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DooDooSlinger t1_j29c77f wrote

Reply to comment by immwork in If collagen is a protein, and proteins are broken down during digestion, why would collagen or collagen supplements be beneficial? Is it just hype? by skepticated

This is incorrect. Collagen is not fully degraded during digestion and polypeptides do enter general circulation. The implications are unclear but there are several studies and meta analyses which point towards applications.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29467346/

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jafc.6b05679

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immwork t1_j29fw16 wrote

I'm happy to be corrected. Mostly I wanted to push back on the myth that proteins are somehow digested into some sort of universal protein sludge that's completely interchangeable.

My primary point is that we get glycine from collagen and that we need it because we can't make enough. I'm sure your expertise exceeds mine, but do I have that right?

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DooDooSlinger t1_j2agerz wrote

It's unclear - the mechanism is far from understood. We get glycine from almost any protein source so that's definitely not it. But oligopeptides can definitely have hormonal effects so who knows, maybe degradation products of collagen exert hormonal effects which lead to increased synthesis. Obviously totally hypothetical

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iamaxc t1_j2aums5 wrote

obviously this is a hot topic and while there are some human studies, the rodent ones should be taken with a grain of salt. Collagen isn't in a typical rodent diet so it makes sense they haven't evolved to digest it the same way that humans can digest proteins. Factor in cooking and the picture gets even muddier.

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