Some women’s breasts can’t make enough milk, and the effects can be devastating
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Many new mothers worry about their milk supply. For some, support from a breastfeeding counsellor or lactation consultant helps.
Others cannot make enough milk no matter how hard they try. These are women whose breasts are not physically capable of producing enough milk.
Our recently published research gives us clues about breast features that might make it difficult for some women to produce enough milk. Another of our studies shows the devastating consequences for women who dream of breastfeeding but find they cannot.
Some breasts just don’t develop
Unlike other organs, breasts are not fully developed at birth. There are key developmental stages as an embryo, then again during puberty and pregnancy.
At birth, the breast consists of a simple network of ducts. Usually during puberty, the glandular (milk-making) tissue part of the breast begins to develop and the ductal network expands. Then typically, further growth of the ductal network and glandular tissue during pregnancy prepares the breast for lactation.
But our online survey of women who report low milk supply gives us clues to anomalies in how some women’s breasts develop.
We’re not talking about women with small breasts, but women whose glandular tissue (shown in this diagram as “lobules”) is underdeveloped and have a condition called breast hypoplasia.
Tsuyna/Shutterstock
We don’t know how common this is. But it has been linked with lower rates of exclusive breastfeeding.
We also don’t know what causes it, with much of the research conducted in animals and not humans.
However, certain health conditions have been associated with it, including polycystic ovary syndrome and other endocrine (hormonal) conditions. A high body-mass index around the time of puberty may be another indicator.
Could I have breast hypoplasia?
Our survey and other research give clues about who may have breast hypoplasia.
But it’s important to note these characteristics are indicators and do not mean women exhibiting them will definitely be unable to exclusively breastfeed.
Indicators include:
- a wider than usual gap between the breasts
- tubular-shaped (rather than round) breasts
- asymmetric breasts (where the breasts are different sizes or shapes)
- lack of breast growth in pregnancy
- a delay in or absence of breast fullness in the days after giving birth
In our survey, 72% of women with low milk supply had breasts that did not change appearance during pregnancy, and about 70% reported at least one irregular-shaped breast.
The effects
Mothers with low milk supply – whether or not they have breast hyoplasia or some other condition that limits their ability to produce enough milk – report a range of emotions.
Research, including our own, shows this ranges from frustration, confusion and surprise to intense or profound feelings of failure, guilt, grief and despair.
Some mothers describe “breastfeeding grief” – a prolonged sense of loss or failure, due to being unable to connect with and nourish their baby through breastfeeding in the way they had hoped.
These feelings of failure, guilt, grief and despair can trigger symptoms of anxiety and depression for some women.
Bricolage/Shutterstock
One woman told us:
[I became] so angry and upset with my body for not being able to produce enough milk.
Many women’s emotions intensified when they discovered that despite all their hard work, they were still unable to breastfeed their babies as planned. A few women described reaching their “breaking point”, and their experience felt “like death”, “the worst day of [my] life” or “hell”.
One participant told us:
I finally learned that ‘all women make enough milk’ was a lie. No amount of education or determination would make my breasts work. I felt deceived and let down by all my medical providers. How dare they have no answers for me when I desperately just wanted to feed my child naturally.
Others told us how they learned to accept their situation. Some women said they were relieved their infant was “finally satisfied” when they began supplementing with formula. One resolved to:
prioritise time with [my] baby over pumping for such little amounts.
Where to go for help
If you are struggling with low milk supply, it can help to see a lactation consultant for support and to determine the possible cause.
This will involve helping you try different strategies, such as optimising positioning and attachment during breastfeeding, or breastfeeding/expressing more frequently. You may need to consider taking a medication, such as domperidone, to see if your supply increases.
If these strategies do not help, there may be an underlying reason why you can’t make enough milk, such as insufficient glandular tissue (a confirmed inability to make a full supply due to breast hypoplasia).
Even if you have breast hypoplasia, you can still breastfeed by giving your baby extra milk (donor milk or formula) via a bottle or using a supplementer (which involves delivering milk at the breast via a tube linked to a bottle).
