Hello everyone,
Dr. Chuma here for another health segment.
Hype for collagen has resulted in an explosion of supplements, leading to a billion dollar industry. A dizzying array of products now proudly promote collagen as a key ingredient, hoping to entice customers with the promise of eternal youth and wellness. It’s been shown that just putting the phrase “contains protein” on a package label increases sales by 30%. So does splashing the word “collagen”.
Collagen is a fibrous structural protein found in just about all tissues of all animals, making it the most abundant protein on Earth. It accounts for 30% of the protein in humans. It is essential to overall joint, bone, muscle, skin and hair health. The human body produces collagen naturally but its production slows with age and as a result, skin loses elasticity leading to wrinkles, bone and muscle mass decline leading to weakness, and hair growth slows leading to thinning hair. In addition to aging, there are many modern factors which accelerate collagen breakdown. These include things like dehydration, excessive sun exposure, air pollution, smoking, lack of exercise and a poor diet. Chronic stress leads to inflammation and cortisol production, both of which break down collagen and impair its formation and repair. Certain diseases, deficiencies and medications can also hamper the body’s innate ability to make and repair collagen.
For example, commonly taken non-steroidal medications for chronic pain include Motrin, which is ibuprofen and Aleve, which is naproxen. Ironically, although these medications may reduce pain and inflammation in the short term, they also inhibit our natural collagen production and bone remodeling, significantly increasing the risk of needing a joint replacement and developing osteoporosis.
So how can we improve collagen health?
First of all, you can stop damaging what you have left. Avoid behaviors which destroy collagen and do the things which promote its maintenance and production like not smoking, limiting unprotected sun exposure, exercising more, crucial for tendon and bone health, getting good sleep which is when our bodies repair themselves and eating a healthier diet, avoiding foods which cause inflammation, especially sugar, processed and fried foods and minimizing animal products. YES, a whole foods, plant based diet is the best in this regard.
But most people want a quick fix with a supplement. On a purely scientific level, it doesn’t make a lot of sense that consuming collagen would improve our own collagen. All proteins we consume are broken down into individual or very small chains of amino acids (AAs), otherwise, we can’t absorb them. ALL foods, be they animal or plant contain all 20 AAs. Different foods contain different concentrations of them, but once absorbed, our bodies use those AAs in a prioritized manner to build whatever our bodies need, from hormones to cell walls to blood and muscle cells and this also includes collagen. Collagen from animal tissue may have a slightly greater proportion of the same amino acids that our own collagen contains so there may be some minimal theoretical advantage, but if our body needs the AAs to make depleted hormones for example, it will use them first for that anyway.
Collagen is derived almost entirely from the “throw away” parts of animals, left over after all the meat has been removed from their bodies. This includes skin, bones, hooves, tails, hair and tendons. In fact, these other body parts are more valuable to the meat industry than the meat itself. More than 66% of the profits come from them.
Once these left over animal components are ground up and mixed together, they are hydrolyzed, a process that breaks down long molecules into shorter strands of amino acids, essentially pre-digesting them for us.
Despite the claims made by collagen companies, the science on collagen is far from clear. Though some trials have found that collagen supplements improve skin elasticity, hydration and wrinkling, almost all of these studies were funded by collagen companies or related industries. Research is inconclusive on whether these improvements were due to collagen alone or the other substances they contain like minerals, vitamins like vitamin C known to be great for collagen health and compounds like hyaluronic acid, which helps maintain cellular hydration. There are some well done, academically funded studies that have shown some benefit of collagen supplementation in severe burn victims.
On another front, the collagen industry is disastrous for the environment. As demand for collagen has boomed, more and more rainforests, especially the Brazilian Amazon, are being destroyed to make way for cattle pastures, as well as land to grow the grains we feed them. Indigenous communities are displaced. Areas rich in biodiversity are destroyed and all of this destruction fuels climate change.
Marine collagen, derived from fish skins, bones, entrails and fins, isn’t much better in terms of its environmental, human rights and animal welfare impact. Marine collagen relies on a vast and corrupt industry linked to lethal bycatch, animals like dolphins, sharks and turtles, caught by accident. This collateral bycatch accounts for almost half of the sea life which is caught and killed in the fishing industry.
Plant-based foods like soy and legumes are known to help stimulate collagen production in the body. You can also boost collagen production by increasing your intake of zinc, found in foods like legumes, whole grains and nuts, and vitamin C, found in citrus fruits, leafy greens, peppers and tomatoes. As already mentioned, simple life-style changes like exercising more and managing stress and sleep can protect the collagen already in your body.
Despite the fervor from the beauty and pharmaceutical industry, collagen is not some holy grail offering eternal health and youth in the form of a single, lab-made supplement or powder. Collagen production poses a direct threat to animals, people and the environment, all when the evidence is still lacking that it can deliver on any of the questionable promises the industry makes to consumers.
Stop the damage and focus on healthful habits.
If you still want to supplement, there are plenty of ethically produced plant-based collagen products out there.
As July 4th is fast approaching, I would like to thank all those who serve and have served in the past, protecting our freedoms as well as fighting for justice worldwide.
Stay well and be safe.