Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

JanetYellenThrowAway t1_j29pfxe wrote

Collagen is digested just like any other food: very simply put, your body breaks it down into its constituent parts and uses those parts in a manner that the conditions in your body demand. The thing is, a lot of tissues in your body are built from the same kinds of substances, so once you digest that collagen, there is no guarantee your body will use its constituent parts to create more collagen. That doesn't mean eating collagen is meritless: it contains valuable amino acids. But your body isn't necessarily going to use those amino acids to create the same kind of connective tissue.

Cooking meat denatures the proteins that it holds, which actually helps their bioavailability. There is the thinking that cooking the hell out of something will reduce the amount of usable protein, but I don't remember ever seeing any hard data about this.

5

lollroller t1_j2a45ie wrote

Are you not bothering to read some of the links that others have provided, that demonstrate that collagen may not be completely digested as most proteins are, and collagen derived polypeptides can indeed enter the circulation and are measurable? And that there is accumulating evidence from clinical trials that oral collagen supplementation likely indeed has objectively measured affects on skin and wound healing?

0

JanetYellenThrowAway t1_j2aedmr wrote

We know that oral collagen supplementation likely does have objectively measured *effects on skin and wound healing, as is true with supplementation of other proteins, and there is a lot of clinical data that presumes that this is a result of the amino acid makeup of various proteins. I haven't seen a link in this thread that offers a lot of supporting evidence to the theory that that collagen in = collagen created, necessarily, aside from that Japanese study, which appears to have been conducted by scientists at FANCL Corporation, whose entire business is cosmetic and dietary supplements (that's not to say that the science is bad, but the conclusion is, shall we say, "less than unbiased").

2

lollroller t1_j2aleaj wrote

Agree that these studies using collagen-derived small peptides do show multiple measures of clinical improvement, and that it is difficult to show collagen peptides in = collagen created = clinical improvement.

Ideally such trials would be controlled with similar small peptides but distinct from the amino acid content of the experimental peptides; and unfortunately the trials I’ve looked at so far are controlled with starch-based materials.

However, as much as I laughed at this topic 20 years ago, I’m slowly coming to the conclusion that there might be something here. More time will tell

1

JanetYellenThrowAway t1_j2bdp6z wrote

I'm with you - collagen is great for you, I'm just here to make sure we're advocating for all dietary proteins, including collagen, especially for the folks in the cheap seats.

Anecdotally, I've been eating a very protein-rich diet for several years (averaging roughly twice what is recommended daily), and have also burned myself cooking dozens of times in that span. I have zero scarring. 🤷

2