More resources
The following websites offer further information and support:
- Australian Breastfeeding Association
- Lactation Consultants of Australia and New Zealand
- Royal Women’s Hospital, Melbourne
- Supply Line Breastfeeders Support Group of Australia Facebook support group
- IGT And Low Milk Supply Support Group Facebook support group
- Breastfeeding Medicine Network Australia/New Zealand
- Supporting breastfeeding grief (a collection of resources).
Shannon Bennetts, a research fellow at La Trobe University, contributed to this article.
Renee Kam, PhD candidate and research officer, La Trobe University and Lisa Amir, Professor in Breastfeeding Research, La Trobe University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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How To Reduce Your Alzheimer’s Risk
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Reduce Your Alzheimer’s Risk
Alzheimer’s is just one cause of dementia, but it’s a very notable one, not least of all because it’s
- a) the most common cause of dementia, and
- b) a measurably terminal disease.
For that reason we’re focusing on Alzheimer’s today, although most of the advice will go for avoiding dementia in general.
First, some things not everyone knows about Alzheimer’s:
- Alzheimer’s is a terminal disease.
- People who get a diagnosis at age 60 are typically given 4–8 years to live.
- Some soldier on for as many as 20, but those are rare outliers.
- Alzheimer’s begins 20 years or more before other symptoms start to develop.
- This makes this information very relevant for younger people approaching 40, for example.
- Alzheimer’s accounts for 60–80% of dementia, and affects around 6% of people over 60.
- By the age of 65, that figure is 10%. By the age of 70, however, the percentage is still about the same—this is because of the mortality rate preventing the accumulation of Alzheimer’s patients over time.
Want to know more? Read: 2023 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts And Figures Special Report ← this is a very comprehensive downloadablereference, by the way, including a lot of information about diagnosis, treatmentpathways, and earlyinterventions.
Speaking of diagnosis…
Know what the symptoms are… and aren’t!
Forgetting your car keys can be frustrating. Forgetting them frequently can be worrying.
But: there’s a difference between forgetting your car keys, and forgetting what car keys are used for. The latter is the kind of memory loss that’s more of a red flag for Alzheimer’s.
Similarly: forgetting someone’s name can be embarrassing. Forgetting someone’s name, asking them, forgetting asking them, asking them again, forgetting again (lather rinse repeat) is more of a red flag for Alzheimer’s.
There are other symptoms too, some of them less commonly known:
❝Difficulty remembering recent conversations, names or events; apathy; and depression are often early symptoms. Communication problems, confusion, poor judgment and behavioral changes may occur next. Difficulty walking, speaking, and swallowing are common in the late stages of the disease❞
If you or a loved one are experiencing worrying symptoms: when it comes to diagnosis and intervention, sooner is a lot better than later, so do talk to your doctor.
As for reducing your risk? First, the obvious stuff:
The usual 5 things that go for almost everything:
- Have a good diet—the Mediterranean Diet is once again recommended (we expect this will not be a surprise to regular readers!)
- Get regular exercise—in the case of avoiding Alzheimer’s and other dementias, typically the most important thing here is heart health, so getting regular cardiovascular exercise, such walking, running, or dancing is great. Cycling too. Swimming, not so much. Not that swimming’s bad or anything, it’s just that when your body is horizontal, the heart has less work to do, especially in the upper part of the body, because it’s not defying gravity. Similarly, yoga is great for the health but won’t particularly help with this, nor will weight training.
- Get good sleep—as we get older, we tend to need less sleep, and tend more towards the lower end of the standard “7–9 hours” prescription, but getting at least those 7 hours makes a huge difference.
- Cut down (or eliminate) alcohol consumption—and especially avoid binge-drinking. While “binge-drinking” is typically associated with young people, that Christmas party where that one uncle gets very drunk is also binge-drinking, for example. Plus, heavy drinking in early life has also been correlated with higher risk of Alzheimer’s later.
- Don’t smoke. It’s bad for everything, and Alzheimer’s risk is no exception.
