Emily: 0:00

Hey ness. So today we are here to talk all about college in. Have you ever used college in yourself in ESSA?

Vanessa: 0:10

I have not personally. And I think it's one of those things that, you know, like everything else that becomes popular, it starts as maybe being viable in a couple areas. And then it turns into like, it's going to save your whole life.

Emily: 0:25

Yeah, that's definitely another one of those miracle cure type of supplements that we hear about a lot, maybe similar to a celery juice

Vanessa: 0:36

And you know what, honestly, I kind of feel bad for some of these trends because they're not necessarily bad trends, but they just get hyped up to such a level that's craziness, you know, like everybody kind of starts to be like, ah, don't do that. And like, they're not always bad. It's just you know, not solving world hunger.

Emily: 0:55

We're basically the gray area of all these topics, because there's so many benefits, so many not so great side effects and then just so much kind of bullshit.

Vanessa: 1:07

And honestly, when we were talking about starting this podcast, we almost named it like gray area wellness, gray area podcast. And I really liked those. And I remember telling Craig and he was like, what? And I was like, Cod has, you know, like we like to be in the gray area of things. And he was like, yeah, that's not.

Emily: 1:28

I don't really think it's quite that catchy, but it really sums up all of our opinions and all of our discussions thus far so well.

Vanessa: 1:37

I mean, who knows there could be a rebranding in the future for wellness with welcome to wellness myths. We're so happy. You're back if you're a longtime listener and if it's your first time welcome to our podcast. Me and Emily are really excited to talk about collagen today. I know in these kinds of episodes, I've done. Some research. Emily has done some research, obviously both of us already had some knowledge oncologists as well, but hopefully we can clear up some myths.

Emily: 2:17

I'm really excited to talk about collagen because it's just something that I hear so much, obviously in the nutrition world, but also in the beauty world. So I'm excited to kind of discuss all of the different aspects today.

Vanessa: 2:31

I actually, coincidentally. Yeah. Two of my friends asked me about college and this week.

Emily: 2:38

Oh, Oh no. What, what did they like in general or something specific?

Vanessa: 2:41

They were just wanting my opinion on If they needed to have it. And I think it's kind of, it goes back to like, just being one of those things that it's pumped so much in the media and on social media, that it becomes something like, Oh my gosh, I have to have it. it's almost like, Oh, like I need to drink water and I need to have college. And, you know, I feel like it almost gets built up to that level of importance.

Emily: 3:08

you know, just another food group, your last macronutrient collagen

Vanessa: 3:13

Like, if you're not, you know, taking college in every day, you're doing something wrong.

Emily: 3:17

So for people who are unsure what even is college, and

Vanessa: 3:22

And I I'm just going to stop you right there. I'm only because I would be curious to pull people who take collagen to ask them what it is. If they knew,

Emily: 3:35

Oh, yeah. I think I was literally just having this conversation with someone earlier about what even is this. And, you know, it's like in a nice, pretty tub at whole foods. That's like pink or this nice blue color, like vital protein or collagen peptides. And. It's ground up cattle. I don't think anybody knows that it's ground up cows,

Vanessa: 3:59

Well, and it can be other animals too, but it is ground up.

Emily: 4:02

So the definition of collagen is it's the main structural protein found in skin and other connective tissues. And it's widely used in a purified form for cosmetic surgical treatments. And now as a dietary style. Okay.

Vanessa: 4:19

Basically collagen is connective tissue. Your tub is full of connective tissue, which sounds kind of gross,

Emily: 4:29

I see a lot of vegan collagen alternatives, and I'll talk more about those later, since I'm vegan myself, but it's definitely something that I don't think these fancy brands really push that hard telling you what it is. They really just focus on the kind of buzzwordy term of just collagen.

Vanessa: 4:50

For sure. And it's important to remember too. And we can get more into this later, like anything collagen, you know, as a supplement. And it's something that companies can potentially make a lot of money on it. And whenever that is going on, you want to be careful about what you're buying too. Because there is always a chance for contamination and things like that.

