In order to do any kind of activity (including being alive), your body's cells need energy. The most important energy molecule that cells use to perform work activities is ATP. This is also the case for your muscle cells. Your muscles use ATP to contract. Thus, to do physical activity, you need to power your muscles with energy. The more physical activity you do, the more energy they require. . When an ATP energy token is used, ATP liberates one of its phosphate groups, and this releases energy. When this happens, ATP becomes ADP. This ADP cannot be used again as an energy molecule until it gets recharged with another phosphate group (we do this by cellular respiration). . The interesting thing is that the muscles store another type of energy molecule called creatine phosphate, which can donate a phosphate group to ADP, turning it back into ATP. Therefore, the more creatine we store in the muscles, the more ADPs we can recharge into ATPs, and therefore the more powering of the muscles we can do. . The ATP regeneration process driven by creatine phosphate happens super quickly compared to the recharging of ADP that occurs via cellular respiration. This is why high creatine levels in your muscles allow you to do explosive physical activities like lifting heavy weights, sprinting, or jumping for a longer time. . Creatine monohydrate is the typical way creatine supplements are sold. These creatine crystals do not dissolve well in water. What you saw in the video is that when creatine finally dissolved in water (with the help of heat), the individual creatine molecules in the crystals dissolved into the water. But then, when the water in the creatine solution evaporated, creatine recrystallized, although in this case, it did so in the form of a different crystal shape because creatine is no longer in the monohydrate form. These new types of creatine crystals under the microscope and with polarized light are incredibly beautiful! . For this video I used an Olympus BX41 microscope at up to 200x magnification
#microscopy #microscope #creatine #creatinemonohydrate #creatinesupplement #drbioforever