As the most abundant protein in the human body, collagen helps make up your tendons, ligaments, and skin.
As weird as it sounds, it’s kind of the glue that holds you together! It can also contribute to the health of your hair in quite a few ways.
Have you seen how Complete Collagen Plus transformed my hair? If not, you need to give this a read!
I wanted to go over one of the main reasons that I found collagen, hair growth, and the evidence surrounding it.
So, here are four evidence based ways that collagen boosts hair growth.
Your hair is made mainly of a protein called keratin. In order to build keratin, your body needs certain amino acids – some of which are found in collagen. [1, 2]
Your body can break down collagen into various amino acids and use these to build new proteins and compounds. [3]
Collagen consists mainly of three amino acids: proline, glycine, and hydroxyproline. [4, 5]
Proline is the main component of the protein keratin. As such, consuming collagen helps provide your body with the building blocks needed to create new hair.
Collagen can act as an antioxidant, fighting free radicals and the damage they cause.
Free radicals are unstable electrons that cause oxidative stress, which can lead to cell damage, inflammation, and multiple health issues. These compounds accumulate as a result of stress, air pollutants, processed foods, smoking, alcohol, and other environmental factors.
Research shows that these free radicals can cause hair damage, and that this risk of damage increases with age. [6]
To combat this, your body needs antioxidants. And many studies show that collagen can act as a powerful antioxidant, with the ability to fight several different types of free radicals. [7, 8, 9]
Remember when I said that collagen is the glue that holds you together? Well, it’s true! Did you know that 70% of the middle layer of your skin – the dermis – is made up of collagen? And the dermis contains the roots of your hair. [10]
In this skin layer, collagen is what keeps it strong and elastic. But as time goes by, these qualities diminish as the body loses its ability to create collagen. This can contribute to age-related hair loss and thinning. [11, 12, 13, 14]
Providing your body with collagen can help keep this skin layer strong and healthy, allowing it to foster the hair follicles which can be found there.
Studies have shown that collagen can increase the protein in skin, reduce signs of aging, and improve skin elasticity. [15, 16]
Since hair grows out of your skin and is grounded into its layers, maintaining the health of the skin should help prevent the loss and thinning of hair.
While genetics certainly plays a role in graying hair, another influence has to do with those pesky free radicals.
As we age, the cells in charge of producing the melanin pigment which gives our hair its color naturally deplete. At the same time, free radicals damage and kill these cells. [17, 18]
Your hair may begin to gray without enough antioxidants, according to some research. [19]
Since collagen acts as an antioxidant, it can help slow the graying process.
If you want to get ahead of the health of your hair as you age, or if you’re looking for something to bring your hair back to life, collagen can help.
EverBella’s Complete Collagen Plus formula was designed for hair health.