Collagen & Structure
Collagen hydrolysate provides essential amino acids like glycine that your body cannot produce in sufficient amounts. Its bioactive peptides stimulate fibroblasts and support skin health, wound healing, and structural integrity.
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Collagen powder has had a steep rise.
Just ten or fifteen years ago, collagen was considered inferior protein, sourced from slaughterhouse waste. Pay attention to the wording.
But even then, research was showing something quite different: collagen is the only dietary protein rich in the rare amino acids glycine and (hydroxy)proline.
Glycine and (hydroxy)proline are simultaneously also the most important components of our body's own collagen. The prevailing belief at the time was: both are so-called non-essential amino acids that the body can produce sufficiently on its own.
Too simplistic a view: A biochemical calculation by the "Instituto del Metabolismo Celular" (Tenerife), published in a scientific journal, showed in 2009 that the body cannot actually produce sufficient amounts of glycine on its own:
"Glycine should therefore be considered an essential amino acid, since the capacity for its synthesis is far lower than the actual requirement. We have also shown that this deficit cannot be covered by a normal diet (...)."
Shortfall: up to 10 g per day. (cf. [source no longer available])
It might be a good idea for our body's own collagen to take in more glycine – for example via collagen powder. Meanwhile, years later, there are numerous reviews and meta-analyses on this topic showing that collagen fulfills these purposes.
One review [source no longer available] states:
"Preliminary evidence is promising for short- and long-term oral collagen preparation use for wound healing and skin aging. Oral collagen preparations also increase skin elasticity, moisture content, and skin collagen density."
Quite obvious, really.
But what do you do if you don't like collagen or are vegetarian or vegan? Is it enough to take glycine and proline individually?
To answer directly: yes, taking additional glycine is better than having too little glycine in your diet. This benefits not only our body's own collagen – our structural protein – but also [source no longer available].
But there's a little secret to collagen: when you consume collagen protein, you automatically ingest collagen peptides. These are short protein snippets that arise either during enzymatic processing or in the gut during digestion.
This is called hydrolysis, hence -hydrolysate. And precisely these small peptides have their own biological effect – which is why they're called bioactive peptides.
A 2020 study [source no longer available] clarified exactly how they work. Prepare to be amazed:
"The small collagen peptide Pro-Hyp is a low-molecular-weight growth-promoting factor for fibroblasts and plays a decisive role in wound healing by triggering fibroblast proliferation."
Let me explain: Pro-Hyp is such a peptide composed of proline and hydroxyproline. The researchers identified at least twelve other collagen peptides – many contain glycine – but in their work they focused on Pro-Hyp, which contains no glycine.
This Pro-Hyp arises in larger quantities both during collagen protein digestion and near wounds. The researchers could show that this peptide functions as a growth factor by binding to a specific receptor on fibroblasts.
Fibroblasts are collagen-producing cells found, for example, in the skin. When there's an injury – that is, wound formation – they get "awakened," divide and reproduce (proliferation), and then produce lots of collagen so the wound heals.
The collagen peptide Pro-Hyp thus awakens the fibroblasts and kicks collagen production into gear. This works locally on-site when collagen strands tear from the wound and peptides form, or ... through collagen supplementation. The authors write:
"Endogenous and dietary-derived Pro-Hyp can improve wound healing by stimulating fibroblast growth at the wound healing site without adverse effects on healthy tissue (...)."
Sensational. For us, this means: collagen has properties that simply cannot be replaced by the simple addition of, say, glycine and proline.
Therefore, we generally recommend intact collagen hydrolysate. Nevertheless, we try to realize customer wishes and are therefore endeavoring to be able to offer a collagen-free – and thus vegan – "collagen mimetic" in the near future.
However, this will contain only individual amino acids. By the way: the industry is already busy developing collagenous proteins without animal involvement. It is therefore reasonable to assume that soon there will be real, "vegan" collagen.
We'll keep you posted.
