If you’ve been shopping for products to help support your beauty goals, you’ve probably stumbled across collagen. This fan-favorite ingredient is in skincare products, beauty supplements, and even protein powders.

However, you may have also seen products made with collagen peptides. What makes these two ingredients different, and which is better? Read on to find out.

What Is Collagen?

Collagen, opens in a new tab is a type of structural protein that is found naturally in your body. Collagen protein acts as a scaffolding within the body, providing a framework that helps different organs and connective tissues keep their shapes. As the most abundant protein in the human body, collagen can be found in intestinal tissue, blood vessels, skin, and even ligaments. 

Just like any other protein, collagen is made up of amino acids. Specifically, collagen has a triple helix structure and is made of proline, glycine, and hydroxyproline. In order to make collagen the body uses nutrients like vitamin C, zinc, copper, and manganese.

There are many different types of collagen. These include:

• Type I: Type I collagen accounts for 90 percent of your body’s collagen and can be found in the skin, bones, and ligaments.
• Type II: This type of collagen is found in joints.
• Type III: This is found in muscles and blood vessels.
• Type IV: This type is specific to skin wellness.
• Type V: This type of collagen is found in the eyes, hair, and the placenta.

What Are Collagen Peptides?

Collagen peptides, opens in a new tab are collagen proteins that have been broken apart. Each collagen peptide is a fragment of a whole collagen protein.

Peptides are made through a process called hydrolysis, which involves using water and enzymes to break bonds between molecules. This process leaves behind smaller chains of amino acids that are much easier for the body to digest than whole collagen.

Collagen vs. Collagen Peptides: Which Is Best?

The main difference between whole collagen and collagen peptides is their size. Because collagen peptides are smaller and more broken down, they are more bioavailable. Your body is able to break down more collagen so you can experience the benefits. There’s nothing wrong with taking regular collagen — it’s just not as efficient as taking a collagen peptide supplement.

Most products will list on their packaging whether they use whole collagen or collagen hydrolysate. For instance, at Everyday Dose, we use grass-fed, bovine hydrolyzed collagen peptides. This is just one of many small choices we’ve made to make sure every ingredient in our functional blends, opens in a new tab counts.

What Are the Health Benefits of Taking Collagen Supplements?

Why are so many people taking collagen peptides, anyway? After all, doesn’t your body already make collagen?

While this is true, collagen production also starts to decrease, opens in a new tab starting as early as in our 20s. This slow decline in collagen production is responsible for so many signs of aging, including wrinkles and sagging skin. It can also affect overall gut health, bone health, and more.

Taking collagen supplements can help support the body’s natural production of collagen. But what does this actually feel like?

Here are some of the benefits of collagen supplements, opens in a new tab:

• Smooth Digestion: Since collagen supports intestinal lining, it can help ease indigestion and bloating over time.
• Skin Elasticity: You may notice fine lines and even wrinkles becoming harder to spot, as well as overall skin firmness and support for skin health.
• Joint Support: Collagen plays an important role in joint health, and supplementing may help preserve healthy joints.
• Muscle Mass: Collagen is a protein, which means it can support muscle mass.
• Skin Hydration: Some research shows that taking collagen can support overall skin hydration.

There are also many forms of collagen supplements. For instance, you can buy collagen powders, collagen capsules, and even collagen creamers for your coffee.

Whatever dietary supplements you buy, make sure you pay attention to how they’re sourced and what form of collagen they’re made of. Marine collagen is sourced from fish scales and is more geared toward immune support. Meanwhile, bovine collagen is sourced from cowhide and can support both skin health and brain health.

Where Can You Find Collagen?

In your quest for the best collagen supplement, you might be wondering if there’s an easier (and more delicious) way to increase your collagen intake than taking a pill or powder. Here are some sources of collagen that are just as easy to incorporate into your daily routine.

Gelatin

Gelatin (AKA, one of the main ingredients in Jell-O) is a great source of collagen. And, since gelatin is relatively flavorless, you can easily mix it with things to make it easy and fun to eat. For instance, you can use gelatin to make pudding, gummies, marshmallows, and even panna cotta.

Bone Broth

Bone broth is a great source of natural collagen, and is especially helpful if you don’t have much of a sweet tooth. Bone broth is also super easy to use — you can easily make soup and swap out your regular chicken broth for bone broth. Or, if you like to make rice, you can simmer your rice in bone broth to make a collagen-rich side dish.

Collagen Coffee

Collagen coffee might not occur in nature, but it’s another incredibly easy way to add collagen to your daily routine. Our Mushroom Coffee+ blend contains bovine collagen peptides, lion’s mane and chaga mushrooms, L-theanine, and coffee extract to support brain health, focus, gut health, and immunity.

You can mix our blend with hot water or cold water to make a delicious coffee drink or blend it up into a smoothie for a nice change of pace. The options are pretty much endless!

The Bottom Line

Collagen is a vital protein in the human body that provides structure to bones, joints, ligaments, blood vessels, and skin. However, our bodies start to produce less collagen with age, which is why so many people take collagen supplements.

Whole collagen is made up of long chains of amino acids, the building blocks of protein. Collagen peptides, on the other hand, are fractions of whole collagen proteins. These smaller pieces are easier to digest and are a more efficient way to take in collagen. To learn more about the ingredients we use and the science behind them, visit the Everyday Dose blog, opens in a new tab today.

Sources:

Collagen | The Nutrition Source, opens in a new tab

What Are Collagen Peptides? | Baptist Health

Decreased Collagen Production in Chronologically Aged Skin | PMC, opens in a new tab

Blog | What are the benefits of collagen? | Reid Health, opens in a new tab