Emily: 5:15

So collagen production has to do with your skin health and your joint health. Vitamin C plays a very large role in the body in college and formation. So collagen gives structure to many body parts, such as bones, joints, muscles, and skin. The idea with a collagen supplement is that when you're consuming it, you're going to increase the overall collagen in your body, giving you healthier skin and healthier joints, and muscles.

Vanessa: 5:46

I remember even collagen, like when we, or in college it was trendy still, but it was kind of newer. I think, or at least it that's when it came onto my radar. and I remember sitting there and like learning. How cause our own bodies produce college in, I think that's something really important to remember your body does produce its own collagen. There's certain things that can affect your college in production, like age, like smoking, that can make that process. Less efficient but I remember sitting there and in class and watching, you know, how collagen is made and it was like, so why aren't we just eating more vitamin C? Okay.

Emily: 6:32

We're like all sitting there thinking these brands are kind of a sham. Right? We can do this on our own. We don't need some fancy supplement. And I feel like if there was just one thing that I wanted people to know from this episode is that you can make collagen on your own in your body. I feel like that's really important. And like you said, collagen production slows over time and that's kind of what people attribute to wrinkles in the skin or breakdown in muscles. And I think that's kind of what brings people to take the supplement. But it's important to not just assume this is the fall of lack of college in, and as Vanessa was just mentioning so often in wellness. We just kind of throw money at this problem in a form of a supplement and hope for the best. Um, so the question really comes down to whether the problem you're having such as skin aging, which is not inherently a problem, right. Everybody ages, or sore joints, is that really caused by a shortage of those amino acid building blocks of collagen, or is it something else?

Vanessa: 7:39

And in some cases it might be. And in those cases, I mean, there is, there's some pretty good studies that, you know, for joint health, especially that collagen can be, um, pretty helpful. So. You know, I can't fault people for doing that for taking a supplement in those cases, especially when it's going to work. There's pretty good research behind it. But where I get kind of nervous is like the million other claims like that you're going to become like a superhero in the gym and everything that aren't quite studied as well, or have enough evidence to actually say that. And that's when you want us. You start to be like, Oh, these claims are getting a little bit dicey.

Emily: 8:26

Well, or it's kind of like, it's a good source of protein. Okay. That's that can be true, but like, can you get that from a cheaper, just as quality source that might not be a collagen peptide, you can just drink regular protein. You know, like if that's, if we're talking about like athletic performance or

Vanessa: 8:47

Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I know, I don't know if you looked into this or not Emily. So like I was mentioning, um, you know, in my research, I looked a lot at. The things we know that collagen can be helpful with like skin health or joints. But none of them compare it to like doing a vitamin C supplementation or anything like that or nothing that I saw. And I would love, to see a study that compared those, cause I'd be really interested in the efficacy of vitamin C supplementation versus collagen and what that would end up looking like.

Emily: 9:29

The question too, is when you ingest vitamin C, we know, okay, it's going to go find those amino acids and help the body make your own collagen. When we're just ingesting a collagen peptide, the body's going to disassemble it. And then if we don't have the proper vitamin C to reassemble it, then we're not going to get that same college in. The body still has to reconfigure it on its own. So. It's kind of who knows, which is better. Is it just the collagen? Is it the fact that you have more vitamin C would college and work without vitamin C? We don't completely know that.

Vanessa: 10:07

And I mean, I guess from the stance of, you know, if you're ingesting collagen, it's breaking it down, those two amino acids in the body. And then basically it has to build college and back out of those. I mean, we know vitamin C is needed in that process, so it's not going to happen without it.

