Yes. And no.
If like many people, you're struggling to meet your daily protein requirements, collagen powder might be helpful. Just remember that it will be broken down (aka digested)-- into its constituent amino acids, mostly glycine & proline, maybe some lysine-- and need to be re-assembled again where it's needed. And this "re-assembly" process requires vitamins & minerals (and bizarre things called quinone cofactors (PQQ is the best known) that also might need supplementing.
Vitamin C & magnesium
Copper (and to a lesser extent, iron)
CoQ10
How do you know if you need more magnesium, vitamin C, copper, CoQ10 or the rest?
Genova Diagnostics' NutrEval test is my (heads & shoulders) preferred way. (see or purchase at my Rupa Health page: link) Exa also has a great buccal swab test for actual tissue levels of magnesium. Not available in NY or RI though.
But in general, anyone under a fair degree of daily stress is going to need extra C and Mg. CoQ10 you really just have to test for. And copper must be balanced with zinc-- so you really kind of need to know levels of each. Most people under chronic stress (or with chronic viral infections their immune systems need to keep in check) are also often low on zinc.
And, of course, after a certain age one also needs to think about hormones: estradiol primarily, but even progesterone & testosterone. (read a bit more on this here) And hormones too need to be in balance. Measured & monitored, including their metabolites.
Perque's Dr. Russell Jaffe actual did his PhD thesis on collagens & elastins, so we sought him out as a reliable source.
"Every 25 years or so," he explained, "collagen as a supplement comes into vogue. And then quickly goes out of vogue. Mostly because it is a very inexpensive protein to harvest."
It is harvested from the hooves and skin of animals that have been rendered. Whatever is left after all of the valuable parts of the animal are removed can be processed, heated and extracted to derive either collagen or gelatin (denatured collagen) easily and very inexpensively.
But it's a very poor protein. It's a very unique protein-- but a very poor protein.
But taking in oral collagen (or oral gelatin for that matter) does not build new collagen or bring healthy collagen into the body in any way."
Where's my ouch emoji?
And he's just getting started apparently...
(use code TAKE20 or FIRST25 at DFH store checkout for discount on all Designs For Health products)
"There's a myth that if you lack collagen because your body is falling apart in the infrastructure in the connective tissue, that oh, maybe if you took grams and grams of collagen or gelatin orally, you’d bring in collagen and stick it in place.
That can only be said by someone who doesn’t understand the biochemistry.
Admittedly, very few people do. But those of us who actually are biochemists know that collagen is a very large, asymmetric molecule: 300,000 Daltons! The largest molecules the body can readily take up measure around 1,000 Daltons (approximately 10 amino acids).
Gelatin is not absorbed. Collagen is not absorbed.
The body is quite remarkable. We have surveillance cells, part of the immune “defense & repair” system, that sends cells to every part of the body to see if the collagen or elastin (which is not just connective tissue but it is carrying information, it is piezoelectrically responsive, it’s the orienting molecule for the basement membrane that the cells all sit on) needs repairing.
And as it turns out, lack of collagen is very common– but, he argues, not so much because of insufficient protein intake but because CELLULAR ENERGY constraints: the ascorbates, the magnesium, the CoQ10 inside the repair cells that allows the actual synthesis of collagen."
(It gets a bit technical, but from there, it’s transported through something called the Golgi apparatus to be placed to repair a worn out collagen molecule. There, the N terminal and the C terminal are clipped off, and the collagen is put in place.)
"The myth of collagen supplements enhancing the body's collagen," he states rather authoritatively, "is just that: a myth."
"So as long as you energize those surveillance repair cells (and are getting & digesting sufficient amounts of protein daily)," he explains, "you’ll have all the collagen you need."
It’s very elegant & complicated, but the takeaway again is:
you build collagen and you put it in place within cells
oral collagen is a very poor source of supplementation
while it’s very profitable for the companies that sell it, it is not a physiologically helpful molecule.
Complicated subject but important to take away that you build and put collagen in place through your cellular energetics– rather than scoops or spoonfuls by mouth.
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