How much do lifestyle changes alone make a difference?
They make a big difference. This 2022 population-based cohort study (so: huge sample size) looked at people who had 4–5 of the healthy lifestyle factors being studied, vs people who had 0–1 of them. They found:
❝A healthy lifestyle was associated with a longer life expectancy among men and women, and they lived a larger proportion of their remaining years without Alzheimer’s dementia.❞
The numbers of years involved by the way ranged between 3 and 20 years, in terms of life expectancy and years without or with Alzheimer’s, with the average increase of healthy life years being approximately the same as the average increase in years. This is important, because:
A lot of people think “well if I’m going to go senile, I might as well [unhealthy choice that shortens lifespan]”, but they misunderstand a critical factor:
The unhealthy choices will reduce their healthy life years, and simply bring the unhealthy ones (and subsequent death) sooner. If you’re going to spend your last few years in ill-health, it’s better to do so at 90 than 50.
The other thing you may already know… And a thing about it that not everyone considers:
Keeping cognitively active is important. This much is broadly known by the general public, and to clinicians, this was the fourth “healthy factor” in the list of five (instead of the sleep that we put there, because we were listing the 5 things that go for most preventable health issues).
Everyone leaps to mention sudoku at this point, so if that’s your thing, great, enjoy it! (This writer personally enjoys chess, which isn’t everyone’s cup of tea; if it yours though, you can come join her on Chess.com and we’ll keep sharp together)
But the more parts of your mental faculties you keep active, the better. Remember, brainpower (as with many things in health and life) is a matter of “use it or lose it” and this is on a “per skill” basis!
What this means: doing sudoku (a number-based puzzle game) or chess (great as it may be) won’t help as much for keeping your language skills intact, for example. Given that language skills are one of the most impactful and key faculties to get lost to Alzheimer’s disease, neglecting such would be quite an oversight!
Some good ways to keep your language skills tip-top:
- Read—but read something challenging, if possible. It doesn’t have to be Thomas Scanlon’s What We Owe To Each Other, but it should be more challenging than a tabloid, for example. In fact, on the topic of examples:
- This newsletter is written to be easy to read, while not shying away from complex ideas or hard science. Our mission is literally to “make [well-sourced, science-based] health and productivity crazy simple”.
- But the academic papers that we link? Those aren’t written to be easy to read. Go read them, or at least the abstracts (in academia, an abstract is essentially an up-front summary, and is usually the first thing you’ll see when you click a link to a study or such). Challenge yourself!
- Write—compared to reading/listening, producing language is a (related, but) somewhat separate skill. Just ask any foreign language learner which is more challenging: reading or writing!
- Journaling is great, but writing for others is better (as then you’ll be forced to think more about it)
- Learn a foreign language—in this case, what matters it that you’re practicing and learning, so in the scale of easy to hard, or doesn’t matter if it’s Esperanto or Arabic. Duolingo is a great free resource that we recommend for this, and they have a wide range of extensive courses these days.
Now for the least obvious things…
Social contact is important.
Especially in older age, it’s easy to find oneself with fewer remaining friends and family, and getting out and about can be harder for everyone. Whatever our personal inclinations (some people being more introverted or less social than others), we are fundamentally a social species, and hundreds of thousands of years of evolution have built us around the idea that we will live our lives alongside others of our kind. And when we don’t, we don’t do as well.
See for example: Associations of Social Isolation and Loneliness With Later Dementia
If you can’t get out and about easily:
- Online socialising is still socializing.
- Online community is still community.
- Online conversations between friends are still conversations between friends.
If you don’t have much (or anyone) in the category of friends and family, join Facebook groups related to your interests, for example.
Berries are surprisingly good
^This may read like a headline from 200,000 BCE, but it’s relevant here!
Particularly recommended are:
- blueberries
- blackberries
- raspberries
- strawberries
- cranberries
We know that many of these berries seem to have a shelf-life of something like 30 minutes from time of purchase, but… Frozen and dried are perfectly good nutritionally, and in many cases, even better nutritionally than fresh.