Emily: 10:27

So most of the research when it comes to vitamin C is really focused on skin health. Because we know that there's a high concentration of vitamin C in the skin and that vitamin C in skin becomes depleted when we're affected by UV rays or in a pollution heavy environment, or it can be aging as well. So studies have shown that an oral supplementation of vitamin C can translate to higher skin content of vitamin C. So it appears likely with many other tissues, skin vitamin C levels will respond to increases in your body's plasma supply. these studies are finding that there's a lessening of face, wrinkle depth, following vitamin C supplementation, and that there's increased collagen formation by fibroblasts in your cells. So we do have the data that says that vitamin C assists with skin health. And we can only assume this is because of collagen production, to a certain extent,, however, there are no studies that have measured vitamin C levels or intake and associated aging changes in the skin. There was a study with papaya extract and it showed to help skin health, as well as studies show that better nutrition equals better skin health, which. Everybody kind of knows that. We've basically assume that because signs of deficiency of vitamin C have to do with poor skin health, that a good or adequate amount of vitamin C, it means opposite that we have good skin health. So the reason why we're kind of talking so much about vitamin C is because as we mentioned before, that's a factor in collagen production in the body. It's sort of like, we don't know what comes first, is it proper vitamin C or proper collagen? And this study kind of makes me think that vitamin C plays a huge role.

Vanessa: 12:19

It abs, I mean, if you are taking collagen and you're not getting enough, vitamin C. You're not doing yourself any good. You know, I think we can pretty safely say that,

Emily: 12:30

Yeah, it does. It does absolutely nothing, which is not to say that. I mean, most people, a vitamin C deficiency these days is really rare people. Aren't getting scurvy and like bleeding gums every day.

Vanessa: 12:42

Yeah. I'm not in the United States at least. Yeah, for sure. And I think it's important to, like I mentioned before, I would love to see if a listener out there has seen studies, that's comparing like vitamin C supplementation to collagen, I would love to see a study like that because right now, we're just comparing Completely separate, studies so I also found in my research, vitamin C supplementation actually showing, showing some pretty good results with healing, bone fractures, um, which is pretty impressive. And that's something we would also maybe think about college in with and um, with those kinds of things, um, again like, you know, collagen works. Vitamin C works. What works better? I'm not, you know, the jury's kind of still out on that because there's not a lot of studies. But vitamin C is a lot less expensive.

Emily: 13:45

Yeah. And I mean, it's, it's, I think that's where it gives me pause with collagen as a supplement, because I just know that you can get the same thing done for cheaper. And it's a little bit less complicated. I mean, a lot of the times people get really overwhelmed. There's all these different powders and, you know, super foods that you can put in your smoothies and it's just can be really overwhelming. So if there's something that we can do, that's a lot simpler than I say, go for it.

Vanessa: 14:23

For sure. For sure. And I mean, as a dieticians, we're kind of like, you know, we're always thinking food first, so that's always going to be something we're going to talk about a lot. I think it's just like another supplement that people. Just add so easily into their diet as if they absolutely need it. And I guess the point that I really want to get across is, I mean, if you have joint pain, or arthritis, you know, there's been some studies to show that could help. So I understand take it and those, um, and those kinds of settings, I guess. Um, but taking it just like, because you saw an influencer take it. I feel like you're just wasting your money.

Emily: 15:14

We had, a few listeners who commented saying that they put it in their coffee in the morning. So they get some extra protein or calories if they're not feeling super hungry something like that. Cool. Like, I don't really think there's anything wrong with that. Obviously.

Vanessa: 15:32

Yeah. And I mean, especially for a lot of people that will just. Drink coffee and not eat anything else. I mean, that could be something that's really helpful for them. You know, it's slowing down that like caffeine punch a little bit and combined with fasting that a lot of people are doing in the morning. So it might help not get quite the cortisol punch. I mean, we want a little bit of a cortisol punch in the morning, but, not, not anything crazy, you know, we don't want it to maintain throughout the whole day.

Emily: 16:09

Yeah. And you could be eating like a little, banana, or you can eat like a little piece of toast or something, but if that's not appetizing and you just want to blend something into your coffee, then maybe this is a good option for you. Totally fine.

