 All right, first of all, what is collagen, actually? Well, it's actually the most abundant protein in the human body. Now, collagen is made in all mammals and animals, but it's not made in plants. So why is collagen associated with looking younger? And does it support hair, skin, and nails? Well, in fact, collagen, since it's the most abundant protein in the body, is a large part of what your hair, your skin, and your nails are composed of. So in fact, that's why collagen is so important. But the big question is, does collagen in and of itself promote longevity? There is no evidence that eating collagen, drinking collagen, is gonna change how long you live. But getting collagen producing collagen is going to make sure that you have the building blocks for tendons, bones, skin that are going to definitely contribute to longevity. So why do people swear by collagen shakes and bone broth? First of all, let's take a trip back down memory lane. The original source of most collagen in people's diets was actually animal gristle. The tendons and the connective tissue that was present in animals, whether it was chicken, beef, pork that were grazing. And unfortunately, we had to cook these for a very, very long time. And the tendons and the gristle would break down and we would eat it. We would have consomme, which was actually gelatin as a treat at a fancy restaurant. We would have consomme as a soup for lunch. We had a great source of gelatin almost every day of our lives growing up, and that's jello. Most people don't realize that jello was actually rendered beef, tendons and gristle, the stuff that you would normally throw away. And adding sugar and a coloring turned it into one of the most ubiquitous foods when I was growing up. We got collagen almost every day of our lives. So one of the things that's lacking in our diet compared to our parent's diet or my age is that we did not get almost a daily routine dose of gelatin. And that's why people to this day will use gelatin or gelatin capsules as a way of getting collagen in their diet. The problem is collagen has to be broken down into individual amino acids to be absorbed. Yes, it's possible to absorb several bound amino acids together through the wall of your gut, but whole collagen does not get absorbed. It's too big a molecule. So you could have all the bone broth in the world, all the collagen powder in the world, but you actually have to break that collagen down to be absorbed. Once it's absorbed, there is no instruction manual on the other side of your gut that says, oh, this person just ate collagen. Here's the building blocks for collagen. Let's reassemble it as collagen. No, you'll use those amino acids as you see fit. You may use them for energy. You may use them to turn into sugar or fat, but there's no manual that says you got to remake collagen. So always keep that in mind. And there are numerous studies showing that collagen does not cross the gut wall. Another really important point, a cow doesn't eat collagen. A cow eats plants. The cow makes collagen by eating plants. And if you think cows are deficient in collagen, then just look down at your shoes, which are made of cow hide in most cases. And that looks like pretty tough stuff. That's basically pure collagen that that cow made by eating plants. How'd the cow do that? It got the essential amino acids that make up collagen by eating plants. And we know what those amino acids are. They're proline, they're lysine, they're glycine and isopropylene. Those are the molecules that make up collagen and they're very prevalent in plants. So just like a cow, we can get all the precursors for collagen we need by eating plants. So which ones are good? Well, root vegetables are rich in these amino acids. Beets, leeks, great sources of these amino acids. Animal products, parmesan cheese is an amazing source for these amino acids. A2 milk products are good sources for these amino acids. Aged cheeses in general are great sources for these amino acids. The same goes for avocados and nuts. I even take lysine and proline in supplement form. And I take glycine in supplement form and you can find these easily and they're cheap. So it's easy to get the precursors that you'll actually absorb rather than going to the trouble of breaking down collagen into its individual amino acid. Now what I've found as most people have noticed is that if you're eating the plant paradox way, you're going to get plenty of these building blocks for making collagen, but here's the thing. Collagen has to be locked together with vitamin C. Think of collagen as the rebar in our highways or in our building. So collagen has to be knit, the rebar has to be knit together. And it's actually vitamin C that takes these individual strands of collagen and knits them together. Now unfortunately, we do not manufacture vitamin C. And I've given a whole lectures about this. So you really have to take vitamin C either as a timed release formula or chew a vitamin C tablet multiple times a day. Now why is this so important? Well, collagen is one of the building blocks of our blood vessels. And one of the things that happens as our blood vessels flex is the collagen gets broken. You have to have vitamin C to re-knit that collagen to smooth the pothole in the road. If not, unfortunately collagen is very antigenic and we can actually deposit cholesterol on it. Why is that important? Well, we know that smokers get coronary artery disease wherever the bends in blood vessels occur. And that's because smoking uses up all the vitamin C in these smokers because of oxidative stress from smoking. That's why smokers have more wrinkles that unfortunately all the vitamin C that would repair your wrinkles, the broken collagen is used up in oxidative stress from smoking. So there's an amazing rat study that was done a few years ago. They genetically engineered rats to lack the gene to make vitamin C from glucose. There's actually five of them. We have all five except the last one is turned off. It's what's called a ghost gene. So they engineered these rats to have the human vitamin C genes. Those rats lived only half as long as the rats who were normal. So what did they do? They put vitamin C in the rat drinking water. So they were drinking vitamin C all day. And when they did that, the genetically engineered rats that could not make vitamin C lived every bit as long as the normal rats. Once again, showing how critical it is to have vitamin C for normal health. So if you want great hair, skin and nails, yeah, collagen is what you want. You don't need to swallow the bone broth and collagen. You don't need to eat Joao. Get the precursors from the foods you eat and get vitamin C. And one of the amazing things about people who follow the Plant Paradox program is they notice almost immediately within a month or so that their skin is far more radiant and their wrinkles are quite frankly disappearing. And so the best approach to having great hair, skin and nails is from the inside out, feeding your gut microbiome, feeding them the foods you want, getting vitamin C in your diet. Now sunscreen, most of the sunscreens out there are filled with endocrine disruptors. They're filled with parabens. So what I tell you to do is eat your polyphenols. Polyphenols protect against sun damage. There's also a polypotein, aka fern block, which is a supplement that you can take. I don't use sunscreen as you know, but I use these blocks that you can swallow. They have been shown to effectively block UV rays when you swallow it. If you must use a topical sunscreen, look for zinc or titanium based and avoid paraben or methylparaben. Again, take timed release, vitamin C when you're out in the sun. If you smoke, quit. You really want vitamin C in your diet. Nails, there are some excellent silica supplements out there for those of you who don't know what silica is. It's sand. Horse tail, bamboo or silica supplements are easy to obtain. You can get powdered or liquid silica supplements. I put some in my coffee every morning. Biotin, biotin is a component of healthy hair, skin and nails. Be careful. Do not take a biotin supplement within a week of having blood draw, a lab draw. It'll screw up several of the tests your doctor may be worried about. Costco cells are quite good. Hair, skin and nails supplement that a lot of my patients like, it works and it's cheap. If you found this video helpful, I think you're gonna love this one. If you look at super old people who are thriving in their mid to late 90s, early 100s this group of people have the bacteria that make urolithin A.