Is Collagen Good for Men?
Is collagen good for men? Collagen is generally very well-tolerated and can have a host of benefits for men. Explore them below.
Collagen has entered the food market with a splash. Coming from the Greek word “kólla,” meaning “glue,” collagen is backed by several studies substantiating its efficacy for beauty products, joint health, skin health, and more. It has become a popular food supplement (the FDA regulates it as food and not medicine) for both genders. In this article, we’ll explore the specific benefits (and a few risks) of taking collagen for men.
The Bottom Line: Is it Good or Bad for Men?
Collagen has been found to improve body composition and increase muscle strength in men, so it can certainly be considered beneficial for men. The trick is to find the right protein balance, as men, as a general health rule, need more protein on average than women do.
What Are Collagen’s Specific Benefits for Men?
Collagen is a type of protein in and of itself. While it’s an incomplete protein (meaning its constituents don’t form a complete amino acid chain), it still has the benefits of being a protein. Healthy adults need at least 1g of protein per kg of body weight per day to maintain muscle mass balance in the body. Because men weigh more than women on average, they’ll need more protein. Collagen adds a healthy dose of protein to your diet. In that same vein, it can also add several amino acids to your diet.
Another one of its primary benefits is supporting the connective tissue, males included. This includes the connective tissue for joints, bones, skin, muscles, tendons, blood vessels, and ligaments. Let’s start with the skin.
Skin Benefits
Collagen supports men’s skin hydration, firmness, elasticity, and overall collagen density. A placebo-controlled, randomized, double-blind study (the gold standard in science) found substantially higher moisture levels in participants who regularly took a collagen supplement.
Hair Benefits
It’s commonly known that many men experience thinning hair and hair loss as they age. Luckily, collagen supplementation can help with that! Its amino acid constituents include proline, which is one of the active ingredients in a collagen supplement that may help with hair growth.
Gut Health Benefits
Gut health is a relatively new field of inquiry for collagen supplements. Yet, the research shows that the specific amino acid configuration is associated with better digestive health.
Muscle Mass
Knowing that it’s not a complete protein, collagen contributes eight of the nine full amino acids to muscle mass combined with a healthy diet and a robust fitness routine. In certain research trials, collagen was seen to positively affect muscle strength and muscle recovery.
Joints
There are two types of collagen: collagen type I and collagen type II. The latter is part of joint structures. Taking more collagen type II for 180 days can positively affect men’s joint health, comfort, and mobility.
While in the news, collagen is largely advertised for women because of the general emphasis women place on skin health, there are many other benefits, as you’ve seen above.
CogniTune’s Collagen Supplements
There are several highly effective collagen supplements that CogniTune sells that target the above-mentioned benefits for men.
One of these is Collagen Peptides Protein Powder. It boasts such benefits as skin rejuvenation, reducing visible aging, and metabolism and weight loss support. What’s also neat about our particular form of collagen is that combined, it has 18 amino acids, forming a more-than-complete protein. Good for both men and women, this is a highly effective product.
Another one of CogniTune’s collagen supplements that has great health benefits for men is Multi-Collagen, whose full name is Multi Collagen + Biotin & Hyaluronic Acid for Hair, Skin, Nail & Joint Health. As we discussed before, there are multiple types of collagen – but did you know that there are many more than type I collagen and type II collagen? This powerful supplement combines five different types of collagen protein, plus hyaluronic acid for skin health and biotin for hair health. It also supports nails, anti-aging, joint and bone support, and digestive health.
How Much Collagen Should Both Men and Women Take?
Studies show that a collagen intake of 2.5 to 15mg a day will help maximize its benefits. For men, this will be slightly higher because of their greater need for protein to support a larger body mass.
Wrapping Up
Collagen clearly has benefits, and there’s a good deal of science to back up that assertion. While more studies will be fruitful in establishing just how robust its benefits are, it’s safe to say that collagen provides vital proteins that support connective tissue all over the body. While often typified as a women’s product in mainstream advertisements, it’s also good for men.
Some of the reasons we outlined for collagen supplementation were reducing hair thinning as an anti-aging benefit, adding a good source of protein to men’s diets, inducing skin elasticity as there’s an increasing market emphasis on men’s skincare, and much, much more. CogniTune has superb collagen products that can have a direct beneficial impact on your health – male or female.