Read: Effect of berry-based supplements and foods on cognitive function: a systematic review
Turmeric’s health benefits appear to include protecting against Alzheimer’s
Again, this is about risk reduction, and turmeric (also called curcumin, which is not the same as cumin) significantly reduces the build-up of amyloid plaques in the brain. Amyloid plaques are part of the progression of Alzheimer’s.
See for yourself: Protective Effects of Indian Spice Curcumin Against Amyloid Beta in Alzheimer’s Disease
If you don’t like it as a spice (and even if you do, you probably don’t want to put it in your food every day), you can easily get it as a supplement in capsule form.
Lower your homocysteine levels
Lower our what now? Homocysteine is an amino acid used for making certain proteins, and it’s a risk factor for Alzheimer’s.
Foods high in folate (and possible other B-vitamins) seem to lower homocysteine levels. Top choices include:
- Leafy greens
- Cruciferous vegetables
- Tomatoes
Get plenty of lutein
We did a main feature about specifically this a little while ago, so we’ll not repeat our work here, but lutein is found in, well, the same things we just listed above, and lower levels of lutein are associated with Alzheimer’s disease. It’s not a proven causative factor—we don’t know entirely what causes Alzheimer’s, just a lot of factors that have a high enough correlation that it’d be remiss to ignore them.
Catch up on our previous article: Brain Food? The Eyes Have It
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Dodging Dengue In The US
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Dengue On The Rise
We wrote recently about dengue outbreaks in the Americas, with Puerto Rico declaring an epidemic. Cases are now being reported in Florida too, and are likely to spread, so it’s good to be prepared, if your climate is of the “warm and humid” kind.
If you want to catch up on the news first, here you go:
- UN health agency cites tenfold increase in reported cases of dengue over the last generation
- Puerto Rico has declared an epidemic following a spike in dengue cases
- Dengue fever confirmed in Florida Keys as US on watch for rise in mosquito illness
Note: dengue is far from unheard of in Florida, but the rising average temperatures in each year mean that each year stands a good chance of seeing more cases than the previous. It’s been climbing since at least 2017, took a dip during the time of COVID restrictions keeping people at home more, and then for the more recent years has been climbing again since.
What actually is it?
Dengue is a viral, mosquito-borne disease, characterized by fever, vomiting, muscle pain, and a rash, in about 1 in 4 cases.
Which can sound like “you’ll know if you have it”, but in fact it’s usually asymptomatic for a week or more after infection, so, watch out!
What next, if those symptoms appear?
The good news is: the fever will usually last less than a week
The bad news is: a day or so after that the fever subsided, the more serious symptoms are likely to start—if they’re going to.
If you’re unlucky enough to be one of the 1 in 20 who get the serious symptoms, then you can expect abdominal cramps, repeat vomiting, bleeding from various orifices (you may not get them all, but all are possible), and (hardly surprising, given the previous items) “extreme fatigue and restlessness”.
If you get those symptoms, then definitely get to an ER as soon as possible, as dengue can become life-threatening within hours of such.
Read more: CDC | Symptoms of Dengue and Testing
While there is not a treatment for dengue per se, the Emergency Room will be better able to manage your symptoms and thus keep you alive long enough for them to pass.
If you’d like much more detail (on symptoms, seriousness, at-risk demographics, and prognosis) than what the CDC offers, then…
Read more: BMJ | Dengue Fever
Ok, so how do we dodge the dengue?
It sounds flippant to say “don’t get bitten”, but that’s it. However, there are tips are not getting bitten:
- Use mosquito-repellent, but it has to contain >20% DEET, so check labels
- Use mosquito nets where possible (doors, windows, etc, and the classic bed-tent net is not a bad idea either)
- Wear clothing that covers your skin, especially during the day—it can be light clothing; it doesn’t need to be a HazMat suit! But it does need to reduce the area of attack to reduce the risk of bites.
- Limit standing water around your home—anything that can hold even a small amount of standing water is a potential mosquito-breeding ground. Yes, even if it’s a crack in your driveway or a potted bromeliad.
