What Is Collagen All About?

0:00Hello and welcome to The Rest is Science. I am Michael Stevens. And I am Hannah Fry. And I'm here to entertain Michael. You know, do you think the audience knows that we genuinely don't tell each other what the Field Notes is going to be about until we start? I don't know. That's a good question. Because we don't. I don't know what you're about to show me. Which makes it so, it's so fun. I enjoy this. I enjoy knowing that I have no pressure, no responsibility. You know, if what you have to show me isn't cool, I can just take a little nap and I'm still doing my job. How dare you? How very dare you?

0:35Yeah, except the thing is, is the way it ends up happening every single time, Michael, is that you always have loads of really interesting stuff to contribute and hopefully vice versa. OK, we're going to come to your questions later on as we do in every Field Notes. But for the first half, I have brought you, Michael, for Field Notes, I've brought you one of these. this is um it looks like a pill it is it is oh i do should i do that beauty influencer thing where they put their hand up to the camera do the beauty thing and try to tap your nails on it okay so it's just a beige like pill it looks like the size of a typical vitamin like a supplement type pill it is i am holding a collagen supplement michael and i thought that i would do a little episodes for you about where, what on earth is going on with these things?

1:23Why is everyone trying to sell them and whether or not they actually work? And where do they get the collagen from? And where do they get the collagen from? Now, okay, for this, I have a very good friend of mine called Zan Van Tilken, who has just written this amazing book called Make Me Well. And the The book is essentially, he's a trained doctor, has worked as a doctor for many years. And he has gone through all of the evidence on all of the various wellness fads that exist in the world. And has written this really brilliant, very funny, very entertaining book that goes through all of it. And just cuts through everything to try and separate the fact from the fiction.

2:09and collagen supplements, I have to tell you, is the one thing that I get so many requests from people to like start selling these things. And I have thus far refused. And you will see why. You will see why over the course of the next 15 minutes or so as to why. Okay. I love this because I don't know anything about collagen and its nutritional value, but I know a lot about collagen when it comes to barbecuing.

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5:30Go on. What temperature it has to be at? Yeah, well, it doesn't even matter what temperature. Collagen is always kind of breaking down. But when it's hotter, it happens more quickly. So it's a big part of a slow cook. You know, one of my dreams is to get pit master added to my description on Wikipedia. And so I'm thinking of opening a barbecue restaurant, maybe in New Zealand. But yeah, I've really practiced like keeping certain temperatures going without drying out, drying out the meat. But you want that collagen to all liquefy and it's delicious. And again, it doesn't matter at 100 degrees, you know, it'll it'll be breaking down, but also bacteria will be growing.

6:12So it's a it's a whole chemistry experiment. But I've I so I'm eating collagen. But what's happening to me? Should I be supplementing my collagen intake. The point that you're making is exactly the correct one, which is that actually across biological bodies, a phenomenal amount of protein is collagen. So 30 % when it comes to the human body. I mean, all of your skin's toughness and stretchiness comes from collagen. If you kind of take your elbow and you pull the skin on your elbow, you feel that sort of resistance. That's basically what collagen is doing. Okay. So yeah, you're going to have to tell me what collagen is because I just know the word and I know that it's in bodies but you say it's a protein?

6:54It's a protein and it's the thing that gives a physical structure to your body. So the ends of your ears, the tip of your nose, your gums, you know, lots of the flexible strength in your bones, you know, the end of your tendons, in your joints, all of those things is where you will find collagen is it's incredibly important to maintaining healthy joints I mean a healthy body in total and you'll find it everywhere but what's also true is that as you age your ability to make collagen starts to degrade in your body so you have this this protein in your body that is extremely I mean fundamental to healthy living that starts to decay as you age and so of course it would make sense that you would want to try and start to supplement some of this stuff.

7:47And people have done this for ages, by the way, right? This is like, this is not a new thing that people have thought about ingesting collagen in order to improve how they're feeling. If you go back to the 12th century, this is from Zan's book, by the way. According to several collagen industry websites, the abbess and scholar Hildegard von Bingen wrote about the use of animal extracts for treating joint pain. which is kind of a nice idea, but if you're sort of giving people a broth because they're feeling aches and pains. But then I think also at the same time, if you're sort of a 12th century peasant, I would imagine that a meaty broth would, I mean, probably do you quite a lot of good.

8:29Yeah, if I was a 12th century peasant, I'd be like, hey, give me a Crunchwrap Supreme. Right, totally. But here is the thing. If eating collagen was the thing that allowed you to make collagen, then babies and vegans would have a problem because they're not if you do not have any meat in your diet then you are eating no collagen whatsoever right and the thing is is that actually your body is extremely good at constructing the proteins that you need for life and to live healthily sort of irrespective of of the of the type of things that you're eating that was my suspicion that collagen is probably too complex of a molecule for our digestive system to just say hey, we got some pork collagen, put it in the knees.

