COLLAGEN: THE SECRET TO A RADIANT YOUTHFUL SKIN

So what is collagen? And why has it received such widespread attention lately?

Collagen is the most abundant protein found in the human body. It s a tough elastic protein that forms the connective tissue in our ligaments, tendons and skin. My main interest in collagen was after my rotator-cuff surgery when I was looking for ways to quickly heal my ligaments. So I started reading up on how I could naturally boost collagen production in my body. After some research I found three main ingredients that aid collagen production. I ordered the supplements online and put myself on what I call collagen therapy. I took the recommended dosage (on the packaging) and compared my activity milestones with the orthopedic surgeons recommended timeline. The ‘prescribed’ chart suggested that I would be able to perform normal over head activity after 6 months of surgery. Two weeks before the 6^th month anniversary of my surgery I was not only performing the overhead activities but was able to swim 4x50m laps in the pool. The prescribed chart suggested I would be able to start light exercises with dumbbells by 9 months after the surgery but on the 9^th month anniversary I was already benching about 95lbs. The average recovery time for a rotator cuff tear surgery is 51 weeks but by my 1 year anniversary I was already benching about 175lbs. 

So did the collagen therapy help me recover faster? Or was it a placebo effect? Or was it muscle memory? Well there is no sure way to find, is it? It wasn’t a controlled experiment to begin with since the recovery pathway without collagen therapy wasn’t explored for comparison. I thought I would still share my research with the readers since collagen not only builds healthy connective tissue in the tendons and ligaments but also gives our skin the much needed elasticity without which the skin would sag and form wrinkles. It is the foundation for a healthy and youthful looking skin and true beauty comes from the inside, as they say! With age the body’s natural collagen production capacity declines and hence it would benefit to naturally increase the production with diet and supplementation.  

So what are the special ingredients that promote collagen production in the body? They are (drum roll please!):

Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid): It’s one of the most powerful antioxidant and abundantly found in all citrus fruits, peppers and many other vegetables. Nobel laureate Linus Pauling (the only person to get two Nobel prizes in two different areas) postulated that vitamin C consumed in large doses (over 2000% RDA) can prevent plaque formation in the arteries and can prevent CHD but obviously the pharmaceutical industry wouldn’t like us to believe that the answer to plaque formation lies in something as simple as large doses of vitamin C. But that is a discussion for another day. For this article it will suffice to know that Vitamin C is also one of the most important building blocks of collagen. It is an essential micronutrient that is not synthesized in the body and must be ingested from external sources.

Lysine: It’s one of the essential amino acids and must also be ingested from external food sources. The vegetarian sources of protein lack this vital amino acid except Soy derivatives.  It’s abundant in animal sources of protein like dairy, meat and seafood. It’s also one of the key components in collagen.

Proline: It’s a non-essential amino acid that is produced in the body from L-Glutamine and Ornithine. Its most abundantly found in collagen and is also responsible for lowering arteriosclerosis. It also helps in speedy recovery of injuries because of its ability to form collagen in the presence of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and lysine. Supplementation is not needed in normal individuals but has been shown to be non toxic even in large supplement doses and is prescribed for individuals with arteriosclerosis, blood pressure and slow healing problems. 

Apart from these three ingredients a sufficient intake of antioxidants is also necessary to prevent oxidative damage (from free radicals) to several other amino-acid chains that are responsible for protein regeneration in skin and other connective tissue. Consuming sufficient quantities of fruits that are bright orange, yellow and red in color like oranges, apples, carrots etc will ensure ample supply of antioxidants in the body. Vitamin E is also a powerful antioxidant that is found in nuts and fish.  Retinol which is another form of animal vitamin A, is also found in fish oils and is essential for a healthy skin. 

So you see there is nothing special about these ingredients and they can be found all around you. If you already eat plenty of fruits, vegetables, nuts and fish and stay away from processed packaged foods (that increase free radical generation) you are already enjoying the benefits of healthy collagen production: a radiant youthful skin and good joint health. But if you lack any of these ingredients in your diet then they are readily available in supplement form. When buying these supplements, make sure they are pharmaceutical grade and GMP (good manufacturing practice) certified.

BEST WAYS TO BOOST METABOLISM

Here is an article from health.com about the best ways to boost your metabolism.

http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20306911_12,00.html

The most noteworthy tips are:

1) Strength train with intensity to build muscle. Go HIIT!

2) Eat protein to preserve and build lean muscle mass (the best fat burner of all).

