“It’s going to make your pores and skin look dewy and recent, your bones and nails robust, and your joints pain-free.
These are the claims made by the numerous producers of collagen dietary supplements that come within the type of powders, capsules and lotions.
For that motive, it’s no shock that collagen has turn into a broadly sought-after ingredient within the wellness and wonder communities.
However collagen’s efficacy remains to be fairly up within the air.
Annoyed? What’s collagen? Collagen is likely one of the most plentiful proteins within the physique.
In actual fact, collagen is “the main structural protein that forms the connective tissue throughout our body, from skin to bones, muscles, tendons and ligaments,” stated Dr.
Shari Marchbein, a board-certified dermatologist based mostly in New York.
It’s no surprise that the bottled up model of this protein (often fabricated from animal collagen) is in excessive demand.
Collagen makes up a whopping 80 % of our pores and skin, and works with one other protein referred to as elastin that — sure, you guessed it — retains our pores and skin elastic.
However as we age, our our bodies naturally begin lowering collagen manufacturing.
The board-certified dermatologist Dr.
Whitney Bowe described our physique’s collagen as “ropes of protein within the pores and skin.
” After we’re younger, the rope stays tight, however as we age, the ends start to fray.
Beginning in our 20s, we start shedding about 1 % of our collagen every year, stated Dr.
Bowe.
Solar publicity, cigarette smoke and air pollution also can speed up collagen breakdown.
“The concept of supplementing our collagen, especially as we age and as our body’s natural collagen production declines, is incredibly appealing from a dermatologic standpoint,” she stated.
Dec.
12, 2019 — In January 2019, Jessica Sansevera seemed within the mirror and found the vacations had not been sort to her pores and skin.
Winter dryness and stress had deepened her high quality traces, and overindulgence in caffeine and sugar had left her with welts of rosacea-related zits round her mouth.
“My skin was just not where it should be for a woman my age, and I wanted to do something preventive before those lines got too etched in,” says Sansevera, a 30-something mom of two and schoolteacher from Westchester, NY.
Attributable to her delicate pores and skin, fancy therapies and costly lotions had been off the desk.
So, on the recommendation of her dermatologist, she took a unique “inside-out” strategy.
She started spiking her morning smoothie or espresso with a scoop of ground-up cow or fish components — aka collagen.
Inside a month, her zits abated, changed with a rosy glow.
And inside 3 months, she seen a number of different surprising adjustments.
Her nails had been thicker.
Her hair stopped falling out within the bathe.
And she or he might dance with out ache from her knee osteoarthritis.
“It is not a miracle pill,” she stresses, noting that she additionally cleaned up her weight-reduction plan and added a probiotic to her every day routine.
“However I completely imagine the collagen helps.
” Sansevera’s discovery is hardly a brand new one.
For hundreds of years, Chinese language girls have seen collagen — a protein that binds tissues in fish and animals — as a fountain of youth, routinely consuming meals like pig’s toes, shark fins, and donkey pores and skin in hopes of smoothing withered pores and skin and preserving getting older joints.
In america, collagen grew to become finest identified within the Nineteen Eighties as an costly injectable filler to plump lips and soften traces.
“