Collagen Protein

Is It Worth the Hype?

Nick, Jason & Zac
June 20, 2023

In this episode of the podcast/newsletter, we are talking Collagen. It seems that there is a renewed interest in collagen over the last few years. Take a casual stroll through the supermarket and you will notice shelves and shelves of collagen supplements. We get a lot of questions regarding this protein, and so we thought we would dive in.

Collagen is a protein that is everywhere in nature. It has a unique triple helical structure to it giving it a high level of tensile strength. This makes it a big part of building connective tissue. Collagen is the most abundant protein in humans, making up roughly 1/3 of the total body protein mass. So your body has lots and lots of collagen in it.

Let’s start with the negatives of collagen protein. Typically, proteins are rated based on their essential amino acid content. For example, whey protein is a highly rated protein because it has a lot of essential amino acids, and has a high amount of one key amino acid leucine which is necessary for stimulating muscle protein synthesis. Collagen is not high in essential amino acids, and is even lacking one of the essential amino acids (tryptophan). Also, it has low leucine content. Thus, it seems to under perform in studies looking at muscle protein synthesis and different kinds of protein.

We discussed one such study on the podcast where they compared whey protein to collagen protein where they also added leucine to the collagen protein group. The authors were wondering if they brought up the amount of leucine in the collagen group, would they produce similar findings in terms of muscle size, strength, and power. The results were that the two groups had similar findings in strength and power measurements, but the whey protein group had better increases in muscle size. The authors concluded that even when leucine was matched between the two groups, the whey protein still provided higher levels of essential amino acids and thus likely leading to the superior results. So if your goal is to maximize muscle strength and size, collagen protein is probably not your best bet.

We then turned our attention to promising findings with collagen in the areas of joint pain, skin health, and nail health. We discuss several studies showing improvements of arthritis/joint pain with the use of 8-12 grams per day of collagen hydrolysate. There were also improvements in bone mineral density. Collagen supplementation has also shown benefits in healing of pressure ulcers (bed sores). We also discussed a few recent systemic reviews of dermatologic studies showing collagen supplements benefiting skin elasticity, hydration, and reducing wrinkles. Finally, we found a study showing collagen peptides increasing nail growth and reducing the frequency of broken nails. The literature in these areas appears very promising and also seems to be well tolerated by the participants in the studies.

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Simplified Takeaways…

Collagen is very abundant protein in nature and it makes up roughly 1/3 of your body’s total protein mass.
Collagen is low in total essential amino acids, is lacking one essential amino acid (tryptophan), and is very low in leucine content. This makes collagen not perform particularly well (compared to other proteins) when looking at muscle protein synthesis, building muscle size and building muscle strength.
There are a number of studies showing the benefits of 8-12 grams per day of collagen hydrolysate for helping arthritis/joint pain.
Collagen has also shown benefits in skin hydration, skin elasticity, reducing wrinkles, aiding in bed sore healing, and increasing nail growth.

Collagen Protein

Is It Worth the Hype?

Simplified Takeaways…

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