9:12It's probably like, hey, we got some carbon and some hydrogen and we're going to assemble a collagen protein to put in the knees. Okay, so you definitely can do that. So that's what babies are doing. That's what vegans are doing is that they're taking these molecules and assembling them. It's also, you're absolutely right that collagen is a really complex molecule. And then when it hits your stomach, the enzymes in your stomach are kind of breaking it up from this like really complex protein into little short chains of amino acids these peptides and then they do those little peptides do end up in your bloodstream and what the what the sort of the collagen supplement industry say is that yeah okay maybe you're you're not like ingesting a collagen protein from a bit of pork and then suddenly ends up making you like embedded in your face making you look so much younger but what they're saying is that okay actually these peptides can be signaling molecules so that um and it sort of makes some sense right mechanistically that let's say you got injured in some way and there were like broken bits of collagen that were floating around in your body it sort of would make sense that that could be a signal that would then send to your body to say okay no you need to make more collagen right so it's almost like it's not that the the collagen itself is the thing that's getting there, but it's sending the signal to make more.

10:32But having the digested, broken up collagens in your body makes your body go, hey, let's make some that aren't broken. And the thing is, is that these claims about what it can do, I mean, are phenomenal, right? So if you look at the various collagen supplement brands that say what they can do, hang on, let me see if there's anything on this one. This says that it harnesses innovative technology. And well, whatever, there's some science jargon here. But read me the science jargon. I want to hear it. It's an advanced triple active formula operates internally, supporting the appearance of hair, skin and nails.

11:09But I mean, the claims of this are really extraordinary that the collagen can give you glowing skin. It can boost the smoothness of your skin, the elasticity of your skin. It can reduce fine lines and wrinkles and oiliness and sensitivity and dryness, and then reduce dark patches and puffiness around the eyes. And then also keep your bones in optimal health and help repair the lining of the digestive tract and then promote gut integrity and then clear brain fog and support deep restorative sleep and help you move better and like reduce joint pain and so on and so on and so on right and invent flying cars and yeah exactly safe for the whole family completely natural right like these are the things that batteries included batteries included um okay so i'm here i am going to get to the evidence of whether this stuff works or not okay but first i just want to I want to just tell you a little bit more about the industry that sort of the collagen supplement industry because I think it is actually actually pretty interesting because the thing is is that as I've said people have been ingesting collagen I mean they've been ingesting collagen as long as they've been eating meat which is essentially forever but people have been like seeking out collagen for a really long time but actually you have also probably if you eat any sort of gummy sweet.

12:26Like if you've eaten a Haribo, you're also kind of eating collagen because gelatin and collagen are essentially sister molecules, right? It's like a slightly different process to make one than the other, but it's the same thing, right? If you're eating jelly sweets, you're just ingesting some good old collagen too. And as people who are vegan will know that you can't eat Haribo as a vegan because gelatin is derived from animal products. Collagen is also very much derived from animal products. So in his book, Zand talks about going to a factory in China where they boil up donkey skins and donkey bones in order to extract the collagen from it.

13:15The meat industry across the world has an unimaginable amount of waste that you can extract collagen from. So, you know, globally, we're talking about hundreds of millions of cows, billions of pigs, billions of chickens. You end up with so many hooves and trotters and feet from the chicken that actually it's really good if it can go somewhere. And that is essentially what is being boiled with hydrochloric acid and high pressure steam in order to make these things. That's essentially what you're getting. There's marine collagen as well, which is the same thing, but with fish instead. Like it's actually, it's sort of, it's a little bit on the grim side.

14:04It is kind of grim. In another way, it's sort of nice that we're not wasting as much. You know, the slaughterhouses take the meat and then the rendering plants are like, look, we can still get more out of this animal. We can make its life do more. Yeah. And I'm okay with that. You know, I'm not vegetarian. There are vegan, you know, gelatins, right? You can use agar, agar or pectin, but they don't have the same chemical formula exactly as collagen. Right. And so if this theory about the fact that the collagen molecule gets broken down and then acts as a signaler inside of your body is correct, then agar won't do the same thing, right?

14:42It sort of mimics the macro level properties of collagen, but on the micro level won't be doing the same thing. You know, and I agree with you, by the way, actually, if this does end up being a miracle cure, I'm kind of fine with it. But I think that knowing where it comes from is important to think about where the incentives of this are lying. Interesting, yes. If you've got all of this waste products and, you know, by sort of even by the 1600s, people were making gelatin from it and selling gelatin. But, you know, this much gelatin is really not worth very much money at all. But this much in a collagen pill, suddenly you're talking about you're sitting on an absolute gold mine, really, right?