Further reading
You might also like to check out:
Stickers and wristbands aren’t a reliable way to prevent mosquito bites. Here’s why
…and in case dengue wasn’t bad enough:
Mosquitoes can spread the flesh-eating Buruli ulcer. Here’s how you can protect yourself
Take care!
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Almonds vs Peanuts – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing almonds to peanuts, we picked the almonds.
Why?
No, it’s not just our pro-almonds bias… But it’s also not as one-sided, nutritionally speaking, as you might think!
In terms of macros, almonds have a lot more fiber, and moderately more carbs, the ratio of which give almonds the lower glycemic index. On the other hand, peanuts have a little more protein. Both of these nuts are equally fatty, but peanuts have the higher saturated fat content. All in all, we say the biggest deciding factor is the fiber, and hand this one to the almonds.
In the category of vitamins, almonds have more of vitamins B2 and E, while peanuts have more of vitamins B1, B3, B5, B6, B7, and B9. An easy win for peanuts this time.
When it comes to minerals, almonds have more calcium, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, and potassium, while peanuts have more copper, iron, selenium, and zinc. Thus, a 5:4 marginal win for almonds.
Adding up the sections makes for an overall win for almonds, but as you can see, it was close and peanuts certainly have their merits too, so by all means enjoy either or both; diversity is good!
Unless you are allergic, in which case, obviously please don’t do that.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts!
Enjoy!
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What is ‘breathwork’? And do I need to do it?
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From “breathwork recipes” to breathing techniques, many social media and health websites are recommending breathwork to reduce stress.
But breathwork is not new. Rather it is the latest in a long history of breathing techniques such as Pranayama from India and qigong from China. Such practices have been used for thousands of years to promote a healthy mind and body.
The benefits can be immediate and obvious. Try taking a deep breath in through your nose and exhaling slowly. Do you feel a little calmer?
So, what’s the difference between the breathing we do to keep us alive and breathwork?
Taras Grebinets/Shutterstock Breathwork is about control
Breathwork is not the same as other mindfulness practices. While the latter focus on observing the breath, breathwork is about controlling inhalation and exhalation.
Normally, breathing happens automatically via messages from the brain, outside our conscious control. But we can control our breath, by directing the movement of our diaphragm and mouth.
The diaphragm is a large muscle that separates our thoracic (chest) and abdominal (belly) cavities. When the diaphragm contracts, it expands the thoracic cavity and pulls air into the lungs.
Controlling how deep, how often, how fast and through what (nose or mouth) we inhale is the crux of breathwork, from fire breathing to the humming bee breath.
Breathwork can calm or excite
Even small bits of breathwork can have physical and mental health benefits and complete the stress cycle to avoid burnout.
Calming breathwork includes diaphragmatic (belly) breathing, slow breathing, pausing between breaths, and specifically slowing down the exhale.
In diaphragmatic breathing, you consciously contract your diaphragm down into your abdomen to inhale. This pushes your belly outwards and makes your breathing deeper and slower.
You can also slow the breath by doing:
- box breathing (count to four for each of four steps: breathe in, hold, breathe out, hold), or
- coherent breathing (controlled slow breathing of five or six breaths per minute), or
- alternate nostril breathing (close the left nostril and breathe in slowly through the right nostril, then close the right nostril and breathe out slowly through the left nostril, then repeat the opposite way).
You can slow down the exhalation specifically by counting, humming or pursing your lips as you breathe out.
In contrast to these calming breathing practices, energising fast-paced breathwork increases arousal. For example, fire breathing (breathe in and out quickly, but not deeply, through your nose in a consistent rhythm) and Lion’s breath (breathe out through your mouth, stick your tongue out and make a strong “haa” sound).
What is happening in the body?
Deep and slow breathing, especially with a long exhale, is the best way to stimulate the vagus nerves. The vagus nerves pass through the diaphragm and are the main nerves of the parasympathetic nervous system.
