher versus lower supplementation. Those eating strictly plant-based make all their creatine from scratch so maybe more sensitive to an added creatine source. But there were never any studies on creatine supplementation in vegans for homocysteine lowering until now. They took a bunch of vegans who were not supplementing their diets with vitamin B12, so some of their homocysteine levels were like through the roof, a few as high as 50 when the ideal was more like under 10. But after taking some creatine for a few weeks, all of their homocysteine levels normalized before and after. Now they didn't really normalize, which would have been under 10, but that's presumably because they weren't taking any B12. Give vegetarians and vegans vitamin B12 supplements, either daily dosing or once a week, and their levels really normalize in a matter of months. But the fact that even without B12, that you could bring down homocysteine levels with creatine alone suggests, to me at least, that if your homocysteine is elevated on a plant-based diet, meaning above 10, despite taking B12 supplements and eating greens and beans to get enough folate, well then it may be worth experimenting with supplementing with a gram of creatine for a few weeks and see if your homocysteine levels come down. Why one gram? That's approximately how much non-vegetarians are not having to make themselves. That's how much erased vegetarian discrepancies in blood and muscle, and how much has been shown to be safe in the longer term. How safe exactly is it? Well, I mean, one can take a bit of comfort in the fact that it's one of the world's best-selling dietary supplements with literally billions of servings taken, and the only consistently reported side effect has been weight gain, presumed to be from water retention. The only serious side effects appear to be among those with pre-existing kidney diseases taking whopping doses like 20 grams a day. A concern was raised that creatine could potentially form a carcinogen known as N-nitrososarcazine when it hit the acid bath of the stomach, but when actually put to the test, this does not appear to be a problem. Bottom line, doses up to 3 grams a day are unlikely to pose any risk. Provided high purity creatine is used, and as we all know dietary supplements are not regulated by the FDA, may contain contaminants or not actually contain what's on the label. Contaminants generated during the industrial production. When researchers looked at 33 samples of creatine supplements made in the US and Europe, they all did actually contain creatine, which is nice, but about half exceeded the maximum level recommended by food safety authorities for at least one contaminant. The researchers recommend that consumers give their preference to products obtained by producers that ensure the highest quality control. Easier said than done. Because of the potential risks, I don't think people should be taking creatine supplements willy-nilly, but the potential benefits may exceed the potential risks. If, again, you're on a healthy plant-based diet, taking B12 and your homocysteine levels are still not under 10, I would suggest giving a gram a day of creatine to try to see if it brings it down. The reason I did this whole video series all goes back to this study, which found that although the overall cardiovascular disease risk is lower in vegetarians and vegans combined, they appeared to be at slightly higher stroke risk. I went through a list of potential causes, arrived at elevated homocysteine, and the solution? A regular, reliable source of vitamin B12. The cheapest, easiest method that I personally use is one 2,500 microgram chewable tablet of cyanocobalamin. In fact, you can just use 2,000 micrograms once a week, and cyanocobalamin is the most stable source of B12. Take that once a week. And then as I detailed in this video, a backup plan for those doing that, and still having elevated homocysteine is an empirical trial of one gram a day of creatine supplementation, which has been shown to improve at least capillary blood flow and those who started out with high homocysteine levels. The bottom line is that plant-based diets appear to markedly reduce our risk of multiple leading killer diseases, heart disease. Type 2 diabetes and many common types of cancer, but an increased risk of stroke may represent an achilles heel. Nonetheless, they have the potential to achieve a truly exceptional health span if they face this problem forthrightly by restricting salt intake and taking other practical measures that promote brain artery health. Nonetheless, these considerations do not justify nutritional nihilism, on balance, even strictly plant-based diets offer such versatile protection to long-term health that they remain highly recommendable, most likely the optimum strategies to eat plant-based, along with going out of the way to eat particularly protective foods, as I talked about before, regular aerobic exercise, and most importantly, taking your vitamin B12. Oh, and try not to huff with cream-charging canister gas.