15:24Right. So it's a brilliant business because that much collagen might even have a negative cost. Like there are meat processing companies that might pay you to take the waste away and then you get to turn it into a product, donkey collagen pills. And by the way, that's a whole psychological thing too, that like if the collagen comes from donkeys, suddenly it's worse than if it came from a cow. Simply because of our cultural attitudes towards both of those animals. Yeah, although I think actually the stuff from donkeys is like considered really sort of like elite level. Oh, is it? Okay, so, but that's the thing.

16:02Yeah, sometimes if it's weird, it can be more sophisticated and elite. Like, this is collagen from a kitten, and it's the best. People would believe that. Oh, I don't want to eat kitten collagen. I don't want to eat kitten collagen. But you're right, you're right, you're right that it's like the sort of the mystique that comes with it. The thing is about all of this stuff, once again, if this stuff really works, I'm kind of okay with it. If we're just eating, you know, animal byproducts, sort of an offshoot of the meat industry. There have been lots of different studies that look into this. And essentially, there is a little bit of evidence that some specific collagen peptides can stimulate, it's called extracellular matrix synthesis.

16:47OK, so this is the scaffolding for every part of the tissue in our bodies. There is some evidence that it can stimulate more collagen production within your bodies. They've done this as animal studies as well. So they've sort of taken mice and rats and they have given them digested collagen, right? Like the sort of the kind of chunky little bits of the collagen molecule. and they have found that the digestive collagen does travel to the skin of the mice and the rats right so it sort of it does find its way there there have been some randomized controlled trials on collagen too where they have taken people some given some people placebos given some people collagen and have shown that there is a marginal improvement in the appearance of things like crow's feet and skin elasticity compared to if somebody just took a placebo alone.

17:48The thing is, right, so I mean, there is some evidence that this works, right? There's about a dozen papers, good papers, well, good-ish papers that report on objective measures of skin quality and have found that collagen does seem to make a difference. Also on joint pain, there was a 2024 study that looked at loads of different trials. It was like a meta study. So like 3000 participators in total and did find improvements in pain and the amount that you can move your joints versus the control group. Okay. So that all sounds great. I mean, give me the pills sign me up right however I think there is a bit of a however here which is that when you are in a situation where there is a lot of money to be made and the incentives are really strong sometimes academic papers can end up not being quite as robust as they might initially seem they can be funded by particular groups there have been examples before where people have run a trial over and over and over and over and over and over and over again because you know that actually with randomness on your side if you only publish the ones that end up showing the positive result that you want it can make it look like your product or whatever it might be has a stronger stronger impact than it actually does so I think I would take this stuff with a bit of a pinch of sought.

19:19My conclusion overall, so having looked into this, right, I think that it probably does do a little bit. It probably does do a little bit, but you're not going to be able to take a collagen supplement and then suddenly reverse the clock by 50 years. You know, it's not, if that's what you're hoping for, it's just not, it's not going to happen. But I also think that this is something that basically doesn't really have any adverse side effects because our bodies are completely designed to process these kind of proteins, right? We have a meat eating past and I think that that's generally fine. My only sort of caveat again on that is like they're crazy expensive, man.

20:04Like and when they wrap them up in posh boxes, you're not, you're not, you're paying for boiled chicken feet you know like just remember that that is what that is what you're doing you can buy like powdered collagen i think and it's always super fancy it's never like at the you know save a lot store for for families it's always in the really fancy store and it's so expensive and you're like man just boil all your chicken bones boil all your chicken bones and drink the soup i mean that you would get essentially the same impact you would get the same impact but at the same time you know like i have to say i have to confess i get that i do actually i like i do take collagen supplements and not very regularly i'm sort of quite forgetful about them but you know what like there's no side effects i get the cheap ones but yeah you might as well uh i mean why not it may only have a really small impact but lots of small impacts put together do end up making a bit of a difference.

21:01Sure, sure. It just sort of makes me feel a bit better. And I'm fine with that. I'm fine with my powdered chicken feet. Okay, yeah. There's also the psychological effect of just feeling like you've got some control. You're doing something. You remembered to take the thing that you wanted to take. And like that can also improve your life, even if it's a placebo, even if the effect is really, really small. Even if the effect is really small. But that is the reason why you would not find me selling fancy pants, collagen supplements that cost£60 a month, at least for the time being. We'll see how the next, you know, if I get really desperate.

21:34Whereas for me, this is a perfect segue into my ad segment. I've got$59.99 donkey collagen pills. Use code TRIS to autograph each pill for you. Imagine. With a collagen pen. What a twist. What a twist. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, if you if you do want to find out more about wellness, this book is really great. Yeah. What's it? What's it called again? Make Me Well. It's and it's by Zan Van Tilken. It's a really great read. It's probably a very crowded space, books about wellness and the science behind them. So what makes what makes this one stand out to you? It's mainly because Zan Van Tilken is my friend.

