Over the years, a fresh-faced 61-year-old Anthea Turner has been open about the various cosmetic and aesthetic procedures she has undergone. But her latest antiaging tips are a little more bizarre: she revealed that the collagen supplements her veterinarian prescribed for her dog made her try them out for herself.
“He recommended glucosamine and chondroitin to help prevent the dog from developing hip dysplasia and arthritis,” she says. “Then he jokingly said that I should also take collagen because it loses some of our faces and joints as we age, so I started taking the same collagen tablets as the dog.”
Granted, the TV host has since switched to collagen for human consumption, but she credits veterinary advice for being “ahead of the curve”.
It’s a curve that has gotten stronger in recent years as the global ingestible beauty product market is worth $ 160 billion by next year, aging, unironed faces look to others. It has caused the market for injectable drugs – botox, fillers, and the like – to experience a pandemic boom, but for those still skeptical of such procedures, fixes that can be drunk, eaten, or swallowed have become an alternative accepted.
No wonder when seemingly timeless celebrities – Jennifer Aniston, Halle Berry, and Drew Barrymore, to name a few – extol the virtues of ingestible collagen. No matter that they swam out of an incredibly rare and highly desirable gene pool: I’ll have what it has, thank you very much.
The call for collagen supplements is no stranger to me: Although I’ve never swallowed the recommended ones for my dog with a ruptured cruciate ligament, I’ve taken a variety of pills, powders, and liquids to help rebuild the scaffolding of my skin.
This is essentially what collagen is: the stuff that holds our skin in place. This is why children’s cheeks are so firm and smooth, and why adults’ faces become flabby with marionette lines from nose to mouth as they age and collagen levels decrease.
Did it work? Maybe like this: I recently had my last birthday before 50 and people (maybe just out of courtesy) say things about looking younger than I am. Scientifically speaking, I did a trial with the liquid dietary supplement Skinade some time ago at an independent London clinic – Kensington’s Santi – to measure the moisture and collagen levels of my skin, as well as its elasticity: after two months these were around 18, 17 and. up 67 percent or it’s not surprising that I now drink the stuff made from freshwater fish every day.
Am I – and Anthea – just kidding us? Opinions are divided about the effectiveness of collagen supplements. According to Amish Patel, an award-winning aesthetic practitioner and skin care expert at Intrigue Cosmetic Clinic, there is limited evidence that collagen supplements make a difference. Furthermore, the fact that the role of collagen in the body affects not only the skin but muscles, bones and joints means that there is no guarantee that supplementation will target the areas you want.
“That’s not to say it wouldn’t be beneficial,” he adds (who doesn’t want better muscles, bones, and joints after all?), “But I would suggest that at least six weeks be the earliest checkpoint when you think about it to take a supplement. However, the older we are, the slower the body’s regeneration process – so it may take you longer with the supplement to see possible results. “
Eating disorders consultant and specialist Ruth Micallef is even less certain that dietary supplements are a viable route to “wellness” and points out that the industry has quickly benefited from the concept of “self-sufficiency”.
“Self-care literally means going for a walk, having a nutritious meal, talking to friends, spending time for yourself – but it has been monetized,” she says. “When it comes to supplements, it is important to think about why you are taking them: Have you been medically recommended to take them? Does Your Body Really Need Them? Can You Get What You Need Just By Watching Your Diet?
“It’s about taking a step back and asking:“ Who tells me that my skin has to look like it did when it was 20? ”She says.
From a psychological point of view, this makes perfect sense. Even so, most of us are bombarded with images of the youth, whether those images are really of the youth or, on the other hand, airbrushed, filtered and filtered to the utmost.
Even so, Professor Luigi Martini, Professor of Pharmaceutical Innovation at King’s College London, had to overcome his own skepticism when overseeing an independent medical study on collagen once it reached your stomach – so it’s best to get it through a proprietary capsule (like Ingenious) to consume, which protects the ingredients from digestion as it enters your small intestine, where the ingredients are released.
“The only way for collagen to really, really work is by not breaking it down into its individual parts; in amino acids, ”he says. “Products that keep the protein intact even through the digestive system are more effective than those that are broken down.”
As with almost everything in the beauty and wellness sector, it’s a minefield – and one that isn’t easy to navigate when we’re in the doldrums of pandemics, midlife, and twixmas. Water, sleep and good genes are certainly the big hits here – and if nothing else, I stick to my skinade and let everything that is intended for my dog avoid. Although – I have to admit – he looks very handsome for his age.
