Collagen supplements won’t iron out your wrinkles, at least not in any way the evidence convincingly shows, as Alice Klein reports for New Scientist after digging into the research for a forthcoming book on the science of skin.
Collagen is skin’s main structural protein, a trampoline-like mesh that thins with age, causing sagging and wrinkles. Topping it up sounds logical, but swallowed collagen doesn’t travel to your face.
Supplements use hydrolyzed collagen, typically from animal skin, chopped into short chains. Digestion breaks these into fragments of one to three amino acids, which join the same pool supplied by meat, dairy and legumes. University of Michigan pathologist James Varani told the columnist there’s no difference between taking a collagen supplement and eating “a good steak.”
Varani’s own research found that aging skin isn’t short on raw materials; its collagen-making machinery becomes less efficient. Taking supplements, the columnist writes, is like buying more sugar to fix a broken assembly line at a chocolate factory.
Positive trials don’t impress either. Some report reduced wrinkle depth compared with placebo, but by a fraction of a millimeter. A September paper in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology by dermatologist Anjali Mahto of the clinic Self London and Trinity College Dublin biostatistician David Grimes flagged “substantial methodological concerns,” noting that “an overwhelming proportion of studies are industry-funded or involve authors with commercial ties to collagen manufacturers, raising concerns about selective reporting and bias.”
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Better-supported options exist. Regular exercise boosts collagen gene expression, sun protection blocks the UV-triggered enzymes that chew up collagen, and prescription tretinoin has been known to increase collagen since the 1990s. Lasers and microneedling also work, at a price.
Perhaps most intriguing is a gene therapy approved in the US in 2023 for recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa, a rare genetic condition marked by extremely fragile skin. It delivers new collagen genes into the skin, and a modified version is now in clinical trials in people with aged skin.