Vanessa: 16:21

For new listeners or for those who don't know us, Emily is vegan. I am not. So, um, especially, you know, thinking of grinding up a cow into a container, that's not probably something that Emily is going to promote a ton. Um,

Emily: 16:39

Yeah. It just really, it just really hits in a way the whole like ground up. Yeah. Like if you're not really even eating like chicken breasts, the ground up connective tissue of animals, it really hits part

Vanessa: 16:54

Yeah. Yeah. Which, I mean, I guess when you get, I was going to say, when you get into the meat and bones of it,

Emily: 17:03

No more, no more

Vanessa: 17:06

I was going to say, I mean,

Emily: 17:09

like actually gagging.

Vanessa: 17:11

I was going to say, like, I dunno, when you start thinking about any of that stuff, it becomes a little bit less appetizing, even as a non vegan. But there are vegan options of, of collagen and Emily. Can you tell us more about those, what they are? I honestly don't know that much about vegan collagen.

Emily: 17:35

Yeah. So it was like years ago in college and first came out and I was like, I don't want to miss out on this. Like, I want to do some cool college and thing too. And a lot of them they're just supplements. They're usually not powders. And they just contain like a lot of vitamins C zinc, which we know helps skin health too. And then some of them like different plant extracts or herbs that have been found to help stimulate college and production.. There's not a ton of research done on the herbs that they're putting into the supplements. They're usually mainly the vitamin C and then, so as they'll have different amino acids in them, like glycine, lysine, and proline. But once again, if you are vegan and you're wanting to get something like that, or if you're just like, I'm going to say no to the cattle ground up bones thing. There's a lot of different plant-based foods that are high in all those amino acids, which I think that people kind of think that the protein quality in plants is way lesser in every way, which just isn't true. So those same kind of building blocks for college and are in black beans or Tempe, tofu, seeds, nuts, all that stuff. And another thing that they've tend to put in these colleges and supplements is, biotin, which. I don't think has anything to do with college and production. I just it's been proven to help pears, skin and nails. So I think it's kind of like almost this like cheater thing, like, okay. You're pretty much just getting biotin, but we're just gonna put a fancy name, like vegan collagen on it. I'm not really sure about that, but I think it's just like the vegan capitalism couldn't possibly, um, miss out on a chance to sell people things. So I think they were just like, we've got to get our stuff together and put out some fancy product as well that we can convince people they need.

Vanessa: 19:26

Yeah, for sure. Have you seen, cause I feel like when I look up collagen and I'm sure that if I would've put in a pub med vegan college and, or specified, have you seen any studies that have compared them? That would be really interesting to see. Like if one is more better than the other, if they're the same.

Emily: 19:51

So I think that it would be kind of hard to compare the 2 cents, as of now vegan collagen is mostly some type of booster, but I think that someone out there is definitely trying to figure out the kind of. Blueprint of collagen. So similar to like the way that, Some vegan ice cream brands are using the genetic blueprint of a cow protein, like a way. And they're taking that and producing it artificially. So it ends up being like this non-animal whey protein. And I think that that's definitely something that will be in the works with college in and what I've kind of read about, so that there can be something that is an animal free version. And would have basically the same makeup as an animal based collagen.

Vanessa: 20:45

Right. Yeah. It'll be really interesting to see what they come up with, but it is funny that, I mean, nobody can resist a new trend. Everybody's got to get on that money train. I think it's important to talk about too, with animal-based collagen I know we've been mentioning only crushing up cows, but, um, there's also fish and chicken collagen as well. From what I've seen beef collagen or bovine collagen is best for, skin like firmness and elasticity, and that chicken collagen is best for joints and arthritis.

Emily: 21:30

Wow. Interesting. I've seen the fish collagen before pretty often, because I think that's something that's a lot more palatable to a consumer and they don't have to kind of hide that. Like people take fish oil or like Omega stuff like that. I think more likely than they'll take. Um, or I think that that's a little easier to stomach then the crushed up cow situation.

Vanessa: 21:55

Oh God. We might have to name this episode. Crushed up gal, honestly.

