A Complete Guide to the Medical Benefits of Collagen Peptide Protein
Collagen protein is a versatile and widely used nutritional supplement in the medical field. More than 3,000 medical facilities trust ProT Gold Liquid Collagen Protein to help their patients.
That’s because collagen peptide protein is not only easy to digest, but has numerous medical applications. Beyond being a liquid protein supplement, collagen protein is used during many other medical procedures and is even used in feeding tubes and in medical nutrition therapy.
This guide will not dive into each of collagen’s medical uses, but instead will serve to inform you on some of the best medical benefits of adding a liquid collagen supplement to your diet.
Collagen and its many applications
Before we get to the numerous collagen protein benefits for your body, we need to discuss what exactly collagen is, and the various ways your body applies it when used as a medical nutrition supplement.
What is collagen protein?
Collagen protein is a naturally occurring protein in your body. It is also the most abundant protein in the human body. While you may produce collagen protein naturally, your natural collagen synthesis begins to decline rapidly as you age.
Many sources estimate that by the time you are 25-26, your collagen production is low enough to require supplementation. In fact, by age 20, your collagen production can begin to decrease by as much as 1% every year.
If you think about it, around your mid-twenties is when you begin to notice that your joints are getting stiffer, some wrinkles are appearing, and that it may even take longer to heal or recover from an injury than it used to.
These occurrences may be a natural part of aging because your body is no longer producing as much collagen protein.
The decrease in collagen production is significant to your general whole-body health. That’s because collagen protein is a type of structural protein found in your skin, ligaments, bones, tendons, organs, and other connective tissues.
Your body uses several different types of proteins to create these structures and keep everything functioning. Of the different proteins that make up your body structures, collagen protein accounts for at least a third of them.
So at least ⅓ of the total protein used to construct your muscle tissues, organs, tendons, and ligaments is made of collagen. You can think of collagen protein as the glue that holds your body tissues together. This is why the word itself, collagen, is derived from the Greek word “kólla,” which means “glue.”
Glue is a great descriptor too, because beyond helping your body be structurally sound, collagen protein is what contributes to the elasticity of your muscles, cartilage, skin, and other tissues. The combined strength and elasticity of collagen protein is what gives your joints the ability to move dynamically during exercise or physical activity.
How to take collagen protein
How to take collagen protein, and how much collagen a day you need, will vary from person to person. It will also depend on what your intended use is for the supplementation.
When it comes to how to take collagen, there are a few different supplemental forms such as powder, capsule, liquid, and even topical collagen. However, not all of these forms of collagen protein will absorb into your body the same way or with the same efficiency.
ProT Gold chose to specialize in liquid collagen supplements not only for consumer convenience, but also to ensure higher absorption rates, increase collagen protein benefits, and give better overall results.
Although we have a lot to say about how your body breaks down and digests collagen proteins, we will be getting to that later in this guide.
Once you’ve chosen a collagen supplement that best suits your needs, it’s important to know how much collagen a day is safe to take.
The good news is that because collagen is a protein your body already produces and uses, it generally is a safe supplement to take daily. We use the word “generally” in this statement because we do not want to use this blanket of safety for all collagen supplements on the market today.
As with any dietary supplement, it is important to discuss implementing collagen protein supplements with your doctor and to ensure that you are getting your collagen protein from a reputable source.
ProT Gold liquid collagen protein is an FDA (US Food & Drug Administration) approved medical food, and the FDA classifies collagen as Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS). So, as we said, as long as you purchase from a reputable brand, using a collagen supplement daily can be beneficial and safe.
Once you’ve found a collagen protein supplement that can be trusted, how much you take each day will depend on your body and overall goals. For example, when someone uses a collagen supplement as an exercise supplement, they may be taking multiple servings a day.
The same goes for someone using ProT Gold as prescribed by their medical nutrition therapist as a part of their treatment post-surgery. The collagen protein application, and your body’s specific needs, will determine how much collagen you use daily and how to take your collagen supplement.
One major dietary differentiation between collagen and other types of protein supplements is that it is naturally derived from animal sources. That means that there are no vegan or vegetarian sources of collagen protein.
You can find collagen boosting supplements on the market, but these will not contain actual collagen and they will interact with your body in a slightly different way.
