How Does The Body Make Collagen?
Your body makes collagen out of key vitamins, minerals, and through multiple processes. All proteins contain amino acids and the most abundant amino acid found in collagen is glycine, which is an essential amino acid.
As you age, it’s natural and normal for collagen to decrease, which can contribute to less flexible ligaments, weakening muscles, joint pain, wrinkles, and may thin the lining of your digestive tract which can cause digestive issues.
Besides aging, the most common reason someone doesn’t produce enough collagen is poor nutrition or poor diet or eating too much sugar, lacking the essential nutrients your body needs to create collagen.
Just as the body can make collagen, it also can be broken down from damaging actions like spending too much time in the sun and smoking.
Key nutrients involved in collagen production
Vitamin C is key to collagen production. In addition to vitamin C, iron also plays an important role.
You can see, although this seems simple for our body to maintain healthy skin, hair, nails, connective tissue, tendons, cartilage, bone, and teeth — it’s also heavily dependent on our body’s supply of vitamin C.
Vitamin C deficiency is rare in the modern-day, but in order to support your body in producing collagen, make sure you’re eating foods rich in vitamin C, iron, and other collagen-producing nutrients.