Is the beauty dream of collagen really reliable?

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In people's common sense cognition, what you eat should be effective, which is also reflected in people's expectations and pursuit of beauty products.

Collagen is known to be an important protein for making skin firm, elastic, and looking smooth and plump. It can be said that collagen is almost an idol-level concept in the beauty and skin care industry. After all, in principle, the more collagen, the firmer and fuller the skin will appear.

As a result, when the economy of appearance is prevalent, people are constantly trying to maintain the firmness and elasticity of the skin by ingesting and supplementing collagen, which has spawned a broad market for collagen . From oral to external use, a series of collagen-related products have become popular objects.

This kind of thinking is very logical. Similar to collagen, there are star beauty products such as hyaluronic acid and whitening pills - but while people are trying one after another to try collagen that is believed to keep youth forever, people seem to seldom get to the bottom of it. , What exactly is collagen? Does eating, drinking and injecting collagen really help to "freeze the face" and delay the natural law of skin aging? If so, how much can it really do?

The anti-aging logic of collagen

Let's first distinguish concepts.

First, collagen is the most abundant protein in the human body and is widely distributed in the connective tissue of the human body . For example, collagen is distributed in skin, cartilage and bone, tendon, ligament, cornea, organ capsule, dura mater, etc. 90% of normal collagen exists in skin and bone. Under the microscope, it is found that collagen accounts for about 95% of the connective tissue of the dermis; normal human bones contain about 80% of the collagen. Simply put, collagen is like the glue that holds our bodies together.

There are various types of collagen in the human body, but the most numerous is type I - the most dominant structural protein in the skin . Type I collagen is the foundation of skin shape and toughness, but starting in the 20s, the differentiation of type I collagen in the body exceeds the speed of the body's regeneration.

According to Dr. Anjali Mahto, a dermatologist and author of "The Book of Skincare," the thickness and toughness of the skin decreases at a rate of 1.5% per year starting at this age. In other words, starting from this time, as the age gradually increases, the rate of collagen production decreases, the elasticity of elastin decreases, and the skin begins to relax and age, that is, "aging".

Secondly, as the main component of the extracellular matrix, collagen not only acts as a physical scaffolding structure, but also realizes signal transmission between extracellular matrix receptor molecules and cells, and participates in regulating the behavior of cells . Collagen can directly bind to cell surface receptors or indirectly bind to other intermediary molecules and participate in cell surface receptor recognition and signal transduction processes.

That is to say, in addition to the role of beauty, collagen also plays a very important role in the life activities of the human body . For example, tissue remodeling, including morphological processes and wound healing, also plays an important role in immune system regulation, hemostasis and thrombosis.

It is precisely based on the important role of collagen in beauty, from oral to external application, collagen has also become people's "heart treasure". In terms of oral administration, according to the data of China Research Network, the use of collagen in the field of health care products is relatively abundant. Among the domestic health food products in China, there are 191 health products whose main ingredient is collagen that has been registered and filed. In addition, with the continuous upward trend of consumption upgrading in China, the demand for collagen-based functional health care products such as maintaining skin elasticity and "anti-aging" is still increasing, which in turn drives the popularity of collagen health care product brands among consumers. recognition.

For external application, according to the "2020 Skin Care Industry Trend Report", among skin care ingredients, collagen ranks first in the annual discussion volume, hyaluronic acid and nicotinamide are in the forefront, at the same time, A-alcohol, niacinamide and other ingredients are discussed Speed ​​up. This has led to the emergence of functional skin care products such as milk, cream, and essence based on collagen. Collagen has almost become the wealth code of skin care product manufacturers.

It can be said that collagen has become an idol-level concept in the beauty and skin care industry. For the firmness and fullness of the skin, who doesn’t want to supplement more collagen? Of course, this kind of thinking is very logical, so all kinds of products that are painted on the face, eaten in the stomach, well-packaged, and expensive have come out one after another, and no matter how expensive they are, some people buy them. But the question is, can the lost collagen really be "replenished" by oral or external application?

Collagen Myths Busted

As mentioned above, in essence, collagen is a protein. Many people supplement collagen by eating pig’s trotters, peach gum, bird’s nest, etc. There are even many health products supplementing collagen on the market. Once climbed. But whether it is protein, carbohydrate or fat, it needs to be decomposed in the body after eating. Among them, the protein is finally decomposed into amino acids, and the amino acids in the body are recombined to form the protein required by the human body.

Therefore, collagen cannot be directly absorbed by the human body. It needs to be digested through the stomach and intestines, decomposed into amino acids before it can be absorbed, and then enter the cells to reassemble into different proteins. That is to say, although what people eat is collagen, it is not necessarily collagen that is supplemented, let alone directed to supplement the lost collagen in the skin.

