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Skin health and appearance play an invaluable role in overall health. The skin is the largest organ and protects our inner organs and tissues from pathogens, toxins, and other assaults from the environment, as well as regulates body temperature. Maintaining its integrity ensures adequate protection so the rest of the body can continue to function.
The skin also acts as a visual marker for health—and aging. As such, there is a multi-billion-dollar industry with products trying to help you and your skin retain a youthful and radiant appearance.
Recently, more attention has been paid on what you can eat, including supplements, to improve skin health, especially regarding reducing fine lines, wrinkles, and other markers of skin aging. One rising in popularity is collagen. So, is there any evidence to back up the claim that collagen powder improves your skin health?
What Is Collagen—and What Does it have to do with Skin?
Collagen is one of the key proteins involved in the structure of skin. Its role is to provide mechanical strength to the skin and is mostly found in the dermis layer of the skin (the middle layer of skin that makes up roughly 90% of the overall thickness of skin and also contains the nerves, glands, hair follicles, and blood vessels).
There are many varieties of collagen, with type I and III the most common in skin. Supplemental forms of collagen sources vary but frequently come from cows, pigs, and fish. For the purpose of this blog, I am focusing on collagen supplements, mostly in powder form but may be in capsule form as well. I am not discussing collagen injections or similar cosmetic procedures.
Skin aging occurs due to degradation in the extracellular matrix in the dermis, namely the support provided by collagen and elastin. The loss of these fibers contributes to a reduction in skin elasticity and the function of dermal fibroblasts, which leads to wrinkles and other visible signs of aging. Environmental exposure, especially to UV damage, pollution, and other oxidative stress, can expedite this process and a net loss of collagen.
Because of the association of the loss of collagen with skin aging, many people have postulated that consuming collagen can interrupt this cycle and provide the collagen needed to strengthen the skin and return its elasticity, integrity, and health. But does the science validate this hypothesis? Let’s find out.
Do Studies Show Benefits to Collagen Supplements?
One of the first questions for any supplement is whether it is actually absorbed and used by the body, making it to where it is supposed to go. Studies have shown that dietary intake of collagen peptides does provide collagen to the skin. According to one trial, collagen supplements with a higher content of prolyl-hydroxyproline and hydroxyprolyl-glycine leads to better results than with a lower content of these two bioactive peptides.
So, the collagen most likely gets absorbed to then act on the skin, but what does it do? According to the following studies, taking collagen supplements leads to an improvement in:
- Skin aging, including fine lines and wrinkles
- Skin density
- Skin elasticity
- Skin hydration
In one small randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, the 21 participants took a marine collagen supplement with ornithine for 8 weeks. Those in the supplement group had significant improvement in skin elasticity and transepidermal water loss as well as increased plasma IGF-1 levels (which activates cell growth in skin and other tissues). Another randomized, placebo-controlled trial with 56 women participants taking 2.5 grams of collagen hydrolysate led to a significant improvement in skin hydration and skin elasticity after 4 and 8 weeks of supplementation.
Another study with 128 participants used collagen derived from chicken sternal cartilage (naturally occurring mixture of 300 mg hydrolyzed collagen type II, 100 mg chondroitin sulfate, and 50 mg of hyaluronic acid). The participants experienced a significant improvement in facial lines and wrinkles, crow’s feet, skin elasticity, and cutaneous collagen content. Those taking the collagen also experience improvements in parameters for youthful skin appearance as well as a decrease in skin dryness and erythema.
In another placebo-controlled trial with 53 participants, both the test group (taking 1,000 mg low-molecular-weight collagen peptide) and the placebo group experienced improved skin hydration at 12 weeks. However, the collagen supplements demonstrated significant improvement at 6 weeks and significantly better improvements at weeks 6 and 12. The participants taking the collagen supplement also saw improvement in their wrinkles and skin elasticity.
Another study found taking collagen peptides (a product known as Peptan®) led to improved moisture and prevented and reduced fragmentation of the dermal collagen, which is one of the things contributing to skin aging. One study also found improvement in skin elasticity in the group taking either 2.5 g or 5 g compared to placebo.
The above studies point to a positive trend for collagen supplementation, but do the small number of participants in the studies mean that the same results will apply to you? Well, a systematic review, which brings together a lot of studies and is considered one of the highest levels of evidence, found positive results for wound healing, skin aging, elasticity, hydration, and dermal collagen density. This finding imparts more support to the potential for collagen powder to improve skin health, although it is by no means definitive yet.
