If there’s one kind of protein that’s everywhere, it’s collagen. Collagen makes up your connective tissues that are present in almost all your body parts, such as your tendons, skin, ligaments, and even your muscles. Also, collagen is essential and has many functions for your skin.
But, what exactly is collagen?
What Is Collagen?
First, you need to know what collagen is. As mentioned, collagen is one of the most abundant substances in the body. It’s the main structural protein that makes up all the connective tissues all around your body. To quantify it, collagen makes up around 80 percent of your skin.
There are different sources of collagen, such as poultry, bovine, and marine collagen. Regrettably, there’s no source of collagen that comes from plants. The most abundant one is bovine collagen since it’s easier to get and is the cheapest among all three. For beauty products, the best choice is marine collagen.
There are also different kinds of collagen. There’s always a type of collagen depending on your needs. Here are just some of the most common types of collagen and its respective descriptions:
- Type 1 – Type 1 is one of the most abundant ones in your body, which helps in keeping your skin healthy and glowing.
- Type 2 – Collagen is found in your bones as well. Type 2 is the collagen that’s present in your cartilage and helps strengthen your joints.
- Type 3 – Type 3 is another type of collagen that’ll help keep your skin healthy by improving your skin’s elasticity.
- Type 5 – On the other hand, Type 5 is the type of collagen that’ll help with the placenta’s growth in pregnancy.
- Type 10 – Type 10 is a type of collagen that is found inside your cartilage, which helps in bone development.
Why Do You Need Collagen?
Production of collagen in your body won’t be constant throughout your life. As you age, the production of collagen in your body starts to reduce. Moreover, your skin starts losing 1 percent of collagen every year when you hit 20.
To get more collagen into your body, you need to consume collagen-rich foods. An alternative for that is taking in collagen supplements.
Here are just some kinds of food that are rich in collagen.
- Salmon
- Tuna
- Cod
- Eggs
- Berries
- Chia Seeds
- Kale
- Spinach
- Avocados
- Peanuts
These are just some of the foods that’ll increase collagen inside your body.
What Are The Benefits of Collagen?
Now that we know where to get collagen and its different types, in this article, we’ll focus on how collagen is beneficial for our skin.
Here are some benefits of collagen for your skin:
- Improve Elasticity and Reduce Signs of Aging
Taking collagen as supplements can improve the elasticity of your skin. In effect, it’ll reduce signs of aging.
As mentioned earlier, as you get older, the production of collagen lessens. With lesser collagen, your skin starts losing elasticity. The effect of lesser production of collagen in your skin is actually aging. To combat aging, you need to take collagen supplements for your skin.
- Decelerate Collagen Breakdown
Aside from aging, collagen in your skin can also breakdown due to sun exposure, pollution, and exposure to cigarette smoke. The good thing is that you can do something about this, that is, by not letting external factors affect collagen production in your body.
Taking collagen supplements will help decelerate collagen breakdown.
- Keeps Your Skin Healthy
Collagen supplements will help keep your skin healthy by continuously repairing and renewing your cells. Collagen has amino acids that’ll help strengthen your skin and, at the same time, strengthen your hair.
- Hydrates Your Skin
One of the properties of collagen is to moisturize and hydrate your skin. When you take collagen supplements or food that are rich in collagen, you also hydrate your skin and prevent it from becoming dry.
Remember that dryness can also result in wrinkles in your face.
- Heals Wounds
If you have wounds, it’ll also be effective if you take collagen supplements. Taken orally, collagen will be able to curtail the cells leading to disease or inflammation. This is because collagen has certain properties that strengthen your skin as well.
Conclusion
Collagen is definitely good for your skin and even your health. Because your body won’t produce as much collagen as it did when you were in your teenage years, you need to take supplements or have food that’s rich in collagen. Thus, make it a routine to take collagen supplements every single day.
