Hey everyone, welcome back to another many episode of Ask Dr Hazel in the short

5 minute episodes I answer questions submitted by you. So let's hear from this

week's listener. Kia ora Dr Hazel, I have a question about collagen powder and

supplements. They are all the rage at the moment and I was wondering whether I

should be including collagen powder in my diet and if there has been enough

research around it. It would be great to hear your thoughts on this. Thank you

so much. Thank you so much for your question. I get asked this all the time so

I'm really happy we get to talk about it today but it will be a bit of a

longer answer. So I think first of all let's just go through what collagen

actually is. Collagen is a family of proteins and they make up the structural

component of connective tissues like cartilage, tendons and skin and there are

at least 30 different types of collagen but about 90% of collagen is type 1

which is found in the skin, tendons, ligaments, organs, teeth and bone and

then type 2 is found in cartilage that cushions our joints and also the

vitrous humor which is the jelly-like substance in our eyeballs. You can find

collagen in foods such as meat, poultry, fish, products containing gelatin and

bone broth. Many supplements and food products contain hydrolyzed collagen which

is a partially broken down version of collagen in order to help with

absorption. But your question was are supplements effective and evidence-based?

Now you didn't ask about any particular thing like gut health or skin health

or bone health but most of the research on collagen supplements is related to

joint and skin health so I'll focus on that for this particular answer. So in

...