What Is Collagen: ‘Fountain Of Youth’ Or Edible Hoax? - Part 1

The Case Studies Of The Effectiveness Of Collagen 

Jessica Sansevera looked in the mirror and discovered the holidays had not been kind to her skin in January 2019. Overindulgence in caffeine and sugar had left her with welts of rosacea-related acne around the mouth, winter dryness and stress had deepened her fine lines. 

Sansevera, a 30-something mother of two and a schoolteacher from Westchester. NY, says she wanted to do something preventive before those lines got too etched in as the skin was just not where it should be for a woman her age. 

Fancy treatments and expensive creams were off the table due to her sensitive skin. She took a different inside-out approach at the advice of her dermatologist. That was when she began by spiking the morning smoothie or coffee along with a scoop of ground-up cow or fish parts that are collagen. 

Her acne abated replaced with a rosy glow within a month. She noticed a host of other unexpected changes within 3 months. Her nails were found thicker. The hair stopped falling out during a shower. Without pain from her knee osteoarthritis, she could dance. 

Noting that she also cleaned up her diet and added a probiotic to her daily routine, she stresses it is not a miracle pill. She, therefore, believes the collagen is helping. It comes that Sansevera’s discovery is hardly a new one. 

In hopes of smoothing withered skin and preserving aging joints, Chinese women have for centuries viewed collagen which comes to be a protein binding tissues in fish and animals as a fountain of youth when routinely consumed with foods like pig’s feet, shark fins, and donkey skin. Collagen became the best known in the 1980s as an expensive injectable filler to plump lips and soften lines in the United States. As companies have come up with more appetizing ways to take it, that includes fruity chews, vanilla-flavored-coffee creamers, single-serving sachets, as well as easy-to-swallow capsules with edible collagen begun to catch on only in recent years. 

From celebrities like Kourtney Kardashian who starts her day with a hot collagen beverage, the Instagram endorsement hasn’t hurt. Suggesting it can improve skin, ease arthritis symptoms, promoting wound healing, and fending off muscle wasting, former sceptics in the medical field are beginning to come around thanks to a small but growing body of evidence. 

In the current situation, it was found that consumers expected to spend $293 million on collagen supplements that are up from just $50 million in 2014 according to market research firm Nutrition Business Journal in the United States in 2020. The market is projected to reach $6.5 billion by 2025 as globally collagen makes its way into more foods and beverages, topicals, and even the operating room. 

Questions remain about how well it works and how safe it is despite its popularity. 

Mark Moyad, MD, director of the complementary and alternative medicine program at the University of Michigan Medical Center is of the opinion that believing it does hold promise in some diverse areas of medicine definitely among the top three products people ask him about. Also, it comes to be one of the wackiest and controversial. 

The Body's Scaffolding

Often called the body’s scaffolding is collagen. 

As explained by New York dermatologist Whitney Bowe, the author of The Beauty of Dirty Skin: The Surprising Science of Looking and Feeling Radiant from the Inside Out it is a glue that holds the body together. 

Providing volume that keeps skin looking plump and keeping lines at bay is the collagen making up about 75% of the dry weight of your skin as she says. Needing to maintain and repair your tendons, bones, and joints, it is also rich in the amino acids proline and glycine. 

Noting that we begin to lose about 1% of our collagen per year in our mid-20s and lose as much as 30% during the first 5 years of menopause she says that we break it down faster than we can replace it as we get older. 

So How Do We Conclude This Part?

Since it doesn’t last as long as other fillers and tending to prompt allergic reactions, injecting collagen has fallen out of favour in many medical skincare practices. It doesn’t absorb well as Bowe says when it’s put on the skin. 

She was sceptical when she learned a few years ago that people were eating it instead, whereas since then she has changed her mind.

As Bowe says there have been some impressive studies showing that ingestible collagen can indeed impact the appearance of skin just in the last few years.