Talk About the “Sibling” Types of Collagen

Collagen is a hot hitter in the food, health, and beauty industries. But do you really understand that many kinds of collagen? In the biological field, the collagen superfamily includes 28 members. As for our daily supplement use, we see collagen type I, II, and III most of the time.

Collagen Type I

Collagen type I is an abundant presence in connective tissues such as tendons and blood vessels, including liver, heart valves, cornea, lungs and skin, and plays a key supporting and structural role to those vital parts of our body. According to a study, the content of type I collagen contained in proteins of the human body exceeds 90%. Diseases such as osteoporosis, atherosclerosis, fibrosis, osteogenesis imperfecta are kept away because of the abundance of type I collagen. In addition, type I are proven to have effect on skin aging. So, it’s safe to say that type I is an essential part of the proper functioning and healthy of the human body.

Collagen Type Ⅱ

Even though collagen type I is the most abundant protein in our body but the most widely used type of collagen in supplements is type II. This type of collagen is mainly produced by cartilage cells and can be found mostly in bones, joints, tendons and other tissues, even more contained in elastic cartilage and joints. It is one of the essential nutrition our body need for joint repair. Tests revealed that type II collagen contains a substance called chondroitin sulfate which is believed to have an anti-inflammatory effect on certain connective tissues of the body. It is often used in drugs for the treatment of diseases such as arthritis. Many studies have concluded that this compound is safer and has fewer side effects than other anti-inflammatory agents (including ibuprofen).

Collagen Type III

Type III collagen is the main collagen in human skin, fascia, and tendons, and the ratio to type I is 1 to 4. Type III collagen is relatively small and exists between the epidermis and dermis, and is called "baby collagen". The micro-collagen layer is mainly composed of type III collagen, which refers to the tissue structure between the epidermis layer and the dermis layer. It is the key to prop up the epidermis and the first to collapse when skin ages.

However, no matter the type of collagen, aging is their biggest enemy as the loss of collagen is exponential along the aging progress. Therefore, in order to live a healthy life, we should keep constant supplements of collagen through diet and external sources. We highly recommend the external sources as diet intake might bring other issues like obesity or taboo.