Ancient and brave. Collagen and creatine

[Fightingtobepositive]

Has anyone tried these supplements? If so how did you find them… I’m 39 and feeling old stiff and unfit. Skin has dramatically changed over the last year, hairs thinner and more wrinkles. I need something to give me a boost. I already eat a relatively healthy diet.

I mean really. It's there in black and white at the end. But I guess people don't look that far?

Funding
Alzchem supported the costs to publish this preconference paper aligned with the Creatine for Health conference 2025.

As I said before, these "scientific papers" are created by intersted parties to create links, and put words into the AI LLMs.

I usually spot it @Charabanc

This one was more convincing than usual. What can I say?!

Someone has to fund a study, it doesn’t mean the results are crap. I’ve taken part in a study for a supplement firm. They sent me free supplements and I had blood tests every few months to look at the results. Perhaps not as good as a double blind but there will still be some meaning in the data.

Sorry, am tired. Asked for a link to a "study" I already commented on!

They literally publish this stuff for LLMs to absorb, so that their nonsense comes up in Google AI summaries.

Of course it's not as good as a double blind. If it's not a double blind, it's useless.

There is no meaningful result to you saying "I felt a bit better, I think. And I think my hair grew a bit more, on these pills that I knew were "the supplement that you sell"".

I used Ancient & Brave as my first trial with collagen. Was good but didn’t last so long and more costly. Next tried Nutrition Geeks collagen which was on offer and didn’t taste as beefy in my tea, think I preferred it. In total using collagen for about 3 months now.

I don’t know if I wanted to see/feel the effects so much that I put any good feelings down to collagen. Recently I’ve actually not bought it again because as previous posters comment-how much is actually absorbed and affects my main concern-my skin. I’m really reading into legit studies and podcasts from various people for different answers. Is it all a marketing con??

Creatine I have got thru half a bag again from nutrition geeks. Really can’t get past the gritty feel and slight acidic taste change. Don’t think I used it long enough to feel any different

Thanks. There’s so much information out there it’s mind boggling. I want to start trying one but don’t know which.
I’ve been reading up on creatine and found it can cause hair loss 🙈 unlikely but possible. So don’t know again now. All I know is I need something for that boost.

@Fightingtobepositive something to add to the mix (sorry) the Welleco super elixir gave me a lift when I was feeling flat and rubbish. I had bags more energy and life in me, it’s expensive so I don’t take it regularly but I did buy a few tubs and the effects seemed to last (I took two full tubs consistently and then about half the third). I found it revolting when mixed with water but with coconut water it was ok, again gritty and looks unappealing but it did give me a lift. Maybe placebo effect but to be honest I don’t care if it is, I felt better and that’s what mattered to me.

I took it for a persistent Achilles tendinopathy which kept going on on and off for two years. I’m peri-menopausal. The tendon pain came out of nowhere and only subsided when I went on holiday in hot climates. I started on the marine collagen from A&B (a ChatGPT recommendation no less 😂). After taking it religiously for a month, that pain has gone away. The physio and his exercises couldn’t get rid of it because it wasn’t due to damage, but due to collagen fall-off. I’ve tried marine ones before and they have been vile. I put this in tea and I can barely taste it. In coffee it would probably completely disappear.

The initial study that I referenced was this: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S175646462400536X

these also make for an interesting read about some of the mechanisms and signalling involved in the hair follicle:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1756464624001269

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9569759/

The thing about creatine causing hair loss was from a study of rugby players, and did not measure their hair loss, only DHT levels which could be a factor in exacerbating genetically sensitive individuals to pattern hair loss- but as the hair loss wasn’t measured here it is unknown, just assumed by lots of people nervous about higher DHT levels. The other thing to factor in is that these were men playing rugby who will have naturally higher levels of DHT anyway (although they controlled for this with glucose vs creatine) but also worth mentioning that the dose of creatine was 25g, rather than the 3g as usually recommended…

a recent study that did look at 5g creatine on hair loss did not find any changes using modern analysis methods (although could be argued the follow up wasn’t for long enough) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40265319/
so unless you are have abnormal hormone issues, have strong family history of pattern hair loss and planning to take huge excessive amounts the scare about hair loss and creatine is just that- scares- there is no evidence to say that at normal amounts it would cause any problems for general hair growth.

"may" doing a lot of heavy lifting there

5. Conclusion
This study suggests that APCPs may enhance hair shaft elasticity and gloss by increasing the expression of key keratins

Caffiene inhibits the absorption of creatine, mixing it into tea/coffee (unless it’s decaf) will stop it doing anything. I’ve been taking the MyProtein creatine for several months and I’m not seeing any significant improvement in my mental clarity.

Ooo thank you @MarvellousMonsters I didn’t know that

That is not a thing. There's no reason not to drink coffee and take creatine.

There are plenty of studies demonstrating that caffiene causes a reduction in creatine absorption and efficacy.

So there is some kind of adenosine/creatine reaction, is there?

does creatine make you more bloated? I feel like I’m holding onto more water

I have tendinitis in my Achilles too. Is the collagen still helping yours? Would you still recommend it?

Do collagen supplements work to reduce signs of skin ageing? - BBC News

I can’t say I’ve give it enough of a go to be honest. I had a little swelling in my face a couple of weeks after starting it (I don’t think it was related) so I stopped taking it for a while. Now I’ll try again. I can’t say I seen a different but it was only a few weeks and it does say to give it atleast 4 xx

@BellissimoGeckoyes it’s helping and my ankle continues to not bother me. I’ve reduced the dose from 10ml to 5ml and it’s still fine. I’ve been taking it for about three months now.

I’ve also started taking the Type II for my osteo-arthritic knee (all these lovely problems showed up during peri-menopause)

is Ancient & Brave type 2?

Yes. Used their collagen (bovine and marine) for 12 months and didn’t notice any particular benefit. Have stopped now, 4 months on and not noticing a difference either. BtW age 50.

I do however love their night time drink and do sleep better when I have a mug of it.

They have both. Marine (mine) and Bovine are Type I. Type 2 is chicken cartiledge - it may come in powder form but I take the capsule version.