While collagen supplements have long existed in specialty vitamin stores, in the past year they’ve expanded to drug and grocery stores and are proliferating rapidly. The promise of all these pills, powders, and drinks is enough to get anyone’s attention and sounds too futuristic to be real: You can swallow a pill and turn back the clock, not just by plumping fine lines for a few hours or days, but by causing your own body to rebuild its collagen from within. Is this just the latest version of hope in a jar, albeit a vitamin jar? Brand-new clinical research seems to indicate that there’s something real to those claims. In a large double-blind, placebo-controlled study published in early 2014, women took 2.5 g of a particular hydrolyzed collagen peptide (brand name Verisol) once a day; after 8 weeks, researchers measured a 20% reduction in wrinkle depth around the women’s eyes. Even more significant, levels of the body’s own procollagen (the precursor to collagen) were significantly elevated, with production up by an impressive 65%. It seems that, however improbably, the pills in this study could make a woman’s skin behave like a younger version of itself. Can skin collagen come from a pill? Some researchers say yes; others protest that it’s impossible. Collagen, the very substance that these supplements are trying to support, keeps skin resilient and joints working smoothly and provides the structure in the tissue that connects our organs—but past the ripe old age of 30, everyone’s collagen production declines. “If you lose the collagen structure in your bones, that’s osteoporosis,” says study coauthor Steffen Oesser, the founder of the Collagen Research Institute in Kiel, Germany, who holds patents on several collagen formulations. “Lose the collagen in skin, you get wrinkles.” In the past, our diet included foods that may have helped stem this decline, such as homemade broth or stock. When you boil a whole chicken or simmer beef bones, the jellylike substance that rises to the top is—you guessed it—collagen. It’s even been suggested that our society’s current predilection for boneless, skinless chicken breasts could be part of the reason we need these supplements in the first place—we’ve effectively created a collagen deficit in our diets. MORE: 8 Foods For Seriously Pretty Skin If supplements are the solution, we don’t yet know their exact biological action. Researchers who have studied them theorize that it’s the mincing of collagen into very particular small chains of amino acids and peptides that holds the secret to youthful skin. When the fragments are the right size, they are absorbed into the bloodstream, the researchers assert, and trigger the production of collagen in the skin’s matrix. This mincing is also why collagen-supplement researchers argue that all the bone broth in the world won’t help—the enzymes the lab uses to get collagen to the target size aren’t naturally present in the body. “What’s exciting is that we can directly influence the dermis, the deepest layer of the skin, by supplementation,” says Oesser. “It’s stimulating our own body cells by a natural pathway.” Sounds like the fountain of youth, right? Not everyone is convinced. “For collagen fragments to be ingested, travel through the highly acidic digestive tract, and accumulate in the dermis is hard to imagine,” says Jennifer Linder, a dermatologist. This is such a strongly held belief by some dermatologists that the study is treated as something of a fluke, regardless of how strong its results seem. Their argument is that all proteins, whether bioavailable collagen peptides or bone broth, are processed the same way by stomach enzymes and end up as tiny amino acids that can’t target specific organs such as the skin. MORE: 7 Days To Better-Than-Ever Skin And yet, mysteriously, something in this study appears to be triggering the skin’s collagen matrix—and all signs indicate it’s collagen peptides. The fact remains that this is all very new science, and collagen supplements don’t yet offer the hard proof that only many more studies can bring. Linder argues that there are plenty of topical ingredients out there that stimulate collagen production—and are already proven beyond a doubt. Wrinkle-fighting retinoic acid, for example, has shown improvements similar to what you see with Verisol supplements: significantly fewer fine lines, as well as decreased hyperpigmentation and improved skin texture—results duplicated hundreds of times over decades. Bundles of collagen make up the fibers that support the skin. For every cautious skeptic, however, there is a cautious optimist; even some dermatologists find the recent trials intriguing. “The results are very compelling and confirm that oral intake of this specific type of bioactive collagen peptide can increase collagen production,” says dermatologist Patricia Farris. So should you add collagen to your routine? Here’s the glass-half-full view: These minced collagen peptides seem to work—and impressively so. “Supplements are here to stay,” says dermatologist Doris Day. She argues that any product with such a strong clinical result has a definite place in a wrinkle-fighting regimen, along with a good diet, sun protection, and an anti-aging moisturizer. “Further independent studies are needed to see if the data holds true,” she says. “But I think we need to open our minds to more creative approaches.” Think about it: Every once in a while something new enters your beauty routine, and you can’t even remember how it began. Is this the moment when every swipe of night cream started to come with a swallow of supplements? MORE: Why Is Your Skin Freaking Out? Take This Quick Quiz