However, in recent years, new processes and new research have found that some short peptides will be formed after collagen decomposition, and these short peptides will form new collagen after recombination. Based on this, there has been renewed trust in oral specific collagen supplements, which are thought to be effective for the skin, but this is still widely debated in the medical community.

Previously, in a trial on the effect of collagen on skin wrinkles by Skin Pharmacology and Physiology, researchers randomly selected 69 women aged 35-55 through a double-blind-placebo trial, taking 2.5g and 5g of collagen hydrolyzate per day. Or 2.5g placebo for 8 weeks, 23 people in each group.

It was found that people under the age of 50 took collagen, and there was no significant change; people over the age of 50 would have a certain effect of improving skin elasticity - although it can't be said that collagen hydrolyzate has no effect at all, it is indeed nothing. Effect. This is why the skin care efficacy of oral collagen has always been controversial and not recognized.

Compared to internal use, external application seems to give some effect. In terms of moisturizing, the hydration of natural collagen benefits from the presence of a large amount of glycine, hydroxyproline and hydroxylysine, which has a good moisturizing effect because of its large amount of hydroxyl groups. In terms of whitening, tyrosine in the skin is catalyzed by copper-containing tyrosinase to dopa, and dopa then forms melanin through rearrangement or redox. Collagen can bind to the active center of tyrosinase through competition of tyrosine residues, or inactivate tyrosinase by chelating copper ions, reducing dopa production and inhibiting melanin.

However, it still needs to be clear that collagen is a polymer protein, but the channels on human skin are very small. In the final analysis, collagen applied on the face is basically impossible to be absorbed by the epidermis . The reason why some people think that external application is useful is not that it supplements collagen, but that it forms a film on the surface of the skin to protect the skin from water loss. This is actually the most basic moisturizing and hydrating in skin care products.

"What to eat for what to eat" is unbelievable

In fact, not only collagen, but also hyaluronic acid, whitening pills and other obvious beauty products follow a similar logic. People hope to obtain ideal beauty through the logic of "what to eat and what to eat", but it goes against the natural laws of skin aging. Beauty, after all, is difficult to achieve.

In January 2021, the National Health and Medical Commission officially announced that it is allowed to be added to ordinary food as a new food raw material, but hyaluronic acid is a carbohydrate, which will be decomposed into monosaccharides and oligosaccharides after oral administration as metabolites into the blood circulation. In other words, eating hyaluronic acid does not mean that it can be used by the skin .

Let’s take a look at whitening pills. You must know that melanin is one of the main reasons for dull skin. Specifically, there are three points: melanin production capacity, melanin metabolism capacity (decomposition speed), and the distribution of melanin in the skin. The whitening pills achieve the whitening effect by inhibiting the production of melanin, speeding up the metabolism of melanin, doing a good job in anti-oxidation, and reducing the melanin formed.

As far as the ingredients of whitening pills are concerned, the common added ingredients are often inseparable from L-L-cysteine, tranexamic acid, and VC. However, these three main whitening ingredients are not ideal.

Among them, L-L-cysteine ​​can help inhibit the activity of tyrosinase and reduce the production of melanin. But this is only limited to people who are deficient in L-cysteine ​​in their bodies, and for most people who are not deficient in this component themselves, the effect is not great.

Although tranexamic acid can inhibit tyrosinase and reduce melanin synthesis, long-term use may cause adverse reactions such as gastrointestinal discomfort, decreased menstrual flow, and renal failure.

Although VC can inhibit the activity of tyrosinase and block the production of melanin; it can also stimulate the reduction of oxidative pigments (dark colors) (to light colors). However, it is very difficult to improve skin tone by supplementing VC alone. First of all, the intake is limited, and secondly, the absorption through the digestive system can act on the skin, which is even less.

After all, in the age of beauty, the reason why people are so happy to believe that people believe in these so-called star ingredients or products is nothing more than a self-comfort.

Under the banner of technology, many people fantasize that the burden and damage caused to the skin caused by the nights they have spent, the cigarettes they have smoked, and the alcohol they have drunk all night can be offset by bottles of collagen liquid, amino acids, and whitening pills. However, it is clear that an unhealthy lifestyle is the cause of premature aging of the skin, and a balanced, varied diet and sugar restriction are really directly related to the premature aging of the skin.

People will eventually learn that when it comes to skin, no superfood can prevent aging; aging is a lifelong process, and it should be a lifelong process of people trying to keep their bodies healthy inside and out.