Ep. 8 - Collagen After 50: Does It Actually Work for Joints & Skin?

Hi, Sophie here—and today we’re talking about something I get asked about all the time…

Collagen.

It’s everywhere right now—powders, creams, coffees, bars—and the messaging is very convincing: Better skin. Stronger joints. Younger-looking everything.

But the real question is…

Does it actually work?

In this episode of Tea with Sophie, I’m breaking it all down for you—clearly, honestly, and without the hype.

We’ll explore:

•  What the science actually says about collagen supplements (especially for joint pain) 
•  Why results are often modest—or inconclusive 
•  The different types of collagen (including UC-II) and what they may—or may not—do 
•  The real root causes of joint pain after 50 (and why supplements alone won’t fix it) 
•  A more effective, holistic approach to reducing pain and supporting your body long-term 
•  And what you truly need to know about collagen when it comes to your skin 

Because here’s the truth…

There is no quick fix.

But there is a smarter, more powerful way to support your body as you age—and that’s exactly what I want to help you understand.

And if you want to go deeper after listening, I’ve put together a full resource page for you with next steps, trainings, and ways to work together.

You can find everything here: SophieUliano.com/podcast

If you’ve ever wondered whether collagen is worth your time, your money, or your energy…

This episode will give you clarity.

So grab a cup of tea—and let’s dive in.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Hi, Sophie here, and welcome to episode eight of Tea with Sophie. Tea with Sophie is where we sit down for a nice cup of tea each week and have honest, deep, grounded conversations about aging powerfully in our 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and beyond. I am so glad you're here. So today we are talking about collagen. The reason why I wanted to do a whole episode devoted to collagen is because I have had so many questions about collagen over the years, and it's probably one of the top 10 questions that I hear about because it's everywhere, isn't it? Whenever a supplement or food is trending, I as a nutritionist, I get a lot of questions. Sophie, is it worth it? What kind should I take? What what what is there evidence that it actually works? Am I wasting my money? So I'm going to unpack every single thing that you need to know about collagen in this episode so that you walk away with exactly what you need to do to fix the problems that you might be uh taking collagen for to fix. Okay, so let's talk about what those are. So the first question that I would always ask anybody who is looking to take any kind of supplement or anything is what are you trying to fix? What's the problem? So, in terms of collagen, it tends to be two things. And this is what the companies market to us. And when I say market, I mean seriously. It's everywhere, this collagen. It's in protein powders, it's collagen peptides in coffee creamer, in protein powders, in chews, in bars, it's you name it. They're stuffing it into everything to get us to buy it. And they are marketing it for joints and or skin, hair, and nails, right? So that tells me that most of the time that's what we're looking to fix. Either joint pain, I'm suffering from all this pain in my body, joint pain and whatnot, I probably need to take collagen and/or my skin's aging, and I definitely need some kind of collagen for that. So that is, those tend to be the problems. So the first thing that I want to just actually I'll cut straight to the chase here, is does ingesting collagen for joints? Does it help? Does it work? Should we be taking it for joint pain? Now the simple answer is that the science that we have to date, all meta-analysis of all available science to date on human beings, concludes that if you ingest, take collagen for your for your joints, there could be, in some cases, very modest improvements. Most of the science is inconclusive, meaning we can't really, it's it's inconclusive, so we're not going to say it does help. And many studies were done with placebos as well, which revealed, like, you know, those who took placebos were, oh, it's helping, and of course it was a placebo, um, and and and very inconsistent. So the two words that I want you to keep top of mind when it comes to taking collagen supplements and for for joint pain and aches and pains in the body, um, modest improvements in some, and even then not statistically significant and bottom line, sort of inconclusive. So that tells us, okay, well, you might go, well, in that case, then maybe I would take it just in case. I would take some just in case. So let's first unpack the different kinds of collagen, because I think this might help you. So there are there are different kinds of collagen, but there's most collagen is is uh hydrolyzed and it comes from bovine or marine. So it comes from cows or it comes from fish. Cows ground up, bones, whatever it is, hooves, wherever the that comes from, and um and fish, and fish scales and different parts of the fish. So that is the source of the collagen in in almost all of these products, unless it's a vegan collagen, but there's really no such thing as true, technically, vegan collagen in the vegan quote-unquote, I'm doing air quotes here, collagen products is going to be a precursor. It's going to be compounds and foods that are precursors to your body making collagen. So it's really important to