Do collagen supplements really work? And is there any evidence to show they can benefit your skin and joint health? Expert nutritionist reveals all.
Even if you’re new to supplements, you’ve probably come across someone on social media recommending collagen for improved skin appearance or hair growth, right? Well, we asked our favourite nutrition researcher, Richie Kirwan, to share what science has to say about collagen supplementation.
He covers collagen for muscle growth as well improving skin appearance and joint health — so get ready to finally have some answers on what feels like the supplement of the moment.
Find Richie on Instagram: @be_more_nutrition
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Chapters:
00:00 – Intro
00:29 – What is collagen?
02:21 – What is collagen used for?
02:53 – Collagen benefits
04:20 – Should you use collagen?
04:40 – Any questions?
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The Truth About Collagen Supplements & If They Really Work | Nutritionist Explains | Myprotein
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References:
1. García-Coronado JM, Martínez-Olvera L, Elizondo-Omaña RE, Acosta-Olivo CA, Vilchez-Cavazos F, Simental-Mendía LE, et al. Effect of collagen supplementation on osteoarthritis symptoms: a meta-analysis of randomized placebo-controlled trials. International Orthopaedics. 2019;43(3):531-8.
2. de Miranda RB, Weimer P, Rossi RC. Effects of hydrolyzed collagen supplementation on skin aging: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Int J Dermatol. 2021.
why is collagen so well known especially outside of the fitness world let’s talk about that how’s it going guys my name is richie kirwan and today we’re going to talk all about the protein collagen what it is what effects it has in your body and if it’s actually good for anything if you’ve ever had a little wander around a supplement shop if you’ve ever read the ingredients list of a protein bar or if you’ve ever read through an article talking about anti-aging or skin health it’s quite likely that you’ve seen the word collagen but what is it and does it deserve all the attention that it gets firstly what is collagen well collagen is actually the most common protein in the human body and this is because it’s a major structural protein that helps form the structure of pretty much everything your skin your nails your connective tissue your bones collagen plays a big part in keeping them and you all together and that brings me to a really important point about collagen it only comes from animal sources you see collagen is produced by animals and often extracted from their bones and connective tissue so there is no at least widely available vegan collagen which is strange because i’ve actually seen quite a lot of products marketed as vegan collagens which are actually a combination of amino acids and other nutrients thought to be necessary for the production of collagen in the body the thing to remember though is that these supplements won’t have the same effect as taking collagen itself now that said there are apparently some new vegan collagen products that are coming on the market and are made using bioengineered bacteria and yeast but they aren’t common yet so most of the vegan collagens available in the stores aren’t the real deal another thing worth noting about collagen is that despite coming from animals it’s not a complete protein so an incomplete protein is one that’s lacking or low in one or more amino acids needed for the human body specifically collagen completely lacks the amino acid tryptophan on top of that collagen is not very good at stimulating muscle protein synthesis or mps and this is the process our body uses for growth and repair of muscles after exercise and that brings me to the question what is collagen actually used for so let’s talk about the use most of you watching this video are interested in is collagen a useful supplement for building muscle and the answer is no like i mentioned earlier collagen is an incomplete protein and it’s not good at stimulating mps muscle protein synthesis that’s one of the most important factors when considering a protein to use when building muscle there are far better proteins available that are great at stimulating mps and promoting muscle growth like whey casein egg white powder and even soy protein these are often better and cheaper than collagen so if building muscle is your goal those are the better options if i was talking about any other protein this video would be over right now but and i genuinely don’t know how big a butt it is there seems to be a couple of benefits to using collagen that science can’t fully quite explain just yet you see you’ll often see collagen supplements aimed at joint care and the skeptic in me wants to call you see when you eat a protein any protein it all gets broken down into amino acids which get absorbed and are then used by your body for whatever it needs like repairing joints by that logic taking a really high quality protein like whey should be all you need and in fact should be better than collagen but there are a number of studies that show collagen may be useful for reducing joint pain if you suffer from joint pain in fact meta-analyses or combinations of the results of a number of studies found just that a reduction in perceived pain when taking collagen supplements the thing is scientifically we can’t explain why that would be the case if it were due to the amino acids any good quality protein should help the other difficult to explain benefit of collagen is skin health specifically we have another meta-analyses of collagen studies showing that they help to reduce skin wrinkles improve skin hydration and restore skin elasticity and once again we can’t explain this by collagen’s amino acid content alone i know a lot of scientists that say collagen supplementation shouldn’t work like this but we have the results that say it does from a scientific perspective it has many people scratching their heads in reality we need more research to confirm the effects and to help us explain how they might be happening so should you use collagen well if your goal is muscle growth then absolutely not there are far better proteins available if you have some joint pain and nothing else has worked for you or if you want to reduce those fine lines and wrinkles you could at least try it out for a few months to see if it helps if it does fantastic if it doesn’t at least you can say you tried so did this answer your question questions as always if you have any more let me know in the comments below and remember to like and subscribe to the my protein youtube channel for more great evidence-based nutrition information [Music] you
