Article at a glance:
- Chlorella is a supplement that lets us reap many health benefits thanks to its nutritional profile.
- Studies reveal that, as a supplement, chlorella can help with collagen synthesis.
- By extension, chlorella can help you maintain and improve your skin’s health and appearance.
Does chlorella boost collagen production? This superfood is known for being packed with nutrients and many health benefits. But does taking or using chlorella provide any significant benefits in collagen production?
If you’re wondering if chlorella increases collagen levels in our bodies? Let’s dive right in and learn more about this superfood!
What Is Chlorella?
Chlorella is a unicellular type of freshwater green algae native to Japan and Taiwan. Thanks to its impressive nutritional profile, many call it a superfood that provides a long list of benefits.
Chlorella contains a long list of positive compounds for the body. Some of them include complete protein (which means it has all nine essential amino acids), a wide range of vitamins and minerals, and essential fatty acids.
One notable substance found in chlorella is the Chlorella Growth Factor, a compound that helps cell regeneration and fights inflammation in the body. This superfood also has chlorophyll, a strong and effective antioxidant.
Most manufacturers use two common strains of chlorella: Chlorella pyrenoidosa and Chlorella vulgaris. While both are widely available, most people prefer the Chlorella pyrenoidosa strain as it is more nutrient-rich than vulgaris.
Looking for these supplements is a walk in the park. They’re widely available in retail and supplement shops or pharmacies. You can usually get them in powder form, liquid extract, and cold-pressed tablets.
What Is Collagen?
Collagen is a protein our body needs and can be found in many different areas. It is a building block, creating a structural frame for connective tissue. Collagen also makes up the skin. Since this protein is a building block, it’s also crucial in skin cell repair and the recovery of connective tissue and joints from any damage that it may suffer.
While our bodies can create this protein, natural collagen production decreases as we age. When the body doesn’t produce enough collagen, it may lead to premature skin aging. This may appear as fine lines and wrinkles or saggy skin. For the joints, a lack of collagen can lead to joint stiffness.
Benefits of Improving Collagen Levels
The natural aging process can’t be stopped. As such, ensuring that your body has enough collagen is a must to keep skin, muscles, joints, and connective tissues healthy. While having young-looking skin is likely the most popular reason people supplement with collagen, it has more benefits.
Here are some of the reasons why improving collagen levels in the body is essential:
1. Maintaining Healthy Skin Cells
If you help your body boost collagen production, you’re also helping improve your skin’s overall health and appearance. It keeps your skin firm and elastic. Additionally, collagen helps keep your skin hydrated, making it more damage-resistant.
2. Improving Hair Appearance
Do you want to achieve gorgeous and luscious locks? Collagen may play a role here. Keratin is needed for healthy hair, and collagen can provide the amino acids to create this compound.
3. Keeping Your Joints Healthy
Collagen is essential in maintaining joint health. Besides helping your joints function optimally, improving your collagen stores may also help minimize joint pain and inflammation. A study found that collagen helps improve the mobility of joints and reduces pain among athletes with activity-related joint pain.
4. Improve Gut Health
Did you know that collagen can help improve your gut health? Supplementing collagen stores may improve the integrity of our gut. It may also reduce inflammation among those suffering from inflammatory bowel disease or IBF.
5. Wound Healing
Besides the anti-aging benefits it provides our skin, healthy collagen levels also improve wound healing. Because collagen is a building block of the skin, it’s needed to repair damage. Wounds will heal quicker if you have enough of this in the human body.
How Does Chlorella Help Collagen Synthesis?
Since collagen production in our body drops as we grow old, one must look for ways to help stimulate collagen production in our body. While standalone collagen supplements are widely available, chlorella may be a more nutritional supplement to use, given its long list of vitamins, minerals, and other healthy compounds.
Apart from the needed amino acids needed for triggering the natural creation of collagen in our body, it also has other healthy nutrients that keep us healthy.
Does chlorella boost collagen synthesis?
Several studies tackled the possible connection between chlorella and skin health. One animal study found that using chlorella as an oral supplement and topically can help amp up wound healing thanks to its collagen synthesis-boosting properties.
This study has been backed up by research and observations done on human skin. Not only does chlorella help with the creation of collagen, but it also stops the rapid loss of collagen and elastin from the skin. This helps the skin retain its structure and keeps it tight and elastic.
How does chlorella do this? Given its robust nutritional profile, chlorella also contains numerous nutrients that help improve collagen production. These include vitamins C and E, beta-carotene, and zinc. These are strong antioxidants, and they help fight against oxidative stress and damage to your skin – stress and damage that you may get from pollution or excessive sun exposure. Reducing oxidative stress can help minimize signs of aging and improve skin health.
Other than this, each nutrient plays a role in collagen production. Vitamin C brings with it the essential enzymes that ensure that amino acids in collagen form properly. Meanwhile, zinc is also a co-factor needed in creating proteins like collagen, while vitamin E helps improve blood flow, which may aid in collagen formation.
How to Use Chlorella to Improve Collagen Synthesis
The easiest way to use chlorella to help the body produce collagen is by consuming it. Given its many forms, chlorella as a collagen supplement can easily be incorporated into your diet. You can take it as tablets, add it to food as a powder, or use it as a liquid extract on drinks.
Can chlorella be applied to the skin? Topical chlorella skincare products are available in the market. Many of them claim anti-aging benefits, thanks to how chlorella may help stimulate collagen synthesis.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Other Algae Help with Collagen Production?
Other than chlorella, there’s another type of algae that may help boost the body’s natural collagen formation. Spirulina, another superfood that’s usually mentioned with chlorella, is also said to be helpful if you want to boost collagen synthesis. This is likely due to its rich nutritional profile as well, as it has many similar nutrients also carried by chlorella that can contribute to healthy skin.
What Are Other Sources of Collagen?
Apart from chlorella, you can easily get collagen from different types of food. Bone broth, yolk and eggshell membranes, and kidney beans are good sources of collagen.
Consider consuming chlorophyll, citrus fruits, and other green plant foods to increase your collagen levels. These are rich in potent antioxidants that can help with collagen production and build healthy skin cells. Zinc-rich foods, including red meat, crustaceans, and certain breakfast cereals, may also help increase the collagen produced in the body.
Does Chlorella Contain Collagen?
Technically, it doesn’t contain collagen, but it helps stimulate collagen production in the body. It contains specific amino acids that help form collagen. It also contains the antioxidant vitamin C that carries enzymes, ensuring that the collagen forms properly.
Chlorella for Skin Health
Does chlorella increase collagen? You better believe it! Now that you know the answer, isn’t it amazing the many health benefits chlorella offers? Besides keeping our bodies healthy from within, it also aids in improving our outward appearance.
Are you worried about signs of aging, such as fine lines and wrinkles? Try supplementing with chlorella. Add chlorella to your nutritional diet and see the wonders it can do for your skin!
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