What are the health benefits of taking collagen?
Your teeth, cornea of your eye, blood vessels, and digestive tract are all places you might not expect collagen to be, but yes, it can be found there. Collagen is pretty much everywhere in the body!
Fascinating facts about collagen
The word collagen actually stems from the Greek word ‘kolla’ which literally translates to ‘glue’. The second part of the word ‘gen’, in Greek means “to produce” or “producing”. If its main job is to bind us together so we don’t fall apart – it’s a fitting name, don’t you think? If you’re not sure yet, keep reading.
What is collagen?
Collagen consists of 3 primary amino acids: glycine, proline, and hydroxyproline. However, each collagen chain has over 1,400 amino acids. As a result, these huge molecules can be difficult to digest and use, so it’s best to supplement with low molecular weight collagen peptides. These smaller, broken down bits of collagen are easier for the body to use.
Where is collagen found in our body…
If we look specifically at where collagen is distributed throughout the body we can better see its importance in ensuring the integrity, elasticity and strength of skin, cartilage, muscles and health of our bones and joints.
Collagen binds us together.
Fascia and collagen
Collagen fibers form much of our connective tissue, also known as fascia, which covers every structure of the body. Fascia creates a structural continuity that gives form and function to every tissue and organ. Fascia is like a band of connective tissue, primarily collagen, beneath our skin that attaches, stabilizes, encloses, and separates our muscles and other internal organs. Without fascia, muscle would have no form and our organs would float around in our body. Collagen fibers within us help form this fascia and ultimately our shape.
So if we make collagen, why take supplements?
If our bodies naturally make collagen, why would we want to take it?
It’s not like vitamin C where we must get it from food or supplements to survive and be healthy.
Well, the answer is simple. The older we get the more collagen we breakdown! Faster than we can make it. This means wear and tear on muscles, tendons, cartilage, joints, bones and skin.
How do collagen peptides work?
CanPrev’s collagen peptides are hydrolyzed to low molecular weights: the right size and sequence of peptides to target connective tissue cells and enhance collagen building.
Smaller is better
Smaller peptides can be carefully chosen to target more collagen production in specific parts of the body, whether it’s for muscles, joints, bones or in the skin. This ensures nearly 100% of the collagen peptides you take are properly applied to parts of the body – and the goals – you want to focus on.
Different sizes do different things
Size not only matters. Research demonstrates that collagen peptides ranging from 2-5 kilodaltons (kDa), stimulate specific cells of our connective tissue (fibroblasts, chondrocytes, osteoblasts, and tendon cells, or tenocytes) to influence more collagen production within our skin, and muscle, at our joints, bones, tendons and ligaments.
Although normal digestion can break down dietary protein into peptides, the digestion of amino acids is random and does not always cleave the collagen protein into the desired active peptide sequences for optimal results.
It takes some fine sifting and extracting to break down and separate large, dense fibrous collagen protein molecules (macromolecules) into incredibly small nanometer sized peptides that still remain bioactive. But, not all enzymatic processes designed to do this are the same.
Carefully extracted collagen peptides
CanPrev’s unique collagen peptides are obtained from pure collagen protein. We obtain these peptides by finely breaking down whole protein collagen fibers into very small amino acids chains. These short chains are further sifted and isolated into different bioactive peptides.
Finally, we choose the peptide chains that stimulate specific cells of the extracellular matrix family. With our careful enzyme-based extraction process we can achieve this precise sequencing keeping desired bioactivity in mind. This process also allows for amino acid proline ends on peptides to remain intact, which helps with heat and acid stability and tolerability.
Have a specific health goal?
Choose a collagen that targets enhanced collagen building exactly where you want it.
