(Originally published on ProjectWellnessNow.com
The first I’d ever heard of collagen was in cosmetics ads. Generally, it’s in anti-aging creams claiming miracles because the cream contains collagen. While collagen does promote youthfulness in several ways, it is actually very hard for your body to receive it through the skin, due to the size of its molecules.
On the other hand, taking collagen peptides as an internal supplement is kind of the new hot thing, and for very good reason.
Supplementing Diet
Until fairly recently in human history, we ate lots of natural bone broth because we had to actually boil the chicken in order to get chicken broth, beef for beef broth and so on. You know that jiggly jello-like stuff that happens after your fresh broth cools? That’s gelatin, and gelatin is what happens to collagen after it breaks down. Consuming gelatin-rich bone broth is close to the nutritional equivalent of taking collagen peptides.
Perhaps it is a good thing we’ve moved away from making fresh bone broth, because using today’s conventional meat would result in a gelatin with diminished nutrition and, sadly, whatever hormones, antibiotics, pesticides or other contaminants would have gotten into the animals’ blood, fat and bones—and that in concentrated form.
Since very little of our meat supply can be deemed “clean,” and since very few of us are in the habit of taking the 24-48 hours it takes to prepare a fresh, organic, “clean” broth, supplementation is not just a luxury for pretty skin but a MUST for overall health.
So what is collagen and why do we need it?
Why The Body Needs Collagen
Collagen is the most abundant protein in your body linked to the formation of tissues, bones, muscles, skin and even hormones.
Joints & Bones
This is actually how I discovered collagen for myself. I’d been working out a ton, which I love to do, and I love to go hard after it, and my knees were starting to get annoyed. I prayed and did a little research and came upon collagen. Here’s the scoop. Collagen comes from the Greek, “kolla,” meaning glue. Collagen is the biological glue that holds your body together. In addition to the skin organ, it’s what your tendons and ligaments are made of, and it also is shown in studies to trigger the production of osteoblasts—cells that form and maintain bone tissue. In fact, collagen is 90% of your bone mass (aka “bone matrix”) on which calcium and other minerals affix.
Without plenty of collagen in our diet and in our bodies, bone mass can decrease, connective tissues stiffen and shrink, which stress the joints and causes pain and inflammation. Within a week or so of supplementing with a high quality collagen, my knee discomfort was gone…
…but it doesn’t stop at my personal experience.
Studies have shown that collagen hydrolysate (i.e. peptides) supports joint health, reduces the risk of joint deterioration, reduces joint pain and improves joint mobility (1,2), and yet another study showed that supplementing collagen is effective in treating osteoarthritis and other joint disorders
Muscles
If you think that having muscle tone is for gym bunnies and body builders alone, give that a second thought.
Loss of muscle ages you rapidly and stresses all movement in your body, which leads to sickness and that becomes harder to recover from. The good news is that muscle loss is not unavoidable, and you can add collagen to your diet to help prevent it.
Collagen contains a key amino acid called glycine. Aging, compromised immune system and chronic stress all impair its production. This impacts your ability to maintain and build new muscle as glycine is a precursor to creatine, one of today’s most sought after supplements for building muscle. Creatine is beloved because it increases muscular endurance during training so you stay “pumped,” literally and metaphorically, enabling to you to handle more workload, which in turn helps you build more muscle in less time.
In plain english, ingesting collagen not only helps to improve energy during workouts, but also helps your body repair and build healthy lean muscle.
Skin, Hair, Nails & Teeth
Collagen production tends to slow as we age, which is why wrinkles, sagging skin and thinning hair are also associated with aging. Collagen is necessary for skin to maintain thickness and elasticity, for keeping cellulite at bay or at least invisible, and for building and nourishing heathy hair, nails and teeth. Add collagen to your regular supplementation to support a beautiful complexion, and for healthy renewal and repair of the cells that make up skin, hair, teeth and nails.
Leaky Gut & Digestion
Leaky gut is a serious condition that leads to other serious conditions, but its symptoms can be deceivingly mild. A bit of indigestion here, some heartburn there. Collagen helps to heal the gut lining and also assists digestion. The Gut Health Project explains it this way:
Similar to how collagen helps tighten and tone your skin, it also helps tighten and tone your digestive tract.
Collagen contains amino acids that are essential to cell growth. Those growing cells work to repair your damaged intestinal wall. By closing up those widened pores, it helps keep harmful toxins (such as gluten) from passing into your bloodstream.
Collagen also helps restore the integrity of your mucosal wall and boosts gastric juices, which are essential for proper digestion.
While you don’t need every supplement on the shelf, with modern stressors and the depletion of nutrition from most people’s diet in the US and elsewhere, I do feel that certain supps should be at the top of everyone’s list—a food-based Multi-Vitamin, Omega 3 fatty acids, Probiotics, and Collagen Peptides.