3) Eat protein for increased food thermogenesis preferably early in the morning.

4) Eat healthy fats. Healthy fats promote fat burning in the liver by recycling old fat.

LOW FAT DIET NOT THE BEST FOR WEIGHT LOSS

If you have been following my blog you must know by now that I am not a fan of low fat diet for a number of reasons. Firstly, fat is an important nutrient in our diet and performs many essential functions in our bodies. It is essential for healthy fat metabolism in the liver and the good fats (MUFAs) protect against certain forms of cancer and other age related mental disorders. Secondly, its unhealthy if the calories that must come from healthy fats are substituted with calories from carbohydrates as they raise insulin levels in the blood and lead to insulin resistance which eventually causes type II diabetes.

A two year study done at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) showed that even though the medically prescribed low-fat diet for weight loss is as effective at losing weight as the low-carb diet or the Mediterranean diet the later two were better at improving the HDL/LDL ratio of the dieters.On top of that the low-fat diet actually increased the fasting glucose level by 12mg/dL while the Mediterranean diet decreased the fasting glucose level by 33mg/dL. This is especially important for diabetics or people with high blood sugar that are trying to lose weight. So don't shy away from fat and try to get a third of your daily calorie requirement from healthy fats. Your heart and mind (and the rest of your body) will thank you for it.

WHY MEN SHOULD WORRY ABOUT SOY IN THEIR DIETS

In a previous article I talked about the dangers of Soy and here is a recent article from Men's Health linking Soy's phytoestrogens to Gynecomastia in males. Gynecomastia is a benign enlargement of mammary glands in males that typically happens with elevated estrogen levels. The other problem is a reduced testosterone level causing impotence. The problem is that Soy has infiltrated the modern American diet in a big way, mainly because of soy subsidies (the other one is corn) and the general consensus among people that its the miracle super food that's necessary for good health. So the next time you go for a high protein shake or a high protein vegetarian source that has low cholesterol think twice!

WHY IS RESTING METABOLIC RATE IMPORTANT FOR FAT LOSS

In the last article I showed that protein increases your BMR by as much as 30%, 3 hours after a high protein meal. So let’s delve a bit deeper into BMR. What is BMR and why is it so important for fat loss? We hear all the time that as we age our BMR steadily declines and thats the main reason for age related weight gain. So what can be done to keep our BMR high?

 

Let’s first understand what the components of BMR are. Here is a definition from Wikipedia:

“Basal metabolic rate (BMR), and the closely related resting metabolic rate (RMR), is the amount of daily energy expended while at rest in a neutrally temperate environment, in the post-absorptive state (meaning that the digestive system is inactive, which requires about twelve hours of fasting in humans). The release of energy in this state is sufficient only for the functioning of the vital organs, the heart, lungs, nervous system, kidneys, liver, intestine, sex organs, muscles, and skin.”

Since BMR is such a restrictive definition a more useful definition known as the resting metabolic rate (RMR) is used. RMR, as the name suggests, is the calorie requirement for vital body functions while at rest. Both BMR and RMR require advanced calorimetric techniques to measure, so there have been many empirical equations that have been developed to estimate the RMR of individuals. The most popular one is the Harris-Benedict equation for normal healthy individuals:

• For men: (13.75 x w) + (5 x h) - (6.76 x a) + 66
• For women: (9.56 x w) + (1.85 x h) - (4.68 x a) + 655

And the Mufflin equation for RMR:

• For men: (10 x w) + (6.25 x h) - (5 x a) + 5
• For women: (10 x w) + (6.25 x h) - (5 x a) - 161

Where:

w = weight in kg

h = height in cm

a = age

The biggest drawback of these equations is they don’t take into consideration body composition. Studies have shown that there is as much as 80% variation in the RMR estimation of active individuals and athletes. This was taken into account by the Cunningham equation that took into consideration the fat free muscle mass present in the body. This is because lean muscle burns calories while fat doesn’t. So for active individuals a more accurate estimation is given by:

RMR = 500 +22*FFM (Kg)

Where:

            FFM = Fat Free Mass (lean muscle)

From this equation it should be pretty clear that the more FFM an individual has the higher his RMR is going to be.