Emily: 22:01

I literally had in my notes crushed of Kyle. Um, okay. So if people are like, well, I want to take collagen or I've been taking collagen and I'm not sure if it's really meeting my goals or not. What are some practical solutions that we can have people. Take home to their supplement cabinet with them.

Vanessa: 22:25

Don't think that it is like drinking water every day or getting enough fruits and vegetables. It's an extra thing. It's not something that has to be in your diet just because you know, the influencer you're following has it in there.

Emily: 22:41

And if you're already taking college in and you feel like it's helpful to you, whatever, make sure you're also taking enough, intaking enough, vitamin C so that you can actually use those amino acids that you're ingesting

Vanessa: 22:55

And making sure that you are. You know, getting your collagen from a reliable source or a reliable brand, because we still have to watch out for contamination. So that's, you know, something you can't forget with any subject

Emily: 23:13

yeah, definitely. There's not a ton of regulation on these things. That's for sure. and then keeping in mind too, that vitamin C stores are depleted by smoking by stress oral contraceptives. So just being aware that, you know, if you are engaging in any of those three things, which I'm pretty sure everybody, um, You know, just pay a little bit of extra attention to that. Vitamin C, especially if skin health or joint health is something that you're struggling with. And if you don't think you're getting enough vitamin C from your diet, you can always take a supplement. It's a water soluble vitamin. So the body. We'll usually get rid of what it doesn't need via waste. But the goal is really not that hard to reach. So for example, adults need 65 to 90 milligrams per day of vitamin C. And if you just eat one orange and one red pepper that would put you way over your daily needs. So it's not too tough to get all the vitamins that you need from your diet. And hopefully, um, you can do that rather than having to. Buy a fancy supplement.

Vanessa: 24:23

I guess something to that. I didn't research this as much, but I'm kind of confused as to why collagen got so, popular rather than just taking like a glycine and a proline supplement, you know? Why make our body do so much work of like breaking it down and then putting it back to, you know, it's like, why don't we just give it the ingredients? I don't know. I mean, that's just me wondering too.

Emily: 24:56

I think a lot of it really has to do with kind of the beauty industry, especially because that vital proteins, collagen peptides brand is so popular and that's kind of where, their claims lie the most. It's kind of around the time when people started getting collagen injected into their face. So I think they're like, Oh, well this is the natural way. I'll just eat it instead.

Vanessa: 25:19

So to review, if you're taking collagen, make sure you're getting enough. Vitamin C um, for skin health, especially, you know, kind of things that are avoiding the sun or sun damage is going to decrease the collagen in your skin. So protecting your skin from the sun. Eating enough, vitamin C and what else am.

Emily: 25:43

I think you got everything really? It's just vitamin C vitamin C vitamin C.

Vanessa: 25:47

Yeah. And if you really need college in sure. But don't just take it because someone told you to,

Emily: 25:53

Absolutely.

Vanessa: 25:54

I was a professional, like Emily or me. Yeah. And you can use the code wellness, miss 10 to get 10% off You so much for listening to this episode of wellness myths and thank you. If you have already reviewed our podcast, we so much appreciate it. We love seeing the feedback. We want to go ahead and read another review, from one of our wellness fans, titled fellow RD fan. One of my favorite podcasts, it's educational timely. And I always feel like I'm a part of Emily and Vanessa's conversations. MIS are debunked with. A whole health approach avoiding the pseudo wellness that is all too common with an diet culture. I am also a dietician and a big fan. I love sharing this podcast is a resource to others as well. Thank you, Megan, red 10. We so much appreciate it. If you haven't already, if you love our podcast, please give us a review. We absolutely love reading them. Unless it's really mean. And then we don't necessarily want to hear it. Nice comments only, please. Honestly, I'm too sensitive for the mean ones. I'm Lincoln attest to that.

Emily: 27:23

You are, you are. Stick with us. Because next week we will be discussing BMI, highly requested one of my favorite topics and I cannot wait to share it with everyone. See you next time.