Simulating the vagus nerves calms our sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) stress response. This improves mood, lowers the stress hormone cortisol and helps to regulate emotions and responses. It also promotes more coordinated brain activity, improves immune function and reduces inflammation.
Taking deep, diaphragmatic breaths also has physical benefits. This improves blood flow, lung function and exercise performance, increases oxygen in the body, and strengthens the diaphragm.
Slow breathing reduces heart rate and blood pressure and increases heart rate variability (normal variation in time between heart beats). These are linked to better heart health.
Taking shallow, quick, rhythmic breaths in and out through your nose stimulates the sympathetic nervous system. Short-term, controlled activation of the stress response is healthy and develops resilience to stress.
Breathing in through the nose
We are designed to inhale through our nose, not our mouth. Inside our nose are lots of blood vessels, mucous glands and tiny hairs called cilia. These warm and humidify the air we breathe and filter out germs and toxins.
We want the air that reaches our airways and lungs to be clean and moist. Cold and dry air is irritating to our nose and throat, and we don’t want germs to get into the body.
Nasal breathing increases parasympathetic activity and releases nitric oxide, which improves airway dilation and lowers blood pressure.
Consistently breathing through our mouth is not healthy. It can lead to pollutants and infections reaching the lungs, snoring, sleep apnoea, and dental issues including cavities and jaw joint problems.
Breathing can be high and shallow when we are stressed. mi_viri/Shutterstock A free workout
Slow breathing – even short sessions at home – can reduce stress, anxiety and depression in the general population and among those with clinical depression or anxiety. Research on breathwork in helping post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is also promising.
Diaphragmatic breathing to improve lung function and strengthen the diaphragm can improve breathing and exercise intolerance in chronic heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma. It can also improve exercise performance and reduce oxidative stress (an imbalance of more free radicals and/or less antioxidants, which can damage cells) after exercise.
Waiting at the lights? This could be your signal to do some breathwork. doublelee/Shutterstock A mind-body connection you can access any time
If you feel stressed or anxious, you might subconsciously take shallow, quick breaths, but this can make you feel more anxious. Deep diaphragmatic breaths through your nose and focusing on strong exhalations can help break this cycle and bring calm and mental clarity.
Just a few minutes a day of breathwork can improve your physical and mental health and wellbeing. Daily deep breathing exercises in the workplace reduce blood pressure and stress, which is important since burnout rates are high.
Bottom line: any conscious control of your breath throughout the day is positive.
So, next time you are waiting in a line, at traffic lights or for the kettle to boil, take a moment to focus on your breath. Breathe deeply into your belly through your nose, exhale slowly, and enjoy the benefits.
Theresa Larkin, Associate professor of Medical Sciences, University of Wollongong and Judy Pickard, Senior Lecturer, Clinical Psychology, University of Wollongong
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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The Fast-Mimicking Diet
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Live, Fast, Live Long
This is Dr. Valter Longo. He’s a biogerontologist and cell biologist, whose work has focused on fasting and nutrient response genes, and how we can leverage them against diseases and aging in general.
We reviewed his book recently:
What does he want us to know?
What to eat
Dr. Longo recommends a mostly plant-based diet (especially vegetables, whole grains, and legumes), but also having some fish. The bulk of our dietary fats, however, he says are best coming from olive oil and nuts.
He also advises aiming for nutritional density of vitamins and minerals in our diet, and/but supplementing with a multivitamin once every few days to cover any gaps.
If in doubt choosing between plant-based whole foods, he recommends that we choose those our ancestors will have eaten.
Read more: Longevity Diet For Adults
When to eat
Dr. Longo recommends time-restricted eating within a 12-hour window per day.
See also: Intermittent Fasting: We Sort The Science From The Hype
However, he also recommends (additionally or separately; it’s up to us; additionally is better but the point is it still has excellent benefits separately too) his “fast-mimicking diet” (FMD), which involves eating according to what we said in “What to eat”, but restricting it to 750 kcal per day, 5 days in a row, but not necessarily 5 days per week.
