What is a Collagen Drink?

Let's not continue with typical American consumer ignorance. If there exists no evidence-based medical scientific or pharmacological support regarding any proven benefit of ingested oral collagen, why would any reasonably informed person with even a minimal high school education take it? Recall the Thalidomide debacle.

Wow, people are such cynics. I happen to use collagen drinks, and they make a noticeable difference in my skin texture and appearance! Stores that want you to buy expensive collagen drinks don't want you to know this little secret: collagen is just gelatin!

I buy plain unflavored gelatin and add it to fruit or vegetable juice and drink that for an extra collagen boost. Some of the collagen I end up using in my body is coming from the fruit or veggie juice and some is from the gelatin powder I add to it.

Collagen drinks like this are extremely affordable for any budget, and for anybody who thinks that taking collagen is just for vain reasons, I'll have you know that gelatin also helps your body to restore lost cartilage from aching joints.

My doctor told me I would need hip replacement surgery a few years down the road because my hip had so little cartilage left. I started taking collagen drinks, and now a few years later my hip is actually improving! Give collagen drinks a try before you dismiss them as money-making schemes.

@aishia - Fighting their own aging is something a very large number of people do. American society promotes the idea that looking young and sexy is vitally important in our social scene, and we unfortunately have a tendency to divide people into the groups of children, young and sexy adults, and the elderly who only associate with other elderly people.

Collagen is proven to make your skin and hair improve in texture and look younger, plumper and softer. I can't say for sure whether collagen drinks would do the same, because I judge things only from firsthand experience and I have never tried one. The idea of a drink keeping you youthful and wrinkle-free sounds very doubtful, though.

I'll stick with eating collagen-producing foods and taking care of my skin so that it doesn't wrinkle from too much sun or too much drying out or too many harsh chemicals, and consider that enough.

@Malka - Lack of discipline isn't the only reason people can lead unhealthy diets, you know. Healthy food costs more. I know that I, for one, can't afford to eat whatever I please all the time. I am in college, I have four roommates, and I still have so little money on hand that sometimes I eat 15 cent instant ramen three meals of the day.

Anyway, I agree with you about the fact that collagen is not made to be eaten. Collagen seems like one of those things that humans are naturally made to produce until they start aging, kind of like the substances responsible for keeping your hair color instead of going gray.

I could just not understand the situation well since I am still young and not at all worried about wrinkling or losing my current haircolor, but doesn't that mean taking collagen supplements is just another futile attempt to stop aging? People are suppose to age.

If the collagen is there to keep your skin softer or something, that's cool, but no amount of drinking a supplement will keep you looking young forever, no matter what the label promises. That's a classic sales gimmick designed to make you buy more -- especially the part about losing the effects if you stop drinking the drink daily!

Sounds like people are making the classic mistake of trying to take a non-food substance like it's a vitamin. Eating collagen won't help you, people, eating things that cause your body to make its own collagen will! Your body has everything it needs to make all the collagen you want, if you feed it the right fuel.

I think it's interesting that foods that are naturally healthy tend to make the body create collagen, too. Fish, leafy greens, tomatoes.

If losing weight, feeling better and living longer aren't good enough reasons to finally grow some discipline and stick to a healthy diet, maybe losing weight and having less wrinkles is a vain enough reason for some people.