- Hey it's Thomas DeLauer,
and today I wanna give you a little bit of an education
on collagen protein and how it's synthesized within the body
and what it actually does.
We're seeing lots and lots of collagen products
come on the market these days,
and it's important that we have an understanding
of what's actually happening when it comes down to
the amino acids that collagen contains
and quite frankly, what collagen is in the first place.
So what I wanna discuss today is the amino acid structure
and what it does within your body.
So first and foremost,
collagen is what is known as a long-chain amino, okay?
It's a very unique kind of protein
that's actually the most abundant protein in the body.
A lot of us don't realize it,
we tend to think that skeletal muscle and things like that
are gonna be the most abundant protein.
It's actually collagen.
30% of the protein in your entire body is collagen,
and over 70% of the entirety of protein
in your skin is collagen.
You see what collagen does is it provides elasticity.
It provides a lot of the actual stretch
and the actual movement of tissue in the first place.
But it also gives structure,
it's what allows skin to be flexible
but also allows it to be somewhat rigid as well.
Same kinda thing with cartridge,
it's flexible, yet rigid at the same time.
That's because the protein in collagen
is pretty darn unique.
You see, it's comprised of a few different amino acids.
We've got proline,
which I'm gonna talk about in just a minute.
We've got glycine,
we've got arginine,
and then in some cases we have glutamine,
usually small amounts.
So what I'm gonna do in this video,
is I'm gonna break down what collagen does,
but then I'm gonna break down the individual amino acids
and how they have their own respective roles
when it comes down to creating connective tissue
and also helping you feel better.
So let's talk about the structure of collagen
and the amino acids involved.
But first off, let's make sure that you know
that the main purpose of collagen is going to be
to help rebuild cartilage, help strengthen your joints,
but also to help restructure, reorganize,
and make sure that your gut remains flexible as well.
So let's first look at proline,
the most abundant amino acid that's in collagen.
The job of proline is to break down protein tissues.
And that sounds a little bit counterintuitive,
why would we wanna break down protein tissues
if we're actually looking for structure and flexibility?
Well it's the breaking down of the protein tissues
that allows those proteins to become flexible,
otherwise they would just be rigid.
So when we're looking at the skin,
we need that proline to break down the proteins
so that the skin can actually move and do its thing.
Same kinda thing with the intestinal tract.
You see when we look at the lining of the intestinal tract,
it needs to have some flexibility too.
The best way that I can describe this,
if your skin were to get very very very dry,
it would get rigid, it would get brittle,
and when you move your arm, when you move your leg,
your skin would probably crack.
Well your intestinal lining's the same way.
You see if it doesn't have the elasticity,
it's going to get rigid and it's going to crack,
and it's going to become permeable,
which means that larger food particles
are going to get into the bloodstream,
triggering an immune response.
That's a video for another day.
The point is, we need the elasticity,
we need the collagen.
And it's the proline that allows that to happen.
Now additionally, proline also allows fat to get mobilized
if it's been stuck to an arterial wall.
Total side benefit, but it's a nice little perk at that.
Now let's talk about glycine.
Glycine is the next most abundant amino
when we're looking at collagen.
And it's the job of glycine to help synthesize DNA and RNA.
Now you might be wondering, "Why does this even matter?"
Well you see we have a genetic blueprint.
Every time that we rebuild cells,
or every time that we restructure something in our body,
we require DNA, we require our RNA.
What this means is we need this blueprint
to build ourselves back up
to the way that we are supposed to be built.
Let me give you an example.
How weird would it be if you were to shatter your elbow,
and you didn't have a genetic code to rebuild it
the same way that you are,
so you rebuilt it with somebody else's elbow.
It would look weird and it would feel weird,
and it wouldn't work, right?
Well that's exactly why the DNA and the RNA are so important
when it comes down to cell regeneration
and rehab in the first place.
And what this glycine does is it helps
so that the DNA and the RNA are synthesized better
so that they communicate with the cells
so that the collagen can rebuild the right kind of things.
If you injure the cartilage,
or you injure the connective tissue,
you need the DNA and the RNA to rebuild it
to the right genetic code,
otherwise you're not going to heal properly.