For example, the following was a 3-month study that involved doing this for only one 5-day cycle per month:
❝Three FMD cycles reduced body weight, trunk, and total body fat; lowered blood pressure; and decreased insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1). No serious adverse effects were reported.
A post hoc analysis of subjects from both FMD arms showed that body mass index, blood pressure, fasting glucose, IGF-1, triglycerides, total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and C-reactive protein were more beneficially affected in participants at risk for disease than in subjects who were not at risk.
Thus, cycles of a 5-day FMD are safe, feasible, and effective in reducing markers/risk factors for aging and age-related diseases.❞
~ Dr. Min Wei et al. ← Dr. Longo was
Note: the introduction mentions FMD in mice, but this is just referencing previous studies. This study is about FMD in humans!
Read in full: Fasting-mimicking diet and markers/risk factors for aging, diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease
Want to know more?
You might like this (text-based) interview with Dr. Longo, with the Health Sciences Academy:
Eat, fast and live longer? Interview with Professor Valter Longo
Take care!
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We Are Such Stuff As Fish Are Made Of
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Research Review: Collagen
For something that’s a very popular supplement, not many people understand what collagen is, where it comes from, or what it does.
In a nutshell:
Collagen is a kind of protein. Our bodies make it naturally, and we can also get more in our diet and/or take extra as a supplement.
Our bodies use collagen in connective tissue, skin, tendon, bone, and cartilage. It has many functions, but a broad description would be “holding things together”.
As we get older, our bodies produce less collagen. Signs of this include wrinkles, loss of skin hydration, and joint pain.
Quick test: pinch the skin on the middle of the back of one of your hands, and then watch what happens when you get low. How quickly and easily did your skin returns to its original shape?
If it was pretty much instantanous and flawless, congratulations, you have plenty of collagen (and also elastin). If you didn’t, you are probably low on both!
(they are quite similar proteins and are made from the same base “stuff”, so if you’re low on one, you’ll usually be low on both)
Quick note: A lot of research out there has been funded by beauty companies, so we had our work cut out for us today, and have highlighted where any research may be biased.
More than skin deep
While marketing for collagen is almost exclusively aimed at “reduce wrinkles and other signs of aging”, it does a lot more than that.
You remember we mentioned that many things from the bones outward are held together by collagen? We weren’t kidding…
Read: Osteoporosis, like skin ageing, is caused by collagen loss which is reversible
Taking extra collagen isn’t the only way
We can’t (yet!) completely halt the age-related loss of collagen, but we can slow it, with our lifestyle choices:
- Don’t smoke tobacco
- Drink only in moderation (or not at all)
- Avoid foods with added sugar, and high-processed foods in general
- Wear sunscreen when appropriate
Can I get collagen from food?
Yep! Just as collagen holds our bodies together, it holds the bodies of other animals together. And, just like collagen is found in most parts of our body but most plentifully in our skin and bones, that’s what to eat to get collagen from other animals, e.g:
- Chicken skin
- Fish skin
- Bone broth ← health benefits and recipes at this link!
What about vegans?
Yes, vegans are also held together by collagen! We do not, however, recommend eating their skin or boiling their bones into broth. Ethical considerations aside, cannibalism can give you CJD!
More seriously, if you’re vegan, you can’t get collagen from a plant-based diet, but you can get the stuff your body uses to make collagen. Basically, you want to make sure you get plenty of:
- Protein (beans, pulses, nuts, etc are all fine; it’s hard to go wrong with this)
- Vitamin C
- Vitamin D
- and Zinc
Just be sure to continue to remember to avoid highly-processed foods. So:
- Soy mince/chunks whose ingredients list reads: “soya”? Yes!
- The Incredible Burger or Linda McCartney’s Sausages? Sadly less healthy
Read: Advanced Glycation End Products in Foods and a Practical Guide to Their Reduction in the Diet
Meat-eaters might want to read that one too. By far the worst offenders for AGEs (Advanced Glycation End Products, which can not only cause collagen to stiffen, but also inactivate proteins responsible for collagen repair, along with doing much more serious damage to your body’s natural functions) include:
- Hot dogs
- Bacon
- Fried/roasted/grilled meats
Is it worth it as a supplement?
