All The Things You Don't About Collagen
- We Love Beauty
- Dec 4, 2022
- 4 min read
Women know most of these things but the men don't - yet!
Collagen is the most abundant protein in the human body, spread throughout our muscles, bones, tendons, ligaments, organs, blood vessels, skin, intestinal lining and other connective tissues.
From the age of roughly 25 years onwards we loose 1 - 1.5% of collagen per year. Signs of loss include wrinkles due to loss of elasticity, stiff joints and often gut issues as it affects gut health.
The skin is the largest organ in the body and HIFU is a great and painless way to stimulate collagen production within your body and can be used on almost all areas of your body.
Men and women's skin has significant differences in terms of collagen and thickness. Men have a higher collagen density than women. Because of this, it's more common for women to show premature signs of aging faster than men, even though they might be the same age.
Collagen is a huge focus in beauty, but it also has many other health benefits for both women and men.
The skin of men and women differs a lot in thickness and in the amount of collagen they both have. Most men aren’t aware that they have a larger collagen density in their bodies than women do. Therefore, women show the loss of collagen earlier than men even they are the same age.
What Is Collagen
Collagen is the most abundant protein in the human body, spread throughout our muscles, bones, tendons, ligaments, organs, blood vessels, skin, intestinal lining, and other connective tissues.
Collagen is built in the cells of fibroblasts. Fibroblasts are specialized cells with the main function of synthesizing collagen and stroma. The fibroblast is a specific type of connective tissue cell that's in our skin and in our tendons. Fibroblasts are mostly in the stroma. The stroma is made up of the cells and tissues that support and give structure to organs, glands, or other tissues in the body
We lose 1 - 1.5% of collagen per year from the age of c25 years onwards. Our skin shows it first as elasticity reduces and the skin sags and wrinkles. Later, we feel stiff joints and gut issues.
What Does Collagen Do For Us?
Collagen helps all through your body like your muscles, digestion and joints. Collagen also helps thinning hair, low energy, depression and painful joints. It is needed to strengthen teeth, nails and it protects the heart, helps mood swings and improves metabolism and muscle mass.
These benefits are what women are after. Many adapt to a diet to increase collagen. Others add supplements and aesthetics treatments to their lifestyle.
Men are starting to understand that they too lose collagen and could benefit from what collagen can bring to the body and face during the ageing years.
Why should men and women increase collagen levels?
Collagen helps maintain your ligaments, tendons, skin, and muscles.
It’s found throughout your body and is responsible for skin, gut, joint and bone health. It is the scaffolding of your body as it holds your body together, keeping it working properly.
Collagen is known as a complex protein as it contains 19 amino acids.
Over the years women have locked on to the need for collagen especially against ageing but men are still not as accepting of the science.
What all men should take onboard is that collagen is needed to aid fast recovery from action at the gym or any exercise. Collagen isn’t all about the skin.
Imagine that the collagen is the one thing in our body and face that holds our skin on to the muscle. It is needed in every part of us from your skin to blood vessels and intestinal lining.
Collagen loss affects our gut and mostly in men based on 2022 research.
Collagen has a mix of amino acids that helps to:
Regulate stomach acid levels – helps break down the protein-rich foods we eat like meat, fish, eggs etc.
it helps protect the gastric mucosa.
Digests our food further
Encourages the food to move through the GI tract
Improves bacterial balance
Encourages growth of gut bacteria like bifidobacterial
What Factors Cause Us To Lose Collagen?
Things that can decrease collagen in the body include:
Smoking
Autoimmune Disorders
Sugar
Ultraviolet rays
Refined carbohydrates
How Can We Increase Our Collagen Levels
There are a few ways you can increase collagen levels:
Increase Vitamin C based foods like broccoli, lemon, cauliflower.
Cut the caffeine
Eat chicken, egg whites, bone broth, citrus and berries, leafy greens, tropical fruits and garlic.
Use hyaluronic acid on or in the skin. Dermal Fillers contain hyaluronic acid which helps boost the amount of collagen in the skin and helps elasticity too.
Use HIFU to renew collagen in the ‘fascia’ -SMAS. This proven treatment tightens and lifts skin on the face and body which improves as the collagen increases in the SMAS. It is also used to rejuvenate the vagina after child birth and during menopause when women lose a lot of collagen.
Aloe sterols taken daily can offer skin hydration, wrinkle reduction and 40 – 50% more collagen in skin.
Take Ginseng as it increased collagen in the bloodstream according to a 2012 study. Research also shows that it may help prevent aging in skin cells. You can drink tea or take supplements.
Red light therapy and other types of light therapy may increase collagen growth and improve wrinkles and skin elasticity.
Increase stretching and other exercise
In Conclusion
Collagen is known as helping with many health benefits in our bodies. When we're healthier we feel happier. This helps us to live well.
Our hearts rely on adequate collagen levels to help prevent narrowing of the artery walls which can cause strokes and heart attacks. Now prolonged collagen supplements are cited to give a reduction in artery stiffness and an increase in levels of good cholesterol.
It is important to assist your body maintain collagen levels before it's lost.
