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We first heard of this Conret word this week in Tuesday's Bulk Nutrients Question & answer segment. The claim was that it is superior to other Creatine due to "enhanced solubility & plasma uptake."
They provided us with this link: CON-CRĒT | Creatine studies support CON-CRĒT ’s effectiveness
When we looked into it, we found that the word "Concret" was just a registered trademark name (like "Creapure") as a cover up for Creatine HCL.
Here was our answer...
The study is legit, yes Creatine HCL is 30 times (or whatever) more soluble than Creatine Monohydrate, but so is Creatine Ethyl Ester, and many others.
Solubility has nothing to do with effectivness!
Which was very clearly proven with CEE.
For the last 10 years companies have been coming up with all kinds of Creatines, ALL of them are more soluble than Creatine Monohydrate, however NONE of them have shown better results in terms of strength and muscle volume.
There is one study that exists which shows Creatine HCL being equal to Creatine Monohydrate using a smaller dose. This doesn't make it better as its far more expensive - so Creatine Mono is still much more cost effective.
The study also mentioned that Creatine HCL did not provide the same effects on muscler volume that Creatine Monohydrate did, so while it was fine for strength (at a much greater price) it still wasn't as good for building muscle size as creatine mono.
The sad thing about Creatine HCL is that manufacturers are jumping on one single study which suggests it is as good as Creatine Mono for strength (but not muscle size), compare this to literraly hundreds if not thousands of studies which prove the effectiveness of Creatine Monohydrate.
The validity of Creatine mono compared to everything else is ridiculous. It's like Daewoo builing a race car comparing it to a Ferrari, saying one study showed it accelerated as fast - but showed less reliabaility. You'd then look at Ferrari's long term reputation and realise they were a much surer bet, as they have proven themselves over years - as Creatine Mono has.
If you would like a good read, Will Brink is a very knowledgable guy who has reviewed a massive amount of studies on Creatine. He is a huge fan of Creatine Mono:
The Creatine Grave Yard
“Buffered” Creatine Update!
If you have any studies which show any form of Creatine is actually better for strength and muscle size than Creatine Mono, we would love to see them.