understand that distinction. Now, there the only collagen product that has shown to have these possibly modest, but no miracle clue, don't expect anything amazing result, is a kind of collagen called US2. That would be U umbrella, um, sorry, UC2. U umbrella, C for Charlie, two. Okay, so UC2. And you would take about the serving size, which is about 40 milligrams a day. And again, modest improvements were seen in some, and no improvements in others. So that could be an option. You might want to try that. This is specifically for joint pain. Okay. So I want to talk briefly about what drives joint pain. So it can be rheumatoid arthritis, which is a separate issue because that's obviously an autoimmune disease, which can be very, very painful throughout the body. More often than not, it's osteoarthritis as we get older. That a lot of women that I work with have osteoarthritis, and it can be very, very painful. When they first come to me, that's one of the first things that we they say, look, Sophia, I'm just in pain. I'm waking up with all this pain, feeling really old in the morning with these aches and pains. And it can be all over, unfortunately. It can be in your fingers, your wrists, your all your joints, basically, elbow, shoulders, the whole knees, the whole thing. So that can drive uh joint pain. Um, the other things can be there can be repetitive strain injury, which is something like if you're doing a repetitive motion over and over, either through a way that you work with your hands, or it could be tennis elbow, joint swing, elbow, whatever. I'm not a golf golf player, so it could be something to, but something that you're doing over and over for a for a period of time, and then you can start getting you know pain, obviously, in that joint. Um, it could be certain movement patterns or lack of movement, I should say, that's caused joint pain. It can be systemic inflammation throughout your body that causes it. It can be hormones as well. As we get older, particularly after menopause, when our estrogen drops, we have estrogen receptors throughout all of our body, all of our joints muscles. They all have estrogen receptors. So when we don't have that estrogen, suddenly we can start feeling like we're kind of hurting more all over, and it feels we feel it in our joints. And that particularly can happen in the menopause transition when you're actually going through menopause, and then when you get past that into postmenopause, it can often sort of ease off a little bit. Um, it can be stress as well, so stress can really amplify pain, chronic stress can really amplify pain, and it's a vicious circle because stress can create more inflammation in the body, and then this inflammation and this pain further stresses you out and dysregulates your mineral system because you're so panicked and feel so awful because you're in this pain, so that can be a vicious circle, and um, obviously, uh past injuries can can cause joint pain as well. Um, if you've twisted your ankle multiple times on it on that, on a one particular ankle, then you might start really feeling that. So there's lots of different things that can drive joint pain as we get older. So the question is if collagen doesn't solve the problem, if taking ingesting collagen does not solve that, what will solve it? What can we do to solve that problem? So that's what I'm going to go over now. So I'm going to give you some really good takeaways, and then I'm going to talk a little bit about skin, your skin and collagen, and does it help to ingest collagen for your skin? So, first off, let's go back to these joints, to this joint pain. So, the first thing that we need to look at, what is going to really, really help, and this is more holistically speaking, and this is long-term, everything that I do, if you know me, we're looking at you, you're as a holistic being, so I want to treat you holistically, and we're looking at long-term, um, because quick fixes, and certainly in in supplemental form, quick quick fixes are not going to work, whether it's for your hair, whether it's for your joints, whatever it is. So let's look at your beautiful holistic picture that can improve and help with joint pain. The first is strength training, because when your muscles are strong, you are it's going to help with the alignment and the integrity of that joint, wherever the joint is, whether it's your knees, your ankles, whatever joint it is. So we must create strong muscles. We must build lean muscle mass as we get older. You've heard it before, you're going to hear it again. So we must do our resistance training and our strength training. But if you are in pain right now, if you do have joint pain, if you have osteoarthritis, if you have rheumatoid arthritis, if you're in pain, if you have a certain repetitive joint injury or situation going on, you have to be very, very careful. And I just want to take a step forward here, because you see a lot of things on online and YouTube videos and such of you just got to pick up those heavy weights and start doing deadlifts and get in the gym and you see all these women. But honestly, don't be, don't do that. Because if you're in pain, you need to go very, very slowly into this. You need to treat your body with love, with respect, with reverence, and you need to go very, very slowly because you can slowly build up to lifting much heavier weights or doing the machines or whatever it is. But at first, the main thing that I want you to really focus on is your