Eight-Week Creatine-Glucose Supplementation Alleviates Clinical Features of Long COVID

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  • SLANKAMENAC Jelena
    Applied Bioenergetics Lab, Faculty of Sport and PE, University of Novi Sad
  • RANISAVLJEV Marijana
    Applied Bioenergetics Lab, Faculty of Sport and PE, University of Novi Sad
  • TODOROVIC Nikola
    Applied Bioenergetics Lab, Faculty of Sport and PE, University of Novi Sad
  • OSTOJIC Jelena
    Applied Bioenergetics Lab, Faculty of Sport and PE, University of Novi Sad Faculty of Medicine, University of Novi Sad
  • STAJER Valdemar
    Applied Bioenergetics Lab, Faculty of Sport and PE, University of Novi Sad
  • CANDOW Darren G.
    Faculty of Kinesiology and Health Studies, University of Regina
  • RATGEBER Laszlo
    Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Pecs
  • BETLEHEM Jozsef
    Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Pecs
  • ACS Pongrac
    Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Pecs
  • OSTOJIC Sergej M.
    Applied Bioenergetics Lab, Faculty of Sport and PE, University of Novi Sad Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Pecs Department of Nutrition and Public Health, University of Agder

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<p>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 η2=0.72; left paracentral grey matter F=19.243, p=0.019; partial η2=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.</p>

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