Collagen as medical nutrition
Collagen protein has so many amazing benefits and applications, but when used as medical nutrition, the collagen protein benefits look a bit beyond the mainstream. The widely known collagen protein benefits are usually related to skin health, and while that may be one benefit, there is so much more to collagen than that!
Medical nutrition therapy (MNT) is a form of nutritional counseling that integrates medical treatments with your diet and nutrition to treat a wide array of medical conditions or injuries.
Collagen protein as medical nutrition has a very broad scope, and the same is true when using liquid collagen supplements.
Some of the most common ways liquid collagen supplements are used for medical nutrition include using collagen protein during cancer treatments and for post-surgery care and weight management. We will cover those three collagen protein benefits and more in this guide.
Why liquid collagen?
We have already mentioned that ProT Gold is a liquid collagen supplement. But why is liquid collagen the choice of 3,000+ medical facilities for use as a medical nutrition supplement?
There are several different types of collagen, including capsules and topical collagen. The primary differences between these supplements (beyond the form) are the molecule size and how your body absorbs the collagen protein.
Even when looking at a standard collagen protein powder, it will differ from the ProT Gold collagen protein because of the molecule size. And, if you are choosing to use a topical collagen product, then the application is entirely different - further changing how your body can absorb the collagen proteins.
ProT Gold uses liquid hydrolyzed collagen proteins (sometimes referred to as collagen peptide proteins). This completely changes the way your body digests and integrates the collagen protein.
Why hydrolyzed collagen? Let’s learn a bit more about what collagen peptide proteins are, and why they are so important in your supplement.
What is hydrolyzed collagen?
The process of hydrolysis means that the collagen protein molecules have been broken down from their full, natural size into a smaller, more bioavailable size.
During hydrolysis, ProT Gold uses a fruit enzyme to break down the large collagen molecules into less than 1% their original size. ProT Gold liquid collagen protein is a nano-hydrolyzed collagen protein supplement, making it even faster absorbing for rapid assimilation at the cellular level.
These small, bioavailable protein molecules are called collagen peptide proteins. So, if you see a supplement with “collagen peptide protein” on the label, you can rest assured that it will be easier for your body to digest and use.
Daltons are the measurement used to describe molecular sizes and weights. When you get collagen protein from animal products, like fish skin, or even in supplements that have not gone through hydrolysis, it is in the full, natural molecular weight of 300,000 daltons. Since ProT Gold is nano hydrolyzed, the dalton size is just a mere 2,000 daltons.
The dalton size is important because when ingesting collagen protein, you need to be able to not only absorb it through your stomach lining, but also break the collagen protein down easily into the amino acids used to construct collagen in your body.
If the dalton size is too big to fit through your stomach pores, then your body will end up passing most of the nutritional value of the collagen.
By breaking down the molecules into collagen peptide proteins ahead of time, your body can easily allow the molecules through your stomach pores and apply the amino acids where they’re needed.
Other types of collagen supplements
A simple Google search of “collagen supplements” will give you a wide array of options to choose from. Although we described some of the reasons why liquid collagen is the ideal collagen supplement above, here are some of the other types of collagen supplements you’re likely to discover in your search.
Topical collagen
Topical collagen is most often marketed to combat wrinkles and other skin changes associated with aging because of the decline in your collagen production.
As the name suggests, topical collagen is usually in the form of a cream or lotion that you apply to your skin. This topical application has become popularized because the skin is usually where the majority of collagen users want to see the most results.
The idea behind topical collagen is that since you want to reduce wrinkles or increase the elasticity of your skin, hypothetically, the collagen in the topical ointment or lotion should absorb into the skin and then be used by your body.
In theory, this idea should work, but unfortunately, there isn't any current clinically tested research to support topical collagen's success in stimulating collagen production or synthesis. Some anecdotal evidence is available, but depending on the supplement being used, it is hard to know if other ingredients may contribute to the change in skin appearance or if it is because of the collagen itself.
Topical collagen may not be as effective as hydrolyzed collagen peptide protein due to how your body absorbs the collagen through the skin versus ingestion.
The molecule size is yet another factor. Yes, hypothetically, you can absorb the collagen through your skin, but if the molecule size is too large, you won't fully absorb the collagen protein.
The molecular weight within most topical collagen supplements is often too large to penetrate through the epidermis (the top layer of your skin). Your skin has multiple layers, and the layer that uses the most collagen is the dermis, the second layer.
If the topical collagen cannot make it through the first layer of your skin, it cannot be absorbed into the dermis where it is needed most.