form. Because if you're heavy lifting with really poor form, you could be making things worse, which is why it even could be an idea when you're starting to make a decision. I'm really going to get into heavy lifting, to have somebody looking over you, maybe work with a trainer, maybe work with a physical therapist, particularly if you've got um very specific issues, just a couple of sessions just to go look, what is my form like? That could save years of pain and joint misalignment. So you do need to build the muscles, but you also really need to do it safely. Promise me you will. So that's number one. Number two is nutrition. As a nutritionist, nutrition is such a heavy driver. I think that's why so many clients, and there's an earlier episode where I interviewed, I think it's episode seven, where I interviewed Christine, who's a wonderful client of mine. She had such bad joint pain, such bad inflammation in her body, it was just not even doable and livable. And so she very, very quickly brought down this inflammation, and the heavy lifter for her in the first few weeks of working with me was the um uh anti-inflammatory nutrition. So, what I recommend that you all do is flood your body with anti-inflammatory nutrition, not just one meal a day, but all meals of the day. What is anti-inflammatory nutrition? Well, you want to think about anti-inflammatory compounds. They're going to be phytonutrients and phytochemicals. Where do you find those? In plants. They're only found in plants. So you want a plant-rich diet, you want to eat the colours of the rainbow as many colours as you can possibly get in, because all the different colours have different phytochemicals in them, whether it's a purple beet or it's a red strawberry or a red bell pepper or an orange carrot or dark leafy greens. You want all of these different colours. This is such an important thing to do for your to for your overall decreasing that inflammation in your body. Um, so super important. So that's number one is strength training, number two is nutrition. Number three, turmeric is is important, and and I recommend almost everybody takes turmeric almost every day, about a quarter of a teaspoon a day. You don't need to overdo it. In fact, you shouldn't overdo it, particularly if you have um history of kidney stones because turmeric is quite high in oxalates, but a quarter of a teaspoon a day will do it, or you could take a supplement and just follow the directions on the on the container. But I recommend it's a good thing, just generally to, you know, for ice and pains, it's not going to harm you if you take it in that amount. Um, I would definitely recommend that. Okay, so that's number three. Number four is healthy weight. So you do need to, is it's just a reason, another reason why you want to be at your healthy body weight. Now, I absolutely am vehement that over the age of 50, we do not try to be skinny or lean. That is, I mean, well, lean, skinny or thin, I should say. That is the worst goal that you can have over the age of 50 because you want to build all this lean muscle mass that is heavier than fat. So on the scale, that might look a little bit heavier when you're building this lean muscle, but that's going to pull you up, pull those joints away from each other and give the joint the alignment and and the integrity, and and and that muscle is going to be a fat-burning machine. It works metabolically. I talked about that in one of my earlier episodes. So we really need those, those, uh, that, that muscle. So what I but but when you start releasing fat, and some ladies I come to, they might can't come to me because it's just crept on over the years, and suddenly they're like, oh my gosh, suddenly I'm 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 pounds overweight. And in fact, Christine was, and she talked about that in that episode. Um, that's that's the weight that is is not going to, it's not going to make your joints happy, obviously. So that's why some women ladies come to me and they go, Sophie, I'm, you know, my ankles are hurting, my knees are hurting, you know, getting up and down and up and down stairs and whatnot. And it is just obviously having more weight on those joints. So you want to be your healthy ideal weight. What is your healthy ideal weight? Think of a time in your life when you really felt you were a fully grown adult, you're in your 20s, possibly you were at your healthy ideal weight. Um, and just think about think about what pretty much what that was, because we're all different shapes and sizes and heights and everything. And and and so you just want to really think back to when was that, and somewhere give or take in that range is going to be what's really healthy and ideal for you, and that's what you want to be aiming for. We're always looking for health, we're always looking for strength. But if there obviously there's too much weight, it is going to have a massive, massive impact on your joints. Um, so those are really the main things that are going to drive joint pain. And stress as well really comes into it because when we're chronically stressed all the time, when our nervous system is dysregulated, it is going to create more inflammation in the body, and inflammation just is going to further drive this joint pain. And that's why we want to look at all these pieces holistically. Okay, now let's talk about uh collagen for your skin. So, products, skincare products that have collagen in them, bit of an eyebrow raise for me