Although many studies on collagen powder and skin look at skin aging, collagen has also been shown to help with atopic dermatitis, nail growth and brittle nails, eye wrinkles, and wound healing.
Collagen Powder Plus—Does It Help to Have Other Nutrients?
Many supplements hitting the market aimed at skin health include other nutrients beyond just collagen, such as antioxidants, vitamin C, CoQ10, and more. Do these supplements do as good as—or better—of a job than collagen alone? Let’s see what the literature has to say.
Well, one study using Pure Gold Collagen® (5,000 mg hydrolyzed collagen, citric acid, vitamin B6, black pepper, copper, borage seed oil, glycerol, soy lecithin, vitamin C, hyaluronic acid, vitamin E, and additional elements) for 12 weeks led to 15% of the subjects experiencing fewer wrinkles and facial lines after 60 days. Additionally, 32% had improved photoaging markers, 37% had an increase in skin firmness, and 39% had less dry skin. There was also a significant improvement in collagen density compared to the placebo group.
One randomized, placebo-controlled blind study with 72 female participants used a supplement ELASTEN®, which contained 2.5 g collagen peptides, acerola fruit extract, vitamin C, biotin, zinc, and vitamin E complex for 12 weeks. Those who took the supplement had significantly improved markers for skin hydration, elasticity, density, and roughness. After a 4-week follow-up, the participants retained some improvement compared to baseline, although the parameters did decrease from week 12.
Another study found that taking a supplement that contained collagen peptides, vitamin C, and 2 antioxidant-rich plant extracts (Hibiscus sabdariffa and Aristotelia chilensis) known as Delphynol® for 12 weeks led to a significant improvement in skin elasticity and firmness as well as an increase in dermal thickness.
Another trial used a product containing 5 g hydrolyzed collagen I with hyaluronic acid, borage oil, and N-acetylglucosamine along with a blend of antioxidants and vitamins and minerals (known as GOLD COLLAGEN ® FORTE). Those who took the supplement experienced a significant improvement in skin elasticity in both those who underwent further cosmetic treatment or those who did not.
Another study using a product CELERGEN, which contained 570 mg marine collagen peptides along with grapeseed extract, CoQ10, luteolin, and selenium, for two months led to increased density and thickness and significantly enhanced skin elasticity and sebum production.
Skin improvement, including in hydration, erythema, radiance, appearance, and density also occurred in a study using a supplement with 105 mg marine protein, 27 mg vitamin C, 12.75 mg grapeseed extract, 2 mg zinc, and 14.38 tomato extract mg.
Another study using VISCODERM® Pearls, which contained collagen, Pycnogenol®, CoQ10, hyaluronic acid, chondroitin, and glucosamine led to a reducing in VAS photoaging score compared to placebo as well as improvement in sebum, hydration, and tonicity. There was also an increase in serum fibronectin and hyaluronic acid concentrations.
Thus, additional studies demonstrated the efficacy of collagen alongside other nutrients. Most of these studies did not compare the supplements with taking collagen powder alone, so it is hard to determine whether it is worth taking a combined supplement. One study did, and the researchers found improvement in skin parameters with 3 g collagen supplementation but did not find any significant difference in those who took it along with 500 mg vitamin C.
Conclusion
When reviewing the literature, the studies I found, included above, demonstrated a positive impact on the skin while having no adverse side effects. While this may not be an exhaustive list, I feel it is generally representative of the literature.
Thus, it does seem that taking collagen powder can improve skin appearance and health while being relatively safe. In fact, one study looked into the maximum level of dietary collagen that could safely be incorporated in a diet and still have the right balance of amino acids. Based on this study, it is safe to have up to 36% of your protein intake as collagen. Using this parameter, the 2.5 g to 15 g per day used in studies should not impact your amino acid ratios.
Bone broth has become a popular alternative to collagen supplementation. Although bone broth contains collagen and may provide some help, it may not provide enough to equal the therapeutic doses used with collagen supplementation in the studies. More research comparing the two is necessary to determine the best option.
One thing to remember is that although the findings discussed above were often significant in terms of improvement in skin elasticity, reducing fine lines and wrinkles, and density, you may not experience the same effects. For example, in one study, only 15% of the subjects experienced a change in wrinkles and fine lines.
How much it may impact your own skin health depends on many different factors. Although some of the studies also looked at the subjective appearance of skin, many looked at different markers that may not fully correlate to appearance. Additionally, the studies frequently did not see any improvement until at least four to six weeks.
If you wish to improve your skin health from the inside out, be sure to talk to your doctor, nutritionist, or another member of your healthcare team about the best options for you based on your own individual circumstances.
