By Maya Ling BHSc Clinical Nutrition
From powders to your morning matcha or evening cacao, collagen is a popular supplement in the health and beauty space. People are leaning on collagen for its uses in optimising healthy skin and joints, but its uses are also more than promising when it comes to supporting our luscious locks – promoting strength and growth.
So, is collagen worth the hype for the health of our hair? The short answer is yes. But let’s delve further into why this supplement can provide the benefits.
What is the Link Between Collagen and Hair?
Most of the foundation of our body’s connective tissues, including the skin, bones and cartilage, is made up of collagen protein. It also has a large role to play in the building of our hair.
Put simply, hair is basically just all protein. Made from the protein keratin which, like collagen, is made up of amino acids – smaller proteins that act as the building blocks for larger protein strands. The link? Sources of collagen provide a key amino acid ‘proline’ for producing the body’s keratin. So, if collagen levels are maintained you know you’ll be supporting your hair health as well.
Supporting Hair Growth with Collagen
Provides Key Hair Building Blocks
As formerly stated, collagen provides key amino acids to produce keratin. These amino acids include proline, hydroxyproline and glycine, and are favourably sourced from hydrolysed collagen (See our recent blog on all things hydrolysed collagen). These small proteins are broken down, absorbed and reused by the body to form hair among other things.
Supports Our Scalp
We’ve heard that collagen can do absolute wonders for our skin. This is due to collagens role in the maintenance of our dermal layer, which is what contains the roots of our hair. As our levels of collagen decline over time through the natural process of aging this can affect the hair follicle as our skin loses elasticity and fullness at the scalp. We often forget that our scalp is in fact skin. So, when supplementing with collagen peptides you will be supporting the maintenance of your scalp and in turn your hair.
What is the Research Saying?
The links between collagen and increasing our skin health have been covered throughout a lot of research. Though, collagen and hair health studies are still developing. But there are a few that maintain collagens use for hair health.
A 2023 paper on natural hair supplements reports collagens emerging benefits for promoting hair health predominately through sustaining the health of the skins dermal layer, and increasing hair thickness, hydration and shine.
Head to the Active Collagen Instagram page for real anecdotal results provided by those in our community that consistently supplementing with Active Collagen All-In-One Hair Skin Nails.
Incorporating Collagen for Hair Growth
The general recommendation is 5-15g of collagen per day and aiming for the higher end of these intakes is recommended for a more therapeutic dose if you’re wanting faster and effective results. Hello healthy hair!
How do you get these amounts daily? The easiest way is through a hydrolysed collagen supplement. A general serving of collagen provides 5g of collagen peptides. Adding a scoop to your morning smoothie or oats, plus one in your coffee is all you need to hit those targets.
Let’s not forget about the food sources of collagen. These include bone broths, chicken skin, egg, soups cooked with bones, gelatin and fish. Incorporating these in addition to a supplement is sure to cover all bases.
Ensuring that any form of collagen you’re supplementing with or ingest is paired with a form of vitamin C is paramount for helping the body effectively synthesize collagen and absorb those amino acids for keratin production.
Supporting Hair Care
You can see that collagen is a super star for hair health but it’s just one piece of the puzzle. Incorporating it as a part of a holistic approach to your hair health is recommended as our hair health can be impacted by a variety of factors.
Diet – Are you eating enough protein and omega 3s? How are your iron and zinc levels?
Stress – Hair loss after a stressful event (postpartum hair loss for example) is a time when implementing stress reducing practices is vital for supporting hair production.
Hygiene – How often are you washing your hair/scalp? Is it too little? Or even too much?
Worth the Hype?
Yes! Collagen is a supplement worth implementing on a consistent basis if you’re looking to increase your hair health and growth from a holistic perspective. By offering the key amino acids alongside supporting scalp skin health collagen is highly beneficial. Especially when implemented alongside healthy lifestyle practices.
A scoop or two of collagen peptides daily might just be the convenient and easy way to start supporting your hair growth ASAP.
Reilly, D. M., Kynaston, L., Naseem, S., Proudman, E., & Laceby, D. (2024). A Clinical Trial Shows Improvement in Skin Collagen, Hydration, Elasticity, Wrinkles, Scalp, and Hair Condition following 12-Week Oral Intake of a Supplement Containing Hydrolysed Collagen. Dermatology research and practice, 2024, 8752787. https://doi.org/10.1155/2024/8752787
Chilakamarry, C. R., Mahmood, S., Saffe, S. N. B. M., Arifin, M. A. B., Gupta, A., Sikkandar, M. Y., Begum, S. S., & Narasaiah, B. (2021). Extraction and application of keratin from natural resources: a review. 3 Biotech, 11(5), 220. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13205-021-02734-7
Editor, J.O. (2023) Natural hair supplements: Trends and myths untangled: JCAD – The Journal of Clinical and Aesthetic Dermatology, JCAD. https://jcadonline.com/natural-hair-supplements-trends-myths/
