Four Surprising Facts About Collagen

Unless global high school biology curricula have changed, Collagen has tended to be one of the few important things that go unmentioned over the duration of the typical high school biology course. Yet looking at it carefully, collagen turns out to be one of the important components that make human (and for that matter any animal) body, and which no one can claim to have a good working knowledge of the human body without a knowledge of.

Did you know, for instance that more than a quarter of the body’s protein content is actually made of collagen? If you didn’t, then this will be for you the first important and surprising fact about collagen. It gets even more interesting when it is mentioned collagen is the main substance that makes the connective tissue in the typical animal body: which is another way of saying that collagen is to the animal body what cement is to a concrete structure!

The second fact about collagen that you might find surprising if you have never gotten to hear it is the fact that collagen – being the main component of connective tissue in the body - tends to be the substance that is responsible for some of the miracles of the medical science like the skin reconstruction surgery that is taking place nowadays; and which is restoring the self-esteem of victims of fire accidents (and other accidents) who would otherwise have had to live the rest of their lives greatly disadvantaged, ‘looks-wise.’

Closely related to the second fact about collagen, another fact about it that you might find surprising is the fact that collagen harvested from beef cattle can actually work for humans, and is in fact the collagen that is employed in making the previously described reconstructive surgery possible. Not all beef cattle will do for this purpose though: as the employed animals have to be free an illness called BSE, which unfortunately tends to be very common among cows, meaning that only a few ‘certified’ animals can be used for harvesting collagen to be used for reconstructive surgery and other medical applications. Of course, there is also the possibility of getting collagen harvested from dead people (cadavers) and aborted fetuses; but this is hardly more appealing than the use of collagen from beef cattle, not to mention anything of the fact that the said collagen harvested from dead bodies (cadavers) and aborted fetuses tends to be much more expensive than the collagen harvested from the animals.

The fourth surprising fact about collagen, and this might be interesting to you even if you have no interests in cosmetic or reconstructive surgery is the fact that there have been studies suggesting that regularly taking collagen (in the form of the supplements it is sold in) can greatly enhance your skin quality, maintaining that youthful look which people have been known to submit to the surgeon’s scalpel in a bid to re-acquire. As with any claims of this nature, there has controversy around the fact that collagen can have this particular effect: but anyone taking the collagen supplements in question has nothing really to lose for taking them, but everything to gain should the said effects indeed start manifesting on their skin!