because the science just doesn't show that that collagen that you're gonna put on your skin is actually going to improve collagen in your skin. What we know does is vitamin C, aloscorbic acid, and that's why you definitely want to use a really, really good vitamin C serum every single morning, no matter what, because that can help create a little bit of collagen in the skin. There is some evidence also to show that maybe red light therapy, the red light, really good red light masks and red light little units and things can also help a little bit with creating collagen. So there is a little bit of evidence for both of those things. So if you want to pull all level all levers out with a little bit of science behind them, those are two things that you might want to consider. But in terms of um eating collagen for your skin, here's the problem. So you eat the collagen, the collagen, whether it's bovine, marine, whatever it is, and it's broken down into amino acids. And protein, any protein that you eat is broken down into amino acids. It's not necessarily going to go to where you think it's gonna go. So it doesn't necessarily go, oh, we're going straight to your skin to get rid of those wrinkles and pump, plump up the collagen. Doesn't work like that. Just as much as when you eat protein, it doesn't necessarily go straight to your muscles, and it's like, oh, I'm gonna have all these amazing, you know, six-pack in these muscles. It doesn't work like that. It's broken down into your body, into amino acids, and your body will use it as it sees fit, and that's not necessarily going to be straight to your skin. And so it is important that you get enough, that you eat enough protein. That's very important, um, as particularly as we get older, for all for everything, for all bodily symptoms, your muscles, your skin, your hair, everything. And what is enough? It's about 1.2 to 1.4 grams of protein per day per kilogram of healthy body weight. That's a general recommendation, but that I often personalize that for women, depending on different variables, but as that that's a generic recommendation. So you want to make sure that you're getting enough protein. Um, so really the the evidence, um, the evidence-based science for showing that eating these collagen products that you that um are sold to you, marketed to you for your skin, it no, it there's no, there's really no evidence whatsoever. So you're much better off eating a diet that's rich in all these phytonutrients. It goes back to a plant-rich diet, all those phytonutrients and phytochemicals that do all this great stuff to bring down inflammation also are really fantastic for your skin and your hair and your nails. So you want to get all of those in. You want a so plant-rich diet, lots of really healthy protein. I, um, for the most part have plant-based protein because, in my protein, I want to make sure in that protein there's not saturated fat, and that that protein source is full of antioxidants, fibre to feed my gut, and uh phytochemicals. And so that would be my preferred choice of protein for the most part. Um, so that's the best thing that you can do for your skin. Obviously, hydrate really, really well. Um, drink lots of filtered water, um, minimize or eliminate alcohol, and um, and obviously lots and lots of sunscreen. Um that goes without saying I wish I'd used sunscreen when I was younger, I did not. Certainly from the neck down, I didn't use a speck of sunscreen until I was about 35 years old. So there's a lot of sun damage from the neck down for me. Luckily, I kind of put a little bit on my face, but anyway. Um, so there are some vegan collagen products, as I've already said, but again, just remember that not skincare products, but um for you know to ingest, but those are always gonna be precursors to help your body create its own collagen. So, really, I'm gonna finish with this saying, in sum, for this whole episode, is it worth buying collagen products? Is it worth stirring it into your coffee, putting it in your protein powder, buying the bars and the chews and whatnot? No, it's not. Don't waste your money. It really isn't. What I'd rather you do is look at your diet and your lifestyle and really dial that in. Your strength, your sleep, your diet, your stress levels. That is going to be reflected in your skin. That dialing in those areas is going to go a long way to creating a healthy, beautiful, radiant glow, not throwing collagen peptides in your coffee creamer or whatever it is. So that's what I would say. It always goes back to lifestyle. Um, in terms of joints, you could try a supplement and just see the UC umbrella Charlie 2, um, type 2 collagen. You could try that. That is not vegan, that actually comes from a chicken sternum. So that's where I believe that particular collagen is sourced from. But you could try that if you're not vegan. You could definitely try that and just see if it helps. But it's all of these different lifestyle choices that we need to be making. There's never just one, there's never just one fix for pretty much anything. But the beautiful thing is, and I'm going to finish with this, ladies, is there's so much that you are in control of. So as we get older, we can think, oh, you know, I'm getting all this pain in my body, and you ladies who are suffering from osteoarthritis and rheumatoid, or even worse rheumatoid arthritis that can be so debilitating, and also we can feel out of control with that.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

