More Collagen Protein Disappointment (New Paper)

General Discussion
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As covered extensively in the collagen podcast, supplemental collagen protein has little scientific evidence showing it’s beneficial.

Previously, a number of studies have called into question collagen protein’s effect on tendons and connective tissue in general, suggesting that it might not actually increase connective tissue protein synthesis, which would be detectable if collagen protein were helping to put down new tissue in these areas. Of course, it’s possible that supplemental collagen protein works by other mechanisms. As of now however, there’s little in the way of data showing collagen protein reduces pain, risk of injury, improves recovery, increases muscle mass, or improves any validated skin-related metric.

Another paper reports the same.

In this study, 25 young men performed 1 week of resistance training. Half of them also consumed 15g of a collagen protein supplement twice per day, whereas ther group took a placebo that had the same amount of Calories. Hat tip to the authors, many studies on collagen use a comparator group that takes a Calorie-free placebo, which introduces a confounder: energy intake. I would still like to see a comparison to another type of protein to eliminate that potential confounder, but that’s for another study, I guess.

Anyway, connective tissue and muscle protein synthesis rates were the same in both groups, suggesting collagen protein at this dosing does not further drive either process. Some previous data has shown exercise is a more significant driver of connective tissue protein synthesis than collagen or other protein ingestion, and this idea is corroborated by this study too.

I suspect this won’t put a damper in the rapidly-growing collagen protein market, but it should…

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Very interesting. It would’ve been very helpful to understand the amount of total protein intake for these young men, right?

So, now we’re left guessing if collagen protein simply sucks that 30g each day can’t drive any observable results … or, it’s a matter of these men are just deprived with very low protein intake levels and it’s unfair to thing that collagen protein is an especially poor choice.

Agree, if the placebo group got whey, that would’ve been really helpful to see if any differences.

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Yep. Total protein intake was not reported, but some previous trials of collagen supplementation do show a benefit for muscle mass and strength improvements, though this only happens when people aren’t eating enough protein.

To summarize, I think pretty much any protein will “work” for muscle mass, strength, etc. when protein levels are low. Few will work once protein is at 1.4-1.6g/kg/d unless they influence dietary practices. No supplement appears to do anything for joint pain.

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