In most cases, topical collagen creams and lotions are not doing much more than acting as a skin moisturizer. Because the collagen protein cannot absorb into the second layer of your skin, it can’t do much to help with collagen synthesis or improving your skin elasticity.
Powder collagen
One of the other most commonly used types of collagen supplements on the market is powder collagen. Powder collagen supplements come in a few different forms and often contain multiple types of collagen.
The term “powder collagen” could mean that it is a powdered protein supplement, but it could also be a powdered bone broth. Both of these are considered powdered collagen.
Depending on the type of collagen powder you’re using, and which company you get it from, there could be varying densities of collagen protein.
Although we’ve been discussing collagen as one type of protein, there are actually up to 28 different known types of collagen. Most companies will only use the ones that have been tested and have shown results, and these are typically type I, II, III, V, and X.
Not all powdered collagen brands will specify the type of collagen they use, but if they do, a combination of types is often beneficial. Because of all of these discrepancies between powdered collagens, it is hard to know which one is right for your body, and it could take some trial and error to find one that is right for your needs.
Although having a well-rounded collagen supplement containing multiple collagen protein types seems ideal, how well the supplement works with your body all comes down to the molecule size.
As mentioned before, the dalton size of collagen in its natural form is around 30,000 daltons. To give you more perspective, your stomach pores can only fit molecules that are around 4,000 daltons or smaller. So, if the powder collagen is not hydrolyzed, your body likely won’t absorb much of it at all.
Powder collagens remain popular partially because they are easy to use by adding them to smoothies or baked goods. This versatility affords them value to many consumers, but beyond the versatility of the supplement, be sure to pay attention to the type of collagens within the powder and if it is hydrolyzed or not. Look for “hydrolyzed” or “collagen peptide protein” on the label.
Collagen capsules
Taking some supplements in capsule form is the fastest and easiest way to integrate them into your diet. However, the collagen capsule’s effectiveness comes down to the same integral factors discussed when talking about collagen powders: absorption rate and types of collagen included.
Beyond those two things, another important consideration is the amino acid profile of the supplement. Collagen is not naturally a complete protein, which is why ProT Gold is fortified with more amino acids to make it one.
Collagen capsules may be one way you can add more collagen to your diet. Still, as with any type of collagen supplement, it is necessary to consider all ingredients and how they will interact with your body.
Collagen boosters
There is no true form of vegan or vegetarian collagen supplements. That’s because collagen protein is derived from animal proteins.
Supplement companies will market vegan collagen, but those supplements are simply collagen boosters, and they do not contain actual collagen protein.
Collagen boosters can be found in most plant-based foods, as the most important collagen boosters include vitamin C and antioxidants. The intention behind a collagen-boosting supplement is to help promote your body’s natural collagen production. They do this by containing various minerals, vitamins, herbs, and other plant extracts that provide your body with the necessary nutrients to construct new collagen proteins.
The most important of these nutrients are the amino acids proline, glycine, and lysine because these are the primary amino acids necessary for building collagen.
Beyond collagen-boosting supplements, you can also find these amino acids in some plant foods such as soy products, nuts, seeds, and most legumes.
Collagen found in food
Both collagen and collagen boosters can be found in food. If you consume animal products like chicken or fish, then you’ll likely be getting some collagen in the whole form. This means that it will not be easily absorbed because of the molecule size.
Collagen boosters like vitamin C and antioxidants, however, are still quite beneficial to your natural collagen production. The most beneficial collagen-boosting foods are usually whole foods like fruits, nuts, and leafy greens.
Collagen protein for post-surgery care
Nutrition plays an essential role in your health throughout your entire life, but nutrition becomes even more critical when your body goes through a stressful event like surgery.
Though surgery recovery is always a process, designing a post-surgery diet that fits your needs has the potential to help your body heal faster and get you back to feeling your best.
Not all surgical procedures are the same, so post-surgery recovery might look different depending on the type of surgery you had. Beyond surgical wounds, other types of injuries like bedsores and open wounds can benefit from collagen liquid protein for wound healing.
Knee and hip surgery
From ACL reconstruction to full hip replacement surgery, most patients look at a recovery period of around 4-6 months or more. That is a lot of time to be laid up, especially if you are an active person or work an active job.
Working closely with your physician, you may be able to develop a post-surgery recovery plan that allows you to get back on your feet much earlier.
