In this article, you will learn the 7 main benefits of taking collagen protein powder.
Collagen Protein Powder Benefits
If you’re new to the collagen supplement world, we’d recommend starting with understanding collagen, the protein, and then weigh the pros and cons of taking collagen supplements.
If that’s yesterday’s news for you, then let’s start breaking down these 7 collagen powder benefits with the beauty factor — an awesome benefit that many of our female customers can’t stop talking about.
1. Improves Hair, Skin, & Nails
Have you noticed that as we age, our skin becomes looser, we develop wrinkles, our skin starts to discolor, our hair may start falling out and our fingernails/toenails need to be cut less often? This is in part due to collagen production declining as we get older, in additional to other lifestyle factors contributing to what we like to call the aging process.
But, does it have to be this way?
Are we all doomed to have saggy skin, gross toenails and clogged drains because of all our hair falling out? Well, no, actually.
Sound too good to be true?
Here’s the science on 5 studies, if you like research and data (like us). If not, feel free to scroll quickly. 🙂
Study #1
ResearchGate studied middle aged women and found the collagen consuming groups experienced “reduced skin wrinkles and had positive effects on dermal matrix synthesis.” That sounds like something every women (and man, they care about our wrinkles too) could ever dream of?
Study #2
The Journal of Medical Nutrition & Neutraceuticals has the best opening line ever for a scientific paper:
Many people around the world strive to achieve younger looking skin.
Amazing. JMNN gave fish collagen to middle aged women and the conclusions were again positive. Hooray collagen and its magical power to reduce wrinkle depth, hydration to the skin, and overall elasticity. (Those are all fancy words we pulled from this study.)
Study #3
NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information) found that middle aged women showed a significant increase in skin elasticity over the placebo group. Um, quick side note: why aren’t we testing dudes? We care about our skin too, but we digress.
Study #4
If you’d like to read 16 pages of this NCBI study, dive in and nerd out. But, here is the brief summary:
Collagen supplementation reduces visible signs of aging.
Study #5
Another NCBI study shows collagen strengthens our finger/toenails:
- 12% increase in nail growth rate
- 42% decrease in broken nail rate
- success rate of 88% in terms of overall improvement to nail health
- 80% of the participants on the study were said to be “completely satisfied” with the collagen supplementation treatment
Increasing collagen consumption has been shown to help the cells in our skin, hair and nails to repair, thus contributing to smoother and firmer skin, healthier nails, and fuller hair.
Unfortunately, our product does not cure baldness, if it did, we would be gazillionaires and all have hair like Fabio.
Also worth noting here since we’re talking about skin health. Contrary to what the cosmetic market has available for collagen creams and the benefits they tout, face creams with collagen do NOT work. You have to ingest collagen orally. If you’re looking to improve your skin with collagen, stick with collagen peptides supplements.
Your skin’s primary job is to keep stuff out — you can’t rub collagen on your skin to increase your collagen. You need to take it by mouth.Dr. Matthew Knight, M.D.
2. Help Tendons, Ligaments, & Joint Recovery
Collagen benefits tendons, ligaments, and helps with joint recovery. Who doesn’t need that? No matter what age you are (see: What Age Should I Start Taking Collagen?), quick recovery is always a good thing!
What happens the day after leg day at the gym? Your body hurts, specifically your knees are sore and hips/back are tender (leg day is the best isn’t it?) At CB Supplements, we aren’t scared of leg day and like to work hard. We earn that soreness.
However, we rarely get sore (unless it’s the annual Murph or something). This is probably hard to believe, but collagen has amazing recovery properties. It can help to keep your cartilage intact, maintain bone health and maintains healthy joints.
We work hard to grow our muscles stronger, but what are we doing to strengthen/repair those things we call tendons and ligaments that connect our muscles and bones? Well, unless you are routinely eating organ meats, drinking bone broth, or taking daily doses of a powerful multi collagen protein supplement, you are doing very little for your tendons and ligaments.
Collagen will not guarantee from injuries (we can’t make that claim!), but individual results seem to suggest that collagen supplementation throughout the day has powerful abilities to help our bodies rebuild and recover faster.
Science supports collagen could possibly regrow cartilage
Yes, associated and correlation does not prove causation, however it’s still an exciting conclusion for the field of collagen supplementation. Sure, more study is needed (we agree), but if there’s any chance that supplementing collagen can maintain cartilage and joint function cartilage (while at the same time releasing pain) – that’s frikin’ awesome.
The bottom line
Everybody is different in terms of the right amount of collagen to supplement for your tendons, ligaments, and joints. We’ve had some customers need only 1 scoop a day and 2 weeks later they cancel their knee surgery (true story). Other customers have upped their consumption to 20+ grams per day and experienced “miracles” (like their elbow tendinitis going away – another true story).
So though the RDA for collagen has yet to be defined, the magic formula should probably include at least 7g of collagen supplementation for joint health.
3. Maintains Digestive Health
Inflammation is created from autoimmune response, and inflammation, especially chronic, is arguably the root issue for everyone. Chronic inflammation can lead to some pretty nasty and awful discomforts ranging from joint pain, migraines, diarrhea, skin rashes, arthritis, and potentially worse things
Yikes.
And if that didn’t scare you enough, during inflammation the cells in your intestines are damaged and not functioning correctly, hence why you literally have holes in your small intestine. These cells are no longer producing enzymes needed to digest food properly. Why is this important? Because you can experience hormonal imbalances due to the body not being able to absorb critical nutrients.
OK, enough about inflammation. Let’s talk about how collagen can help!
So how does collagen maintain digestive health?
Short answer:
Collagen protein helps form connective tissue in the lining of the digestive system.
The intestinal lining is made of tiny folds of villi that are actually built of/made of collagen. Collagen consumed can support new tissue growth and health of these villi.
