Devlin Brown at the water cooler: Don’t expect pills and powders to perform miracles

Is there any real benefit to taking collagen supplements or are they just another fad that everyone in my padel group is talking about?

The Water Cooler would like to congratulate you for graduating with a degree in healthy scepticism. It is useful — if not irritating for acquaintances and friends — especially in the broader health, wellness and fitness arenas.

I wouldn’t worry about the collagen as much as I’d worry about padel being a fad. It’s as if every open piece of land in affluent suburbs has a padel court. The growth is astounding.

I remember training in the Health & Racket Club in Bedfordview in the mid-1990s and being impressed with how many people were making use of the squash courts. Certainly in that community then, squash was the “in thing”. An executive would pull up in his two-door Mercedes and strut through the gym dressed like Pete Sampras carrying a brown leather tog bag in his right hand. It was an aerobically brilliant badge of honour.

Today, one only needs to sit at the outdoor restaurant that usually adjoins padel courts to see a wide array of affluent suburban types enter the space with the swagger of professional athletes, decked from top to toe in designer exercise gear.

It’s fabulous. It’s not a fad. It is a phenomenon. What a brilliant way to get more people to move. I played for the first time recently and loved it. With a tennis background, I found it quite easy, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t out of breath by the end. I haven’t played again, though I certainly will. It’s estimated that there are between 600 and 650 courts nationwide, and this is growing. If you can afford it, give it a go.

Back to the collagen. There’s certainly a lot of hype about it in certain circles, and that always raises suspicion. Collagen is a protein that occurs naturally in many parts of the body, most notably in connective tissues, including the skin, bones, tendons, ligaments and cartilage. Put simply, collagen peptides are small, digestible pieces of collagen. The theory is that by supplementing with collagen peptides, you benefit the areas that need collagen.

I, too, have wondered whether ingesting collagen peptides would genuinely have any real benefit. I didn’t want anecdotes, so I did a little digging.

In September of this year — meaning this is as contemporary an understanding as you can get — a meta-analysis published in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition concluded, “Collagen peptide supplementation, particularly when synergised with calcium and vitamin D, is associated with continuous improvements in BMD [bone mineral density], bone turnover markers and muscle function. All these variables are important for fracture prevention. Owing to the information, collagen peptides could be used as an adjunct therapy for managing osteoporosis.”

According to this meta-analysis, collagen peptides significantly increased BMD in the femoral neck and spine but noted, “Nonetheless, there was a significant amount of variation in BMD results across trials.”

Another meta-analysis published this year in the American Journal of Medicine delivered some sobering news for those using it to reduce wrinkles. It found that in a meta-analysis of all 23 randomised controlled trials, “collagen supplements significantly improved skin hydration, elasticity and wrinkles”.

“However, in the subgroup meta-analysis by funding source, studies not receiving funding from pharmaceutical companies revealed no effect of collagen supplements for improving skin hydration, elasticity and wrinkles, while those receiving funding from pharmaceutical companies did show significant effects. Similarly, high-quality studies revealed no significant effect in all categories, while low-quality studies revealed a significant improvement in elasticity.”

Their conclusion was that “there is currently no clinical evidence to support the use of collagen supplements to prevent or treat skin ageing”.

Any question about supplements or supplementation needs to be approached with a dose of reality. Don’t expect any pill or powder that is sold in supplement stores to perform miracles. There’s a significant difference between scheduled drugs and supplements.

Specialist doctors treat people with any number of conditions with prescribed medications, whereas supplements are designed to do just that: supplement. That doesn’t mean they all “work” in every scenario, so any purchase you make needs to come from an informed position with managed expectations.