A large part of post-surgery recovery depends on your post-surgery diet. When you’re recovering from any injury, your body is in overdrive, working hard to repair and restore you to optimal functioning. So, your focus should be on inflammation reduction and giving your body the tools it needs to fuel repair.
Although there are several things to include in your post-surgery diet, protein is one of the most critical focuses when helping your body rebuild damaged tissues. Integrating high-quality liquid collagen proteins into your post-surgery diet may help reduce hunger, keep lean body stores intact, and even strengthen collagen structures.
Patients recovering from any surgery should design a post-surgery diet that avoids protein deficiencies. One study suggests that protein intake after an injury can be as much as 2-2.5 g/kg/day. This can be a lot of protein to get from a standard diet, especially if you’re working hard to eat a clean, whole foods diet.
One easy way to integrate more protein into your diet is to add in a liquid collagen protein.
This increased protein intake is even more beneficial if it is easily processed and digested, which is why hydrolyzed collagen (collagen peptide protein) is often recommended.
High-quality proteins have the right amino acids to help your body rebuild tissue, fight off infection, reduce inflammation, and slow down muscle loss after surgery.
How collagen helps heal open wounds
It’s no secret that ProT Gold liquid collagen protein may promote wound healing, especially since it is now a liquid protein supplement trusted by over 3,000 medical facilities.
Liquid collagen may help heal more than just surgical wounds, which is why it is used to promote other wound healing like bedsores and is widely used as a pressure ulcer treatment product.
The reason so many medical practitioners trust liquid collagen protein for wound healing has a lot to do with the stages in which your body naturally heals a wound. There are three stages of wound healing:
- Inflammatory phase
- Proliferative phase
- Remodeling phase
In the inflammatory stage, there is an increased amount of blood flowing to the wounded area. It is the first body response and often the one you notice the most as well. Inflammation is important because the additional blood flow increases enzyme production, removes dead tissues, and digests harmful bacteria. This is setting the stage for your body to rebuild the wounded area.
In the proliferative phase of wound healing, your body begins to restore tissues around the injured area. Since your connective tissues are made up of collagen and extracellular matrix, adding more liquid collagen protein to your diet gives your body the building blocks it needs to repair these tissues.
The final remodeling phase can take a while to reach, depending on the wound, because it only starts when the wound is fully closed. Collagen plays an essential role in wound healing during the proliferative phase. Still, during the remodeling phase, the only way your wound area regains strength is as collagen fibers reconnect with one another.
Your body needs proteins to multiply cells, repair damaged cells, and even synthesize healing enzymes. Since collagen protein is the most prolific protein found in the human body, it makes sense that collagen protein is one of the most effective in helping rebuild connective tissues.
Since proteins are essential for the wound healing process, when you are healing from surgery or another type of wound, any lack of protein production in your body becomes more detrimental.
Your body is already working hard to redirect resources to the post-surgery wound, and if resources, like protein, are low, it will become more difficult to heal.
Not only can it take your body longer to heal wounds when there isn’t enough protein to reconstruct damaged cells and tissues adequately, but then the rest of your body will begin to lose necessary proteins as they send them to the wounded tissues. This causes other parts of your body to become starved of necessary nutrients while your body works harder to heal itself.
Collagen for cancer treatments
No one person will have the same reaction to cancer - or their cancer treatments. Still, the use of medical nutrition therapy to integrate a cancer-fighting diet is becoming more common as a medical practice.
Developing a nutrition plan that helps you not only battle cancer but also support your body during chemo is an important part of your journey and should be done so with a medical professional's guidance. This is even more essential when adding any supplements to your diet.
Having cancer and going through cancer treatments has a way of drastically altering your daily life, including your eating habits. It is not uncommon for many chemotherapy patients to have a decreased appetite and nausea. This can become problematic when you want to ensure that your body has all the nutrients it needs to help you heal.
As you work with your medical nutrition therapist to develop a personalized cancer-fighting diet, eating calorie-dense foods and getting enough nutrients will likely be the main focus.
Although there are many important nutrients your body needs as you battle cancer and get through your various treatments, protein will play an important role, especially during chemotherapy.
During treatments and as cancer attacks your cells, your body needs protein to rebuild these damaged tissues. Integrating high quality, easily digestible proteins into your diet may help with cell production and keep your immune system strong.
