Research
Hormonal
Creatine substrate cycling serves as a UCP1-independent thermogenic pathway in beige adipocytes, contributing to energy expenditure and thermogenesis.
While creatine is known for muscle performance, it also supports metabolic heat generation in fat tissue. Maintaining adequate creatine levels may support metabolic health, though direct supplementation effects on human thermogenesis are not fully detailed here.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Kazak et al. recently found that creatine substrate cycling stimulates mitochondrial respiration and serves as a thermogenic pathway in thermogenic adipocytes... These data support the role of the creatine substrate cycling pathway as an adaptive thermogenesis pathway in vivo.
Why this rating
Supported by genetic depletion studies in mice showing obesity when the pathway is inhibited.
Source
UCP1 Dependent and Independent Thermogenesis in Brown and Beige Adipocytes
Kenji Ikeda et al. · Frontiers in Endocrinology · 2020
DOI 10.3389/fendo.2020.00498
narrative_reviewCited 259×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Beige adipocytes utilize a UCP1-independent thermogenic mechanism driven by ATP-dependent Ca2+ cycling via SERCA2b and RyR2, which contributes to systemic energy expenditure and glucose homeostasis.Good
- Beige adipocytes can repress adipose tissue fibrosis and improve glucose homeostasis through mechanisms independent of UCP1 and body weight reduction.Moderate
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