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Please note: Justin Buckthorp (Founder of 360 Health & Performance and Ambassador for Kinetica Sports) originally wrote this post for Kinetica Sports, a premium brand in sports performance nutrition. You can find the full post on their website.
Introduction
Many of us have used supplements like whey, probiotics, omega-three fish oil, and vitamin C in our daily lives. Many excellent research studies show how these supplements can support our health, well-being, and recovery from strenuous exercise.
But what about collagen supplements? What is collagen? Why is collagen unique? What are the benefits of collagen supplementation?
For many, collagen is a brand-new concept and supplement they have never seen. Today, we’d like to share some of the science behind collagen with you. It’s an exciting supplement with the potential to improve our health and performance. Let’s look at how and why.
"A 2021 systematic review assessed five trials investigating the effect of collagen supplementation on pain. The results were positive. It concluded that collagen could reduce joint pain, improve joint function, and improve pain thresholds with exercise (Khatri, Naughton et al. 2021)."
- Justin Buckthorp, MSc
What is Collagen?
Collagen is a vitally important protein found in skin and other connective tissues, such as ligaments and tendons. In fact, collagen contributes about 65-80% to the dry weight of tendons. Put another way, if you dehydrate a tendon, most of what is left are collagen (Kannus 2000).
Collagen also contains unique properties that help us successfully offset mechanical forces when running, training and playing sports (Goes, Lopes et al. 2020). The structural properties of collagen are vital to the health and strength of our joints, tendons, and ligaments (Gelse, Poschl et al. 2003).
An excellent way to understand collagen in the body is to compare it to clever engineering in skyscrapers. The tallest building in the world is the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, at just over half a mile tall, or 829.8m. For a building like this to withstand environmental forces, it needs to have incredible structure and strength, but it also needs to be adaptable and absorb load successfully. Collagen does the same for us in the body.
There are at least 28 different collagen types in the body, which combine to help you live, move and be healthy (Leon-Lopez, Morales-Penaloza et al. 2019).
The importance of collagen goes way beyond our day-to-day musculoskeletal health. Collagen is vital for our healing and healthy ageing too. As we get older, we lose collagen. This loss starts as we reach adulthood, and after 40 years of age, we can lose about 1% of collagen per year (Leon-Lopez, Morales-Penaloza et al. 2019).
Collagen helps us with many aspects of recovery and regeneration. This role of collagen includes wound healing, increasing bone density, helping with skin health, tissue regeneration, eye health, scalp repair and cell messaging. Collagen is central to cell survival and differentiation (Sugihara, Inoue et al. 2018, Choi, Sung et al. 2019, Jendricke, Centner et al. 2019, Gupta, Buyank et al. 2022).
In other words, we need collagen for our health and longevity, not just our fitness.
What are the benefits of collagen supplementation?
There are multiple studies and systematic reviews that show collagen supplementation can be of value in multiple areas of our health and wellness, including:
- Use of collagen supplementation in the reduction of joint pain
- Use of collagen supplementation in recovery from exercise
- Use of collagen supplementation in enhancing body composition and muscle strength
A 2016 systematic review addressing collagen in osteoporosis and osteoarthritis concluded that collagen supplementation could positively affect people through improvements in bone mineral density, a protective effect on articular cartilage, and pain relief (Porfírio and Fanaro 2016).
A 2019 randomised controlled trial investigated the effect of 20 grams per day of collagen peptide on muscle damage, inflammation and bone turnover in recreationally active adults (Clifford, Ventress et al. 2019). Results showed that supplementation improved muscle soreness following exercise and countermovement squat jump height 48 hours post-session.
In multiple studies, collagen supplementation has been shown to help increase fat-free mass compared to placebo when combined with resistance training. This benefit of collagen is evident in different populations – including young men, premenopausal women and older men with sarcopenia (Zdzieblik, Oesser et al. 2015, Jendricke, Centner et al. 2019, Kirmse, Oertzen-Hagemann et al. 2019).
Conclusion
In 2018, the International Olympic Committee issued a consensus statement on dietary supplements for high-performance athletes (Maughan 2018). Looking at broad recommendations, it concluded that collagen at 5-15 grams per day with 50mg of vitamin C could potentially help with training capacity, recovery, muscle soreness and injury management by increasing collagen production, thickening cartilage and decreasing joint pain.
Our go-to brand for Collagen supplementation is Kinetica Sports. We know the team, we know their values, and we love the quality of their product.
With Kinetica’s collagen, you have a premium product. Each serving provides 20 grams of collagen, but on top of that, there are synergistic nutrients to help you. There is 150mg of glucosamine sulphate, 100mg of chondroitin sulphate, 250mg of turmeric extract, 4mg of black pepper extract, 50mg of vitamin C, and 500 μg of copper.
This combination of nutrients makes this collagen product special. For example, Vitamin C is known to help boost the effect of collagen peptides on healing (DePhillipo, Aman et al. 2018). Black pepper can help increase the bioavailability of curcumin found in turmeric, and turmeric has consistent anti-inflammatory outcomes (Roshdy, Rashed et al. 2020, Ferguson, Abbott et al. 2021). A new meta-analysis also shows the combination of glucosamine sulphate and chondroitin sulphate is more effective in treating osteoarthritis (Meng, Liu et al. 2022).
In short, this new Kinetica product provides you with an excellent all-around level of nutrition support to help you in your training and day-to-day life. It’s also a great compliment to the other products offered by Kinetica.
Enjoy!