Since you may be experiencing a decreased appetite and have a hard time eating all of the protein suggested by your medical nutritionist, using a liquid collagen protein will help reserve energy levels and give you fast-acting nutrition.
One note to make is that cancer tumors are also made up of connective tissues. That means that they grow and are constructed using some collagen proteins. There are various types of collagen, and all of them have slightly different reactions within our bodies.
Preclinical collagen-related therapy studies have had promising results when focusing on pathways and receptors. However, more clinical studies are suggested to better understand collagen’s interactions with other cancer mechanisms.
The use of collagen in cancer treatment will likely remain controversial until more is understood regarding crosslinking, alignment, and distribution of collagen in the human body when cancer is present.
Collagen for weight management
We’ve already mentioned a few times that collagen peptide proteins are sometimes integrated into diets set during medical nutrition therapy. Although in many circumstances, medical nutrition therapy addresses chronic diseases, you may seek nutritional guidance if you need help with weight management.
When most people think of weight management, they immediately think about weight loss. While that is one side of weight management, liquid collagen is actually also used to treat malnutrition.
It may seem counterintuitive that liquid collagen supplements can treat both malnutrition and aid in weight loss, but that is because it depends on the implementation of the protein. One thing that ProT Gold liquid collagen supplements are NOT a magic weight management quick-fix diet supplement.
Weight management pursuits should be structured and lead to sustainable lifestyle changes. Building habits and routines that integrate liquid collagen protein into your diet can be an easy way to help you reach your weight management goals.
Collagen for weight loss
A classic way to lose weight when focusing on nutrition is to eat high-quality proteins. This is because protein helps you feel fuller longer, or in other words, it increases your satiety and balances your hunger hormones.
Using liquid collagen to add to smoothies, or even just drinking your liquid collagen peptide proteins on their own, is an easy way to integrate more high-quality protein into your daily diet.
In particular, collagen has been shown to help increase the satiety hormone, curbing the feelings of hunger that are so often associated with the pursuit of weight loss.
Another part of weight management is maintaining a good metabolism. Your metabolism is important in weight management because it converts the food you eat into energy and eliminates metabolic waste. It also helps convert fuel into proteins. So, by consuming more proteins, you are helping your metabolism run with more ease.
As you lose weight, your metabolism will begin to level out. And, some evidence suggests that collagen turnover also becomes more balanced as you lose weight.
When you are overweight or obese, your body struggles to absorb and synthesize proteins, which throws your metabolism out of whack. By integrating collagen into your diet, you are helping your body to regulate, and to direct attention to other systems like metabolism to help you lose weight.
While adding more protein to your diet can help with the feeling of fullness, consuming too much protein can cause weight gain. So, if you are specifically looking to lose weight and then manage weight when you’ve hit your goal, monitoring your protein intake may require some guidance.
With that in mind, how effective collagen is in your pursuit of weight loss will depend on other aspects of your diet and exercise. These things work hand in hand, and that’s why building a routine and a healthy lifestyle is essential.
These processes can be aided with the implementation of collagen peptide proteins for weight loss, but a success story takes time, and collagen protein is not a quick fix supplement. It may just be part of the recipe you need as you build a healthy life.
Collagen for malnutrition
Did you know that even if you are overweight, you may be suffering from malnutrition? Yep. You don’t need to look malnourished to be malnourished. That’s because when eating the standard American diet, you aren’t getting the right nutrients throughout the day.
Over time, this type of diet can cause your body to have a huge deficit in various vitamins and minerals. This becomes dangerous because if you aren’t giving your body the nutrients it needs to function, then it will begin to pull those nutrients from stores in the body, like your bones.
If your body struggles to reach its nutritional needs, other systems will likely suffer (malnutrition has also been shown to slow down wound healing), including your natural collagen synthesis.
To help your body get back on track, and jumpstart the process of achieving a well-balanced diet, collagen protein supplements may be prescribed by your doctor or dietitian nutritionist.
As your body gets the collagen synthesis back on track and you pursue a healthy nutrient-dense diet, your body will begin to heal and perform better.
Other medical benefits of liquid collagen
Since collagen proteins are the building blocks to so many different areas of your body, and are essential to all connective tissues, there are several other medical uses for collagen. We won’t have time to get into all of them, but we will cover five other medical benefits of liquid collagen supplements below.
