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Collagen

What To Look For When Buying Collagen

Collagen; the youthfulness magical word. It is what gives your skin a youthful appearance, keeps your gut healthy, supports your joints, and promotes lean muscles. Collagen is critical to our health because it makes up 30 percent of all of the protein in our bodies. 

As you may already know, your body produces this protein naturally, but the production of the multitasking amino-acid chains starts to decline around age 25. So when you turn 50, your body will produce 50% less collagen. The good news is that beauty and health companies have come to our rescue inventing collagen supplements in many forms. But how to choose the best collagen out there to get all the benefits? 

What are the different types of collagen?

To know what to look for in your quality collagen, you need to know the types of it. There are many collagen types but the main ones are:

Type 1

The most abundant one; makes up around 80% of your body’s total collagen. This type is found right under the surface of your skin in the dermis layer. And with its triple-helix design, it is the reason why your skin is firm and flexible at the same time. Also, it improves hair and nail health. So the best collagen for your skin, hair, and nails should contain mainly Type 1. This is why this type is called (Beauty collagen). 

Type 2 

The best collagen for your joints and bones should contain type 2. This type of collagen makes up about 50% of the building blocks of our connective tissue. When your levels drop as you get older, this one is commonly used to support your connective tissue, and relieve the body from the pain associated with arthritis. 

Type 3 

The second most abundant collagen in the human body and it supports your gut, muscles, blood vessels, and the uterus in women. This one also helps with hair, skin, and nail health so for optimal results look for collagen supplements that contain 90% Type 1 collagen and some Type 3. 

What to look for in your collagen?

1 || Is it organic? 

The best collagen for you should be derived from organic, grass-fed, past-raised animals or wild-caught fish. Look for the term (all-natural) which means that the animal used is free of synthetic dyes, coloring, flavorings, and preservatives, along with never given antibiotics, growth hormones, or GMOs. Avoid collagen with the term (artificial ingredients). 

2 || Is it hydrolyzed? 

Because collagen molecules in their native state are too large for your body to absorb, all collagen is hydrolyzed. What does that mean? Breaking collagen into small chains of amino acids called “collagen peptides” so it becomes more digestible. This type of collagen hydrolysate supplement gets absorbed into the bloodstream and blood vessels penetrate and remain in the dermis, and trigger production in the skin. 

 How Much Collagen Should You Take to Reverse Aging?

Based on multiple studies, a person needs 10,000mg of hydrolyzed collagen proteins per day over a period of 6-8 weeks to improve skin and body health.