It will be clear in a minute why all this math matters once we look closely at RMR. As I said, RMR is the calorie requirement of the body in order to maintain healthy vital functions. The body burns some calories daily for normal day-to-day activities. These maintenance calories are comprised of RMR, food thermogenesis and activity thermogenesis. The RMR is comprised of all the vital organ functional calorie requirements and the calorie requirement of skeletal muscles. In this sense the muscles behave as a vital organ that burn calories for their survival. Activity thermogenesis is comprised of exercise thermogenesis and non-exercise thermogenesis. This is illustrated in the figure below:

Non-exercise thermogenesis is the amount of calories burned during daily day to day activities like walking to the restroom, sitting down or getting up, fidgeting, brushing etc. It might seem insignificant but non-activity thermogenesis exceeds activity thermogenesis even in avid exercisers. So now two things should be clear from these pie charts, first, that RMR is a major constituent of our daily calorie requirement and the only knob that can be manipulated in order to boost RMR is increasing skeletal muscle mass. Second, that calories burned during exercise activity only form a small percentage (9%) of the total daily calorie requirement, even in active individuals. So relying on just exercise calories to burn fat would be very inefficient. Studies [1,2] have shown that the level of aerobic fitness doesn’t correlate with an increase in RMR where as anaerobic exercise such as weightlifting leads to a higher RMR via the addition of fat free muscle mass.

Did you know that in order to burn a pound of fat you would need to burn about 4100 calories which would require 7 hours of running at moderate pace? On the other hand if you had 5 extra lbs of muscle it would burn about 4000 calories in 20 days without lifting a finger (even in your sleep). Gaining 5 extra pounds is easy especially for beginners and will only take less than 3 months of weight training. And when I say weight training I don't mean working with big weights. It can be as simple as body weight exercises (lunges, squats, push-ups, pull-ups, dips, etc). Now while the calorie burn rate of muscle may not seem much, think of it as the race between the turtle and hare. The hare being the calories burned during aerobics and the turtle being the calories burned by muscles all day. The hare runs fast and burns a lot of calories while running but when it stops it burns no calories.  On the other hand the turtle runs slower and burns calories at a slower pace but it never stops running so the calories burn 24/7. So guess who’s going to win the race to burn calories? Slow and steady wins the race!

While aerobic exercise is good for cardiovascular fitness it does nothing to boost your RMR. Anaerobic exercise done in short interval bursts (such as in HIIT), on the other hand, will be good not only for cardiovascular fitness but also to boost your RMR which in the long run will burn fat more efficiently than aerobic exercise.  

REFERENCES:

1.       CE Broeder, KA Burrhus, LS Svanevik and JH Wilmore (1992). "The effects of aerobic fitness on resting metabolic rate". American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 55 (4): 795.

2.       D. A. Smith, J. Dollman, R. T. Withers, M. Brinkman, J. P. Keeves, and D. G. Clark(1997) (1997). "Relationship between maximum aerobic power and resting metabolic rate in young adult women". Journal of Applied Physiology 82 (1): 156.

EATING PROTEIN FOR FAT LOSS

Different foods in our diet affect our metabolism differently. The digestion of food also requires expending calories for breaking down the components in food via the action of enzymes. This is called postprandial thermogenesis (PT) which temporarily increases the basal metabolic rate (BMR) following a meal. The graph below shows the affect of various components in food and how they affect the BMR as a function of time after the meal.

So this means about 3 hrs following a high protein meal the BMR increases about 30%. Carbs and fat don't have the same dramatic effect on BMR. So within an hour or two of waking up eat a high protein breakfast to rev up your BMR so that you keep burning extra calories all morning. Also drinking a protein shake an hour or so before a run or workout will maximize the calorie burning during exercise. In the next article I'll discuss BMR and what constitutes the various components of BMR. This will help explain why building muscle is more effective for burning fat than cardio. Until next time....

NAGGING SPOUSES AND HEART DISEASE

Just read an interesting article on a study performed by dutch researchers on the effects of nagging on heart disease. It states that constantly nagging spouses can increase a persons risk for heart disease by a whopping 300%! Now that's more than any other risk factor I know of, like alcohol or smoking or saturated fats! 

http://blogs.menshealth.com/health-headlines/are-you-being-nagged-to-death/2011/01/01 

This shouldn't come as a surprise because the person being bombarded with constant nagging would develop a chronic stress situation. And the relation of chronic stress to cortisol production in the body is very well understood. Although cortisol is an important hormone for the regulation of various metabolic functions in the body like blood sugar regulation, immune function and inflammatory response, a constant high level of the same would cause blood sugar imbalances, impair immune response, promote belly fat deposition and inflammation and eventually heart disease. So my suggestion to all the naggers and nagees (is that even a word?) is to take it easy and enjoy life! :)