1. Collagen protein benefits for gut health
Since collagen is so vital to connective tissues, it is no surprise that collagen production and gut health correlate with each other.
Collagen helps keep your organ structures intact and, just as your body needs collagen to repair exterior wounds, it uses collagen to repair internal wounds as well.
You can use collagen for leaky gut, irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn’s Disease, and many other intestinal issues. All of course, under the guidance of a medical professional.
The reason collagen and gut health are so intimately connected is partially because of collagen’s amino acid content. Glycine and proline (a few of the amino acids in collagen protein) can fortify and heal tissues within our bodies. This is also one of the reasons that collagen peptide protein is so widely used in post-surgery wound healing.
With many gut health issues and intestinal diseases, patients have damage to the intestinal lining. So, like with a wound on the outside of your body, collagen can work to repair the damage inside the intestine.
Collagen protein breaks down into amino acids and directs them to the areas that need repair. The repair within the intestines usually involves the production of new cells. In the intestine and stomach, the most important cells for gut health are smooth muscle cells.
Smooth muscle cells prevent toxins and other particles from leaking out into your bloodstream, which is a symptom of leaky gut syndrome.
A lot of the pain that people experiencing intestinal issues have comes from inflammation. Another collagen protein benefit for gut health is that one of collagen’s amino acids, glutamine, is known for fighting off inflammation in the intestines. Glutamine can target the inflammation often associated with tight junction openings in your intestine caused by oxidative stress.
Since amino acids seem to be primary players in the health of your gut, you’ll want to know that collagen can boost amino acid production in your body. Since your natural collagen synthesis rapidly declines as you age, you need to make up for that loss of amino acids somewhere.
You can get some of these amino acids through your diet, but as you now know, your body may struggle to break down the amino acids into small enough molecules to be fully absorbed and used.
Collagen already contains 19 different amino acids. Depending on the collagen supplement you choose, it could be fortified with even more.
For example, most collagen peptide protein supplements on the market only contain the amino acids collagen naturally has. ProT Gold Liquid collagen supplements, on the other hand, are a complete protein because they are fortified with other helpful amino acids.
As you introduce more amino acids into your body, your body systems will slowly improve and become more efficient.
2. Collagen protein benefits for arthritis
For many, arthritis is simply a part of aging, and the symptoms are just something that you have to put up with every day.
Medical professionals have started to implement collagen supplements into the best diet for arthritis to help people who suffer from arthritis pain get the most out of their lives.
As we’ve discussed with many other medical conditions in this guide, your diet dramatically impacts your body functions, how your body heals, and your body’s collagen production. So, knowing the best diet for arthritis or working with a medical nutrition therapist may be great ways that you can alleviate some arthritis symptoms.
There are several different forms of arthritis, but the most common is caused by inflammation in the joint structures. Since inflammation is such a big player in arthritis-related pain, it makes sense that as part of the best diet for arthritis, you’d avoid foods that cause inflammation and eat ones that reduce inflammation.
Adding in foods that contain vitamin C, antioxidants, and collagen is one way that your diet can help you combat inflammation in your joints. Both vitamin C and antioxidants help boost your natural collagen production, and the glutamine in collagen protein can help reduce inflammation in your body.
Beyond inflammation management, how else might collagen protein help you alleviate arthritis symptoms?
Arthritis is generally isolated to your joints, and your joint structures are made up of tissues like cartilage. Part of the pain associated with arthritis is because these tissues in the joint structure are damaged or injured. This happens gradually over time.
When consuming a liquid collagen protein that is highly digestible, like ProT Gold collagen peptide protein, your body can break down the molecules into amino acids.
This breakdown into amino acids has now provided your body with the proper tools to repair those damaged tissues in the joint structure. The combination of fighting off inflammation and helping your body repair with the use of a daily collagen supplement may be one way to alleviate some arthritis pain and symptoms.
3. Collagen protein benefits for anti-aging
One of collagen’s most significant health claims has to do with its anti-aging skin benefits. In many of the same ways that collagen can help you heal from a wound or help your gut build new cells, collagen peptide protein may help improve your skin's health.
Although we have primarily discussed how collagen helps your body repair and rebuild cells within connective tissues, collagen protein is also responsible for the elasticity of tissues like your muscles and skin.
As you age, you’ll likely start to notice some changes in the appearance of your skin. This could be caused by many external factors like sugar consumption, smoothing, or sun exposure.