That depends on you, your age, and your lifestyle, but it’s generally considered safe*
*if you have a seafood allergy, be careful though, as many supplements are from fish or shellfish—you will need to find one that’s free from your allergen
Also, all collagen is animal-derived. So if you’re a vegan, decide for yourself whether this constitutes medicine and if so, whether that makes it ethically permissible to you.
With that out of the way:
What the science says on collagen supplementation
Collagen for skin
Read: Effects of collagen supplementation on skin aging (systematic review and meta-analysis)
The short version is that they selected 19 studies with over a thousand participants in total, and they found:
In the meta-analysis, a grouped analysis of studies showed favorable results of hydrolyzed collagen supplementation compared with placebo in terms of skin hydration, elasticity, and wrinkles.
The findings of improved hydration and elasticity were also confirmed in the subgroup meta-analysis.
Based on results, ingestion of hydrolyzed collagen for 90 days is effective in reducing skin aging, as it reduces wrinkles and improves skin elasticity and hydration.
Caveat: while that systematic review had no conflicts of interests, at least some of the 19 studies will have been funded by beauty companies. Here are two, so that you know what that looks like:
Funded by Quiris to investigate their own supplement, Elasten®:
A Collagen Supplement Improves Skin Hydration, Elasticity, Roughness, and Density
Funded by BioCell to investigate their own supplement, BioCell Collagen:
The Effects of Skin Aging Associated with the Use of BioCell Collagen
A note on funding bias: to be clear, the issue is not that the researchers might be corrupt (though that could happen).
The issue is more that sometimes companies will hire ten labs to do ten research studies… and then pull funding from ones whose results aren’t going the way they’d like.
So the “best” (for them) study is the one that gets published.
Here’s another systematic review—like the one at the top of this section—that found the same, with doses ranging from 2.5g–15g per day for 8 weeks or longer:
Read: Oral Collagen Supplementation: A Systematic Review of Dermatological Applications
Again, some of those studies will have been funded by beauty companies. The general weight of evidence does seem clear and favorable, though.
Collagen for bones
Here, we encountered a lot less in the way of potential bias, because this is simply marketed a lot less. Despite being arguably far more important!
We found a high quality multi-vector randomized controlled study with a sample size of 131 postmenopausal women. They had these women take 5g collagen supplement (or placebo), and studied the results over the course of a year.
They found:
- The intake of the supplement increased bone mineral density (BMD)
- Supplementation was also associated with a favorable shift in bone markers, indicating:
- increased bone formation
- reduced bone degradation
Read: Specific Collagen Peptides Improve Bone Mineral Density and Bone Markers in Postmenopausal Wome
A follow-up study with 31 of these women found that taking 5 grams of collagen daily for a total of 4 years was associated with a progressive increase in BMD.
You might be wondering if collagen also helps against osteoarthritis.
The answer is: yes, it does (at least, it significantly reduces the symptoms)
Read: Effect of collagen supplementation on osteoarthritis symptoms
In summary:
- You need collagen for health skin, bones, joints, and more
- Your body makes collagen from your food
- You can help it by getting plenty of protein, vitamins, and minerals
- You can also help it by not doing the usual Bad Things™ (smoking, drinking, eating processed foods, especially processed meats)
- You can also eat collagen directly in the form of other animals’ skin and bones
- You can also buy collagen supplements (but watch out for allergens)
Want to try collagen supplementation?
We don’t sell it (or anything else), but for your convenience…
Check it out: Hydrolyzed Collagen Peptides (the same as in most of the above studies), 90 days supply at 5g/day
We selected this one because it’s the same kind used in many of the studies, and it doesn’t contain any known allergens.
It’s bovine collagen, meaning it’s from cows, so it’s not vegan, and also some subscribers may want to abstain for religious reasons. We respect that, and/but make our recommendations based solely on the science of health and productivity.
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