FEATURE
by Xxxx xxxxxxx
Collagen
supplements The science behind the health benefits by Dr Tim Crowe
THE STRUCTURE OF COLLAGEN Collagen’s key role in the body is as a major structural protein. You’ll find it in many tissues including tendons, ligaments, cartilage, blood vessels and skin. It is so abundant, that it makes up almost 30 percent of our total protein mass. The structure of collagen has a triple helix arrangement of long chains of amino acids. Think of collagen as like a rope with many fibres intertwined. This gives collagen a lot of strength. 44| RETAIL BEAUTY WINTER 2022
No wonder its leading role is as a scaffold, giving structure and strength to tissues such as skin and bones. One of the things that makes collagen different to other proteins is its unique amino acid mix. For starters, every third residue is a glycine amino acid. And it mostly follows a common repeating sequence of just three amino acids: glycine, proline and hydroxyproline. It is that last guy, hydroxyproline, that is unique to collagen.
