Applied Bioenergetics Lab, Faculty of Sport and PE, University of Novi Sad.
Faculty of Medicine, University of Novi Sad.
J Nutr Sci Vitaminol (Tokyo). 2024;70(2):174-178. doi: 10.3177/jnsv.70.174.
Preliminary studies demonstrated beneficial effects of dietary creatine across different post-viral fatigue syndromes. Creatine is often co-administered with glucose to improve its potency yet whether glucose boost the efficacy of creatine in long COVID remains currently unknown. In this report, we investigate the effects of 8-wk creatine intake with and without glucose on patient-reported outcomes, exercise tolerance, and tissue creatine levels in patients with long COVID. Fifteen male and female long COVID adult patients (age 39.7±16.0 y; 9 women) with moderate fatigue and at least one of additional long COVID-related symptoms volunteered to participate in this randomized controlled parallel-group interventional trial. All patients were allocated in a double-blind parallel-group design (1 : 1 : 1) to receive creatine (8 g of creatine monohydrate per day), a mixture of creatine and glucose (8 g of creatine monohydrate and 3 g of glucose per day), or placebo (3 g of glucose per day) t.i.d. during an 8-wk intervention interval. Two-way ANOVA with repeated measures (treatment vs. time interaction) revealed significant differences in changes in total creatine levels between the groups, showing an interaction effect at two brain locations (right precentral white matter F=34.740, p=0.008; partial η=0.72; left paracentral grey matter F=19.243, p=0.019; partial η=0.88), with creatine and creatine-glucose outcompeted placebo to elevate creatine levels at these two locations. Several long COVID symptoms (including body aches, breathing problems, difficulties concentrating, headache, and general malaise) were significantly reduced in creatine-glucose group at 8-wk follow-up (p≤0.05); the effect sizes for reducing body aches, difficulties concentrating, and headache were 1.33, 0.80, and 1.12, respectively, suggesting a large effect of creatine-glucose mixture for these outcomes. Our preliminary findings suggest that supplying exogenous creatine with glucose could be recommended as an effective procedure in replenishing brain creatine pool and alleviating long COVID features in this prevalent condition.
初步研究表明，膳食肌酸对不同的病毒性疲劳综合征都有有益的影响。肌酸常与葡萄糖一起使用以提高其效力，但葡萄糖是否能提高肌酸在长新冠中的疗效目前尚不清楚。在本报告中，我们研究了 8 周肌酸摄入与葡萄糖联合使用对长新冠患者的患者报告结果、运动耐量和组织肌酸水平的影响。15 名患有长新冠的成年男性和女性患者（年龄 39.7±16.0 岁；9 名女性）自愿参与了这项随机对照平行组干预试验，他们有中度疲劳和至少一种其他长新冠相关症状。所有患者均采用双盲平行组设计（1：1：1），接受肌酸（每天 8 克肌酸一水合物）、肌酸和葡萄糖混合物（每天 8 克肌酸一水合物和 3 克葡萄糖）或安慰剂（每天 3 克葡萄糖），tid 治疗 8 周。重复测量的双因素方差分析（治疗与时间的交互作用）显示，各组间总肌酸水平的变化存在显著差异，在两个脑区（右侧中央前白质 F=34.740，p=0.008；偏η=0.72；左侧旁中央灰质 F=19.243，p=0.019；偏η=0.88）显示出交互作用效应，肌酸和肌酸-葡萄糖混合物的作用超过安慰剂，使这两个部位的肌酸水平升高。在 8 周的随访中，肌酸-葡萄糖组的多种长新冠症状（包括肌肉疼痛、呼吸困难、注意力集中困难、头痛和全身不适）显著减轻（p≤0.05）；肌酸-葡萄糖混合物减轻肌肉疼痛、注意力集中困难和头痛的效应量分别为 1.33、0.80 和 1.12，表明该混合物对这些结果有较大的影响。我们的初步研究结果表明，在外源性肌酸中添加葡萄糖可能是一种有效的方法，可用于补充大脑肌酸池并缓解这种普遍情况下的长新冠特征。