But, even if you live a healthy lifestyle, some wrinkles are unavoidable. The reason that your skin starts to lose elasticity and wrinkle up is because your collagen production decreases starting in your mid twenties.
Since your skin isn’t as vital as, say, your heart’s blood vessels, less of the collagen that your body makes is directed to your skin. The drop in collagen, along with the drop in your vitamin C production, leads to lower skin elasticity. Lower skin elasticity is what creates wrinkles and sagging skin.
When adding a liquid collagen peptide protein supplement to your diet, you are not only helping your skin build new cell structures, but you are also likely improving the skin elasticity as more collagen is available for use.
The improvement of skin elasticity isn’t the only possible collagen protein benefit for your skin. When using an easily digestible hydrolyzed collagen supplement, the depth of wrinkles may also decrease, further promoting anti-aging skin benefits.
4. Collagen protein benefits for women
All genders may benefit from collagen supplements, but more research has raised awareness of collagen protein benefits for women specifically. Although women can benefit from all of the medical applications we discussed above, many of the collagen protein benefits for women have to do with hormone production and regulation.
Collagen protein may help women regulate and return to healthy estrogen levels. Changes in estrogen levels have been tied to women’s changes in collagen production. So, it is hypothesized that estrogen levels are also impacted by restoring some collagen production to the body.
The decline in estrogen and collagen becomes more and more evident during post-menopause for most women. Post-menopause women experience many things such as brittle bones and tissue thinning in the skin and other organs. To combat these changes, driven mainly by the decline in collagen and changing hormone levels, women may benefit from adding a collagen supplement to their diet.
5. Collagen protein benefits for preventative and joint care
Up until this point, we have mostly discussed collagen protein benefits for ailments that already exist in your body. Well, collagen protein can be used as a preventative care supplement as well.
Most often, collagen for preventive care revolves around joint health. Joint health is essential for everyone, and as you age, you many begin to notice more and more changes in your joints. Maybe they crack when you perform specific movements, or ache in the morning when you are stiff.
All of these changes in your body and your joints may not be avoidable completely, but with the right food for healthy joints, you may be able to prevent some pain or even injury down the line.
Since collagen is found in animal-derived foods, you can easily integrate it into your diet. But as we mentioned before, not all collagen sources have the same molecule size, and therefore they do not have the same absorption rate.
So, to get the best food for healthy joints, you may need to consider a hydrolyzed liquid collagen supplement with collagen peptide proteins.
Collagen contains 19 amino acids, including glycine, proline, hydroxyproline, and arginine. Both the essential and nonessential amino acids in collagen help to create the collagen protein structure. All of these amino acids are necessary for collagen production in your body. When you take a collagen supplement, you provide the building blocks your body needs to make more collagen.
Therefore, the additional collagen and amino acids have the potential to reduce joint inflammation, joint deterioration, and joint pain, just as we discussed when talking about the best diet for arthritis.
Instead of collagen curbing symptoms here, though, you can get ahead of the symptoms. The stronger your joints are, and the less joint deterioration you are experiencing because you’ve integrated a high-quality hydrolyzed collagen supplement into your life, the less likely you are to experience injury and joint pain down the line.
Daily dietary changes for better health
The human body is amazing, and the way that your many systems work together can be both a blessing and a downfall. There is somewhat of a domino effect when one area of your body is injured or begins to decline. You can use that knowledge to your advantage, though.
Making small changes to your daily life, whether they are surrounding mindful movement or your diet, can do big things for your body. Something as little as adding ProT Gold liquid collagen peptide protein to your day can have significant results.
There are so many medical benefits to collagen protein that we couldn't fit them all in this one guide, but we did our best to cover the most common medical applications of collagen. Although collagen is widely used in the medical field, not all collagen supplements are created equal.
ProT Gold is not only a nutrient-dense and convenient supplement, but it is backed by research, case studies, and trusted by over 3,000 medical facilities. A Stanford biochemist designed our liquid collagen peptide protein to absorb within 15 minutes, and it has no sugar, fat, or carbs.
When you take ProT Gold liquid collagen protein, you are simply getting pure collagen peptide proteins and amino acids to give you 17.5 grams of complete protein per serving. And that serving is so easy to take. You don’t even need to mix your liquid collagen peptide protein with anything. Just take your ProT Gold liquid collagen packet on the go, and experience all the collagen health benefits for yourself.
