Collagen For Joint Health
With a bit of forward-planning, it may be possible to avoid surgery later in life...
Let me start by making it clear I am not a doctor or health professional and what I’m writing here is simply my own experience and personal view, and not medical advice. But as many doctors are so useless these days and have zero idea of preventative measures to avoid future illness and the need for surgery, instead happy to simply dole-out drugs to mask problems or write referrals to surgeons and specialists, it’s probably a good idea we share our views around like this, because basically, where else are we going to hear about it.
This concerns the matter of collagen…
About nine months ago I started looking into collagen, all I really knew at the time was that it depletes with age, and that when someone’s face looks old, it’s often because of collagen depletion. That was basically it. That collagen is something in the skin which reduces with age and as a result makes you look older. But I was in the supermarket in the cosmetic aisle (where they also sell vitamins) and noticed this tub of protein powder which said it also contained collagen. My diet can sometimes be a little lacking and I’m open to using supplements to bolster my nutrition intake, and decided I was probably lacking protein in my diet and also could maybe do with some collagen, ‘why not’ sort of thing. So I bought it and started taking it. In a very short space of time I noted my skin was looking smoother and I decided I probably needed to research collagen a bit, I like to look things up if I start taking them so I know a bit more about them.
I basically found-out there are several types of collagen, not just one. They are divided-up into types 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc and that collagen is the most abundant protein found in mammals. It’s not just something found in your skin either, it’s found in bones, connective tissue, muscle fibre coating, teeth, eyes, artery walls, intestines, cartilage, basically everywhere in your body. I learned that types 1, 2 & 3 are the most common in supplement form taken (even though the other types are also found in the body) but that most supplements containing collagen are just the types 1 & 3. Type 1 is the most abundant form found in the body, along with type 3, both these types are mainly found in skin, which is why that’s the type usually found in supplements. However it is type 2 collagen I want to focus on here, because it is this type which is mainly found in cartilage.
Type 2 is usually not found in most collagen supplements, if you read the labels you will see that it is usually types 1 & 3 only, so if you want to take type 2 collagen, you will have to seek-it-out elsewhere, often on it’s own in a separate supplement. It’s important to know that just taking a collagen supplement will not necessarily provide you with the type of collagen you need for cartilage. Some more expensive collagen supplements break down the collagen (usually derived from either animal or marine sources) into smaller and smaller components so that it becomes the ‘building blocks’ for your body to make new collagen of any type, so in that case I guess you could take a collagen supplement like that and let your body do the rest, but the important thing to know is that most collagen supplements contain types 1 & 3 collagen already formed (in its bigger and complete formation) so it is not going to revert to type 2 and you will need to seek out either a formulation which has it broken down to the basic building blocks of all types of collagen, or find a brand who sells just type 2 on its own, which is what I do myself. I take a collagen powder which I mix with water and drink for my skin, but I also take a separate dedicated type 2 collagen capsule for cartilage support.
If you want to find out more about collagen, the bog-standard Wikipedia page has ok information, though I don’t normally like to rely on Wikipedia due to disgusting bias and omissions designed to further this or that agenda, but in some cases it is a fine resource to use still, and for this purpose it’s OK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collagen The types of collagen and where they’re found in the body is not likely to change for instance.
Anyway, after looking into the why’s and wherefores of collagen, I learned that collagen is also an important component of cartilage and I had been having problems with my neck and upper back cracking and constantly going out of whack. Occasionally it would be right down near my tailbone in one place and also go out of whack slightly causing me terrible pain when moving around, but that was only once or twice, the vast majority of my issues were in the upper back and neck region and it was happening more and more often with small movements of the vertebrae making it pinch a nerve or touch a nerve, or in some way make strange unpleasant sensations until the bone was moved back to the right place again. I would stretch and bend and do certain things to move my bones back into their correct places, and the pain or issue would be gone and I would be fine again. But after reading about collagen and cartilage I had an idea that my issues may have been caused by a depletion of type 2 collagen in my body which in turn was causing the cartilage to break down and allowing the joints between the bones to become looser and more prone to moving around when they shouldn’t, so I decided that in addition to taking the collagen I was already taking for my skin (types 1 & 3), I would also seek-out type 2 and give that a try.
I was pretty amazed, it wasn’t all that long before I started noticing that my neck wasn’t playing-up anymore, the cracking sounds when I moved were not happening, also a very faint grinding sound when I turned my head in a certain way was diminishing. When I did my usual exercises to correct the neck and upper back issue (as a form of maintenance) nothing would crack or move which told me they were already in the right places. From my own experience, I decided that my problems had indeed been caused by the breakdown of cartilage in my body and that by taking type 2 collagen I was able to mitigate this problem and re-build it and re-cushion my joints, thereby making the bones stay in the right place and stop moving around.
This makes perfect sense to me, as now knowing how prevalent collagen is in the body and not just the skin, a breakdown of collagen, subsequent depletion and lack of collagen repair (the body putting it back again after it was damaged or worn-out) would basically cause the entire body to start falling apart. Joints, eyesight, blood vessels, it’s so prevalent in its various forms throughout the entire body and used to create so many things, that it could explain many physical aging issues. Certainly, it is the breakdown of cartilage in the hip joint which causes the leg bone ball joint to grind against the hip bone socket and for so many people of advanced age to be forced to endure costly and painful hip replacements, could it be that simply supplementing the body with type 2 collagen from an earlier time in life might prevent this from happening? Could taking type 2 collagen from the onset of back issues prevent them from getting worse and even reverse them? I’m not 100% on it so I can’t claim it to be absolutely true, but it does make sense to me and I personally feel it to be the case given what I have experienced myself with my own joints and what simple logic tells me.
I think the takeaway in all of this is to realize that collagen forms the basis of so many things in our bodies and not just our skin. When we think of the breakdown of this or that part of your body due to age, when we also already know that collagen depletes with age, we should always consider I think that it could simply be the depletion of that respective type of collagen which is causing the aging issue and breakdown of that body part, and that supplementing back that collagen could delay or reverse some of this.
I will leave it to you to do more of your own research on the subject and also decide if collagen supplementation is something which may benefit you, but in closing I will offer you links to the two collagen brands I myself use. I am not affiliated with them in any way, nor am I affiliated with the site I am linking to. I’m just a consumer who is prepared to share with you what I use myself and where I get it.
Type 2 collagen: https://iherb.com/pr/now-foods-biocell-collagen-hydrolyzed-type-ii-120-veg-capsules/85315
Collagen powder: https://iherb.com/pr/california-gold-nutrition-collagenup-unflavored-7-26-oz-206-g/64903
Til next time…