What Is Collagen? Health Benefits, Food Sources, Supplements, Types, and  More | Everyday Health

Many individuals are starting to focus on their health and skin by ensuring they receive enough nutrients to help aid their bodies. For example, collagen is essential to making you look younger and feel younger. Lumina Blog offers a wide variety of information regarding collagen products manufactured by Vitauthority.

What is collagen

Collagen is one of the proteins found throughout the body. It plays an essential role in maintaining the body’s health. While collagen is often associated with skincare and skin products, it is more than that. Collagen strengthens and provides your bone, skin, muscle, tendons, and ligament growth structures. Collagen is also present in your teeth, blood vessels, and corneas.  

The four main types of Collagen

There are 28 different types of Collagen. However, there are four main types:

  • Type I is the primary type, making up 90% of your body’s collagen, which are thick fibers that provide structural support to your skin, bones, fibrous, cartilage, tendons, connective tissue, and teeth. 
  • Type II is loose fibers found in the elastic cartilage, which helps to provide cushioning to your joints.
  • Type III offers structural support to your organs, arteries, and muscles.
  • Type IIIV helps with the filtration process found in the skin.

The benefits collagen has on your body

There are many benefits to collagen. The most famous is that it improves your skin elasticity, which is essentially how youthful your skin looks. Many individuals believe that using collagen creams will help enhance their youthful look. Unfortunately, there is no evidence of collagen creams working. Due to how big collagen molecules are, your skin cannot absorb them, so it has to happen on the inside to attain that youthful look. In addition, collagen has many amino acids, Glycine being one of the main ones. Glycine plays an essential role in digestion and therefore aids it.

Moreover, collagen can improve one’s joint pains that they might be suffering from. Lastly, collagen can help aid gut health, making your immune system strong. These are just some of the benefits

Foods that are high in Collagen 

While many collagen supplements are available, some foods contain essential nutrients to improve collagen production. For example, Vitamin C, found in citrus fruits, bell peppers, and strawberries, is perfect. In addition, large amounts of Proline are present in egg whites, wheat germ, dairy products, mushrooms, asparagus, and cabbage, which also contributes significantly to collagen production. Moreover, chicken skin, pork skin, and gelatine have large amounts of Glycine found in them. Lastly, sesame seeds, cocoa powder, lentils, cashews, and organ meats have high levels of copper. While many foods can improve collagen production, it is vital to becoming aware of what can also damage the production. For example, smoking, an excess of sunshine, and too many sugars or refined carbs can reduce collagen production. 

While collagen is an essential contributor to making you look young, it is more than that. Individuals need to maintain and improve their collagen production to help increase gut health, lower any joint pain, and provide crucial structural support to our bodies. Therefore it is essential to incorporate as many healthy foods into your diet. In addition, be mindful of how much sun you are receiving and how many refined sugars and carbs you eat.