22:22so yeah you trust him he's a good i trust him i trust him he's a very good egg yeah he's a very good egg i was going to say that i've got to read make me well and watch sliding doors but the sliding doors reference might be out of order in the previous episode it was it's true it's very true

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25:06They're investigating whether a special fluorescent dye that sticks to prostate cancer cells could tackle an ongoing challenge in the operating room, removing every single trace of cancer. Because when cancer cells are glowing and easy to spot, surgeons can precisely remove them, leaving healthy cells untouched, meaning there's less chance of the cancer returning and fewer nasty side effects. Cancer Research UK's vision is a world where everybody lives longer, better lives free from the fear of cancer, with breakthroughs like this leading to kinder, more effective treatments. For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research and breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit cancerresearchuk.org slash rest is science.

25:59Should we do some questions? What do you think? Yeah, our first question came in from email from Felix, who asks us, who is your favorite Ig Nobel Prize winner? It's a good question. So for those of you who don't know, the Ig Nobel Prize is like a Nobel Prize, except it's for science that they say makes you laugh, but then makes you think. Okay, so it's real science, but it's somewhat silly. I don't remember if this was a winner of the Ig Nobel Prize or not, but there was one study that the title of the paper was something like people routinely underestimate the weight of their hands. And it was like, whoa, I never would have thought people did that.

26:42But now we know that they do. And now I want to know why we do that. And that's a prime candidate for the Ig Nobel Prize. It's real. and it does make you think. Do you have a favourite? The thing is, when you hear about Ignavo Prizes, and I think that the Han people knew what they were doing, right? I think that they went into that thinking it was a silly idea. There's some really amazing ones, like someone who's made a bra that can double as a gas mask in an emergency, right? Like, come on, guys. You're just obviously being silly. But sometimes people are just doing their normal serious research and don't even realise that it's something that's completely absurd to outside observers.

27:25My favourite example of that is about the drip on a teapot. So there was some fluid dynamics researchers who spent an astonishing amount of time trying to understand why teapots drip and ended up coming up with the design for a dripless teapot that I think, I don't know whether it won the Ig Nobel Prize, but it was certainly in the running for it. and people thought it was purely for their amusement. But actually, no, that was actually quite a nice little bit of fluid dynamics there. Quite a nice bit. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I think sometimes I would imagine it starts serious, like with the how much do your hands weigh thing.

28:03You know, people that may have been looking into our proprioception could have helped people who have limited mobility or need accessibility devices. And then they're like, you know what? Let's call the paper. people don't know how much their hands weigh and that's that's going to be fun there are some amazingly silly science papers though there are that people have done some amazing stuff one of my favorites was where they um i'm gonna let me get the exact title of the paper sildenafil accelerates re-entrainment of circadian rhythms after advancing life light schedules okay okay i mean that sounds like a great paper no no what they did is they gave hamsters jet lag and then cured them with viagra yeah but see that's how you phrase it you know don't pretend you're all important you guys don't pretend you're all serious and important you're there turning the lights on and off again for the poor little hamsters in their cage we know what you're up to it's it sounds like a good way to study viagra's effect on jet lag okay which are two profitable First world concerns, okay?

29:17This is very true. Con, what's your one? Here's one that I've actually talked to my daughter about a lot. And funny enough, the people who won this Ig Nobel Prize have actually won two. The first Ig Nobel Prize they won, who are they? I should tell you that. It's David Hu and Patricia Yang. They have won the Ig Nobel Prize for physics twice. I think the first was in 2015, where they determined that it's actually true that all mammals urinate for about the same amount of time as each other. Oh, my God. I love this paper. I love this paper. Now, how long mammals urinate for turns out to be 21 seconds plus or minus 13 seconds.

29:59So there's a big range. But obviously what's going on here is that some animals have much larger bladders and they've got a lot more liquid to evacuate. And they have a much heavier stream, but there's more. So the small animals with a little bit of fluid, they have a thinner stream and it all winds up taking them about the same amount of time. So that was funny. The one that me and my daughter talk about a lot is that four years later in 2019, they pretty much solved the problem of why the heck is wombat poop cubic? If you've ever seen a turd from a wombat, it's like almost a perfect cube. And even biologists and zoologists will look at wombat poop and be like, I don't think this is natural.

30:47But it is. somehow they plop out cubes of poop. And it's hilarious. It's not like it kind of looks like a cube. It's a cube. And they studied the intestines of the wombat. And they found that there's sort of two things going on. First, wombats absorb a lot of liquid from their stool before they pass it. And so it gets basically like cooked like a kiln. Not really. It's not hot in there. But it's like air-dried clay. When it's put into the cube shape, it retains it even after it comes out of the orifice. It doesn't get, you know, tubified. But why does it get turned into a cube in the first place?