And it's like, gosh, there's nothing that I can do. And looking at our skin as well, and going, oh no, what about my aging skin and the creepy skin, which I most definitely have? You know, what can I do?

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Um, and so just from a mindset, and I always like to finish with a lovely mindset perspective, you know, there's certain things that just acceptance, beautiful, radical acceptance and surrender to the process, um, certainly in terms of of um skin aging, but there's so much you can do. There's so much that you can do. And one of the most powerful things that you can do is just affirm every single morning instead of focusing on everything that you don't want and that's painful and that you don't like, because we can really get stuck in a rut of that mindset as we get older. Just spend some time every single morning as part of your morning ritual, looking at what you have got, what is working in your body. Well, despite having some aches and pains, you know, I've got, I've, you know, I always start, I always say to my clients, you always ask yourself those questions. What have I got? Well, my bot, I've got my body, I've got my sight, I've got my hearing, I can walk, I can exercise, I've got this beautiful body that can function. Okay, let's start there, let's shift to there instead of, oh, all this hurts. I do meditations when I am in any kind of physical pain, I do deep, deep meditations where I visualize that pain getting better. And it has an incredible effect. Our mind is like our pharmacy, honestly, has an incredible effect. And I'm talking about having uh herniated discs, I'm talking about having riple, I'm talking about everything. The first place that I go to before anything is I visualize is deep meditation. I get super, super quiet, I get in that healing state, because when you're in that healing state, that's when your body will heal, and then I visualize. I visualize how I want to feel, I visualize that part of my body repairing and healing, and I breathe into it and I see it until I feel it, and that is key. For me, that's probably been the most powerful thing, and then there's all the other levers that we can pull, such as the strength training and the nutrition and the sleep and the hydration and all those other beautiful things. Okay, but we always want to start within. All right, that's it for this episode. If you feel oh, I just need a little bit of a helping hand, maybe I need a little bit step in the right direction of putting these pieces together. You might want to check out my 48. It's called my 48 hour midlife vitality reset. It's just a little reset, gets you going in the right direction. If you're interested in checking that out, you can go to SophieUliano.com forward slash podcast and check that out and find that. Um, either way, have a wonderful week, and I will see you next week for another beautiful cup of tea with Sophie. See you next time.