So that's how the proline and the glycine work in-tandem.
Then we have the arginine.
Now arginine you might know of,
arginine's going to stimulate nitric oxide production
what's gonna allow the blood flow to be more powerful.
It's gonna allow you to get more blood to the cell,
more blood to where it needs to go to deliver nutrients.
You can see how this is a lethal weapon when it's combined
with the proline and the glycine.
So you take the actual restructuring component
along with the DNA,
along with the improvement of blood flow,
you've got a nice little structure there.
Now let's talk about glutamine for just a second.
There's not a whole lot of glutamine in collagen,
but enough to make a big difference.
What glutamine's main function's going to be
when it comes down to collagen,
is going to be solely for the gut.
You see what this glutamine's going to do,
is it's going to slow down or stop
epithelial cell apoptosis.
What that means is it's
the pre-programmed cellular death within the gut.
We have this cell apoptosis, which is pre-programmed death
that is dictated by the DNA.
Our DNA will tell a cell to die at a certain point
because it's just time to die.
Well what the glutamine can do
is it can slow down that process
so that the cell, even when it's supposed to die,
could stay alive a little bit longer,
allowing the gut to flourish
and allow that gut mucosal layer to rebuild even stronger.
Now that's pretty powerful
when it comes down to really trying to absorb
as many of the nutrients as you possibly can
and to reduce inflammation in the body.
We also have a massive reduction
in what is called bacteriemia.
Bacteriemia is going to be the overall composition
of bad bacterias in the gut that slow down digestion
and also affect the motility of the gut
in a very negative way.
So glutamine has a big impact.
So now that we know what collagen is made of,
let's talk about why it's so important
to make sure that you're getting it
from an exogenous source as much as possible.
You see even if you're eating a lot of meat,
it's extremely hard to synthesize collagen.
Not that it's difficult, it's just metabolically expensive.
Metabolically expensive is a word that I like to use
to describe how much efficiency is involved
in synthesizing something.
And synthesizing collagen is not very efficient.
It requires a lot of different things,
it requires a robust amount of enzymes,
a robust amount of anti-oxidants,
and a ton of vitamin C to ultimately link
these amino chains together.
Our body can do it,
and our body can do it from vegetarian sources too,
it can extract these different aminos
and link them together,
it just takes a lot of work,
and we might not be getting enough.
We also have to factor in
how many greens we need to be taking in
in order to actually synthesize collagen the proper way.
You see, chlorophyll, which is in deep leafy greens,
is what is going to help the body produce procollagen.
This procollagen allows collagen to actually be formed.
Without chlorophyll, collagen doesn't form very well,
so if you're eating a lot of meat,
but you're not getting your veggies,
you're not gonna built a lot of collagen.
Which means even if you're consuming enough protein,
you might not be feeling like your joints are recovering.
That's why it's extremely important to try to utilize
a collagen supplement if you don't think
that you're getting enough.
The collagen supplements these days are super high-quality,
especially if you know what you're looking for.
You wanna make sure you're looking for
grass-fed whenever possible,
don't go with the low-quality stuff
that's from inhumanely treated animals,
but also the stuff that's not going to absorb
and be utilized in your body.
You end up wasting your time, wasting your money,
and ultimately wasting a perfectly good collagen drain.
So if you have a hydrolyzed collagen protein,
all the hard work is already done.
It's pure collagen that's ready to be utilized
and ready to help you heal.
So the real theory of this
is that you don't have to be consuming as much protein
or as much animal source if you take a collagen supplement.
Because the bulk of what we're trying to extract
from an animal source of protein
is going to be the collagen in the first place.
So it ends up being easier, cheaper,
and ultimately more effective
to get your collagen from a collagen supplement
than it is to eat copious amounts of meat
hoping that you're going to be able to synthesize
just enough collagen to get yourself feeling better,
allow your joints to feel better,
and most of all to allow your gut to function properly.
So make sure you check out Antler Farms Collagen Protein
to find a true unadulterated form of hydrolyzed collagen
that's gonna help you be your best you.
I'll see you soon.