Does creatine help build muscle in cancer survivors?

How to Build MuscleHow to Build EnduranceCancer Treatment & Natural Remedies

Jan 14

Written By JC

Cancer eats away at your muscle

Benefits of resistance exercise

Benefits of creatine

Should you take creatine?

Muscle loss from cancer & cancer treatment is responsible for 20-30% of cancer deaths.

The more muscle you lose, the more it lowers your cancer survival.

If you want a long happy life, then building muscle is the key.

To help build muscle, creatine has been widely studied in older adults.

Few studies have looked at the benefits of creatine on muscle building in cancer survivors.

Therefore in this guide you will learn:

How to build muscle
The benefits of creatine for muscle building
How much muscle you can expect to build
Whether creatine is beneficial for cancer survivors.

Let’s begin.

Does Creatine Help Build muscle in cancer survivors? — Can’t exercise because of cancer fatigue? Click Here to learn how to exercise when cancer fatigue hits

Cancer eats away at your muscle

Cancer is a disease that can feed on more than just sugar.

It can use lactate, amino acids, hormones (such as estrogen or testosterone), and fat to grow.

So, to put cancer to “sleep” many oncologists use:

Chemotherapy & radiation to kill or shrink cancer cells
Hormone therapy to block or reduce the production of hormones that feed cancer.

But, chemo and hormone therapies can affect your ability to grow and maintain muscle.

And the more muscle you lose, the more it lowers your cancer survival.

If you have lost > 5% of your body weight over the last 6 months and have felt:

loss of strength
loss of energy

Cancer may be eating away at your muscle.

And many drugs can also speed up the muscle loss.

After being diagnosed with prostate cancer,
I never expected that losing muscle would take over my life.
I am too weak to lift myself up off a chair.
My wife has to help me get up, bathe, and move.
I can’t go anywhere without my walker.
I’m skin and bones and have lost so much muscle,
my legs are about the size of my arms.
- Stage III Prostate Cancer Survivor

For example, hormone therapies such as:

androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) for prostate cancer
aromatase inhibitors (AI) for breast cancer

Both hormone therapies can cause:

Bone loss
Weight gain
Mood swings
Heart disease
Muscle loss

However, many of these side effects can be prevented with strength training.

And it's time for you 🫵 to fight back.

benefits of resistance exercise

Strength training is one of the best life-saving strategies for improving muscle mass.

Weight training alone can build muscle:

muscle mass
strength
power
endurance

And the earlier in treatment you start weight training the better.

Studies in men with prostate cancer have shown up to 2 - 2.5 lb of muscle gain in 12 weeks.
Studies in women with breast cancer have also shown similar results 1.0-1.6 lb of muscle in in 12 weeks.

However, to see similar results a proper routine is necessary

6-8 exercises per workout
- With 2-3 exercises that focus on whole body movements (squats, deadlift, push ups, row, etc)
- and 3-4 muscle specific exercises (leg curls, leg extensions, bicep curls, tricep extension, etc.)

6-12 reps per set
- with 2-4 reps shy of not being able to do any more reps
2-4 sets per exercise
- with proper form and progressively increasing weight every 2-3 weeks.
1-3 minutes of rest between sets
- 1-2 mins for a moderate set
- 3-5 minutes if it is a really hard set
2-3 days of rest between working out the same muscle groups

For a full work out guide on what exercises to include

and a structured plan of 101 cancer fighting workouts click the button below

Grab my free muscle-building guide

benefits of creatine

Creatine is a natural source of energy that your muscle use to for daily activity.

Your body naturally produces creatine but only in small amounts.

Scientist have found that you can increase how much creatine your

body uses by supplementing with creatine.

Generally, your body needs about 5 g of creatine a day to max out

how much creatine your body can store.

Creatine + Strength Training = Muscle Growth*

However, it is not magical, and it does require weight lifting.

Creatine helps improve muscle mass by increasing how many reps

you do for a certain amount of weight.

And the more reps you can do per set per weight, the more muscle you will build.

It allows you to challenge yourself more when you exercise.

And that extra energy it gives you to lift more weight has can help build ~ 2.5-2.8 lb of more muscle.

5g of creatine a day is safe for the general public, but more research needs to be done on its safety during & after cancer treatment.

Only 2 studies have looked at the benefits of creatine for cancer survivors.

This study compared, cancer survivors who lifted weights + took

creatine to cancer survivors who lifted weights + took a fake

creatine pill.

After 12 weeks of lifting weights, researchers saw:

Both groups significantly improved muscle mass
Both groups significantly improved strength

But there was no difference:

Between groups in muscle mass
Between groups in strength

Meaning, creatine did not seem to have an effect.

Both groups were tightly controlled, but the group taking creatine

did not grow significantly more muscle than the group without it.

However, they found that the group not taking creatine increased

~2 lb of fat during the 12 weeks.

Meanwhile, the group on creatine gained muscle and did not gain fat.

So, one potential benefit of creatine may be its effect on stopping

fat gain when taking ADT.

These results were also similar to the study done in head & neck

cancer survivors, which also found no statistical difference in muscle mass.

So, should you take creatine?

The studies on creatine + weight lifting did show an improvement

in muscle gain from lifting weights, but not from creatine.

Currently, there is no evidence to show it has a substantial effect on

muscle building for cancer survivors.

That being said,

studies have showed significant muscle increase after weight lifting alone in prostate, head & neck, and breast cancer survivors.

Resistance training alone has been shown to build 1.3 lb -2.8 lb of muscle in a 12-week period.

Muscle loss decreases with chemo and hormone therapy. So to

gain muscle while in cancer treatment is a significant benefit.

Because, around 40% of prostate cancer survivors are given ADT

and 70-80% of hormone receptor-positive breast cancer survivors

are placed on hormone therapy after surgery to reduce the risk of cancer recurrence.

JC Clinical Exercise Physiologist — Final Thoughts from JC — Clinical Exercise Physiologist & Cancer Exercise Specialist

I wouldn’t recommend getting creatine just yet.
While studies showed that there were no side effects for prostate cancer survivors on ADT,
we need more research on many different cancer
types and longer time frames of exercise before we
can see a true difference.
That being said,
the true impact of this study is showing the positive
effects following a proper muscle building routine has on cancer survivors.

So if you truly want to build muscle focus on:

1. One exercise at a time

2. Do it slow and controlled

3. Focus on full range of motion

4. Work on increasing intensity over time

5. Take longer breaks >3 mins if you pushed