The idea around collagen and digestive health
To be fully transparent, there is not much science around the topic of collagen fixing digestive health. There just haven’t been many studies done on this subject.
Studies look to probiotics and other alternative ways to heal the gut, which is cool and all, but like let’s use common sense and maybe fix the gut by consuming what it is made of? Hello, collagen anyone? Also for the record, you can take collagen with probiotics safely.
Check out my collagen testimonial, I fixed my digestive health in 3 days. Also, what’s the #1 feedback we get from hundreds of customers? Our multi-collagen helped their digestive system get back to “normal”.
Hooray 
4. Strengthens Bones
Bones are made of collagen.
Pop quiz. What are bones made of? Collagen, yes, thank you for reading.
Here is a good illustration for you to visualize how collagen makes our bones so damn strong. Think of a spider web, where you have the web connected into this massive shape, but it has holes throughout it. Now, fill the holes and you have a solid structure. The web itself is the collagen, and the filling in the holes is hardened calcium and phosphorus.
That is what our bones look like. The matrix web of collagen with calcium and phosphorus filling in the middle.
Point is collagen is a major part of our bones, if not the most important. It holds everything together and you wonder why the older we get the more fractures and broken bones we suffer?
Collagen production decreases every year and most people don’t consume any collagen whatsoever in the standard American diet.
In fact, most people only consume about 14% of their calories for overall protein, which is woefully low compared to our hunter/gatherer ancestors who consumed closer to 19-35% of their calories from protein. Thanks Loren Cordain.
And if you want strong bones, prioritize protein (including collagen!) at every meal and eat less energy (fat and carbs). Thanks Dr. Ted Naiman.
Worried about your grandparents?
Collagen is absolutely for seniors. You should tell them to start supplementing with collagen immediately.
Now for some insights!
- Post menapausal women that shows supplementing with collagen improved bone density
- Collagen supplementation to maintains bones health
- Post menopausal women who take a collagen supplement may maintain better blood markers and better bone health
5. Increase Muscle Mass & Lose Weight
Want big muscles? Collagen might be able to help!
No, CB Supplements multi-collagen is not steroids and it won’t make you look like 1975 Arnold Schwarzenegger, but it can most certainly help you build muscle.
Collagen is found in muscle tissue, but it is a small percentage, only accounting for less than 10%.
The secret is that collagen helps you recover significantly faster by supporting your joints with the amino acids they need to rebuild what you broke down during an intense workout.
Additionally, collagen may help stimulate the production of certain proteins needed for muscle growth.
MORE FROM COLLAGEN COLLEGE™
Collagen Protein vs Whey Protein (Anchorman style!)
This promising study, while small, demonstrated the positive effect of supplementing with collagen. Participants were either given a collagen supplement or a placebo. The group that supplemented with 15 grams of collagen per day (that’s about 2 scoops of our product) showed significant improvement in strength and muscle mass.
6. Promote Heart/Circulatory Health
It can be argued that the heart is the most important organ we have in our amazing bodies.
We are so obsessed with the heart that we have a huge organization called the American Heart Association that rules over the medical landscape of the wonderful US of A.
We aren’t going to get into the debate about whether or not saturated fat causes heart disease (it doesn’t, go watch Fat: A Documentary or read The Big Fat Surprise), we are here to talk about how collagen can help your ticker tick for many years.
Collagen is rich in the amino acid proline
Collagen has 19 of the 20 amino acids.
One of those amino acids, Proline, helps to remove plaque from arteries by binding to free-floating molecules in the blood, thus preventing the depositing of more plaque. Collagen also plays a vital part in the make up the structure of the blood vessel.
This particular amino acid helps to remove plaque from arteries by binding to free-floating molecules in the blood, thus preventing the depositing of more plaque. Collagen also plays a vital part in the make up the structure of the blood vessels.
We aim to be the best source for education and look to present information to our customers, so if you’d like to learn more about cholesterol, get to know Dave Feldman.
7. Helps Liver Detox Alcohol (Honorable Mention)
Collagen might help the liver do its job of detoxing our bodies from the daily exposure of toxins, alcohol in particular.
One of the awesome and abundant amino acids in collagen peptides is glycine. Glycine provides a protective effect against alcohol-induced liver injury! Fantastic news for all our bourbon friends out there.
Maybe that is why the French and Italians live so long? They increase their collagen production by eating a ton of collagen rich foods and drink wine like fish.
Multi Collagen Protein Benefits
As you continue to educate yourself around collagen and its benefits, you’ll begin to realize that not all collagen products are made the same.
The main differences to look for are the sources of animals (e.g. beef, fish, etc.) and the types of collagen that are included (e.g. Type I, II, III, etc.).
You’ll either find a:
- Single-sourced Collagen. Sourced from a single animal (i.e. Beef, Fish, Chicken)
- Multi-sourced Collagen. Sourced from 2+ animals.
Full disclaimer (in case you haven’t figured it out yet), we’re all about MULTI collagen. Yes, we’re a supplements company but we only offer multi collagen products because we believe in multi-sourced collagen so much.
Learn more about multi collagen protein with this guide:
MORE FROM COLLAGEN COLLEGE™
The Complete Guide to Multi Collagen Protein: What is It? Benefits? Ingredients?
To collagen or not to collagen?
(Somebody will get our Hamlet reference.)
The better question is why wouldn’t you supplement with collagen? If you’re ready to start feeling the difference and wanting some tips on buying, here’s what to look for in a collagen powder. If collagen powder isn’t your thing, here are the best ways to take collagen.
And if you’d like to try OUR collagen (we think you’ll fall in love with it), check our Instagram channel for a $5 off coupon code.
Thank you for being here.
