Calculating your collagen levels

Everyone is different, and our bodies age at different rates. However, it is a well-established and often quoted statistic that generally collagen levels start to drop in our mid-20’s and fall by around 1.5% a year. 

Thus, it is a common misconception that calculating collagen levels is easy. If collagen levels start to fall when we are around 25 and drop by 1.5 % a year, by the time we are 35 we’ll have had 10 years of collagen reduction which is 10 x 1.5 = 15%. Therefore, our collagen levels will have fallen by 15% by the age of 35, and our remaining levels will be at 85%. Right?

WRONG!

You see by this faulty maths those of us lucky enough to live until the age of 95 years will have lost ALL our collagen and in fact be in negative collagen and that is clearly not true or possible. 

Collagen is essential to a working body. It makes up:

It is, therefore, unfeasible that a body could work without any collagen. 

So, what has gone wrong with the maths? You see, the issue is that each year as your collagen levels begin to fall, the 1.5% is deducted from your NEW total. The first year you experience a drop of 1.5% and your collagen levels are at 98.5%; then, the next year you lose 1.5% of this 98.5% which leaves you with 97.02%. The following year you lose another 1.5% of this 97.02 which leaves you with 95.56% and so on. The 1.5% is ALWAYS deducted from your new levels. This only makes a small difference at the beginning, but over time this gap widens. Thus, by the age of 95 years, instead of being in negative collagen, you’ll still have some of your collagen left. 

However, the maths gets even more complicated when gender is accounted for. When women hit menopause their collagen levels plummet, reducing by around 30% in five years. After this, the rate of collagen depletion levels off to around 2% a year, but this is still a faster rate of fall than men’s.

Are you curious about your own collagen level? Well if you don’t fancy doing this complicated and time-consuming maths to work it out year by year, luckily we’ve done all the hard work for you!

Use our collagen calculator below to discover what your levels are.

Hang on, I hear you say if collagen is so vital, why do we want the levels to fall at all? Well, we don’t. These collagen level reductions are what your body would experience without any collagen supplementation. Taking a collagen supplement can make a significant difference to maintaining and replenishing your collagen levels. 

However, there is a catch. Collagen is a protein and so when taken orally as a supplement is mostly broken down in the stomach before it can be absorbed. This degrades the collagen so the majority of it is unable to do the body any good. There are many clinical trials which show that taking 10g or more of collagen does make a difference to the body and that is because SOME collagen is absorbed by the body, even though most is wasted. 

Another factor to consider is that not all collagen is the same. There are different weights of collagen (known as the Dalton weight or Da). The lower the Dalton Weight or Da, the finer it is and therefore the easier it is for the body to absorb. Generally, the Dalton weight for collagen in supplements is 5,000 Da or higher. However, the best quality collagen is 2,000 Da or lower. This of it as sugar. Most collagen used in supplements is like thick granulated sugar and is difficult for the body to absorb. The 2,000 Da collagen is much finer and closer to icing sugar. This is the best type because it is easier to absorb. 

If you are considering taking a collagen supplement it is really important to know which one is likely to work for you. 

Ingenious Collagen+ (our multi award-winning collagen supplement) uses the only very finest collagen, of the lowest Dalton weight. Furthermore, Ingenious Collagen+ is the only supplement in the world to use a special unique enteric capsule to protect the collagen inside from being broken down in the stomach and degraded. Therefore, we know ALL our collagen is absorbed by the body and this leads to incredible results. 

In the largest independent clinical trial ever carried out on a collagen supplement, Ingenious Collagen+ was proven to reverse many of the signs of ageing. Over 12 weeks, participants were given either Ingenious Collagen+ or a placebo. This was a double-blind trial, so neither the participants nor those testing them knew who was given what. Then their skin was measured at week 0, week 4 and week 12. 

The results were startling. Compared to the placebo group, those taking Ingenious Collagen+ experienced significant improvements to their skin in 4 clinical measurements:

• Hydration
• Wrinkle Reduction
• Elasticity
• Overall Appearance. 

For the full results and amazing before and after photos click here.

So, if you want to experience skin rejuvenation like these women, try Ingenious Collagen+ today.