Collagen: Supplements 101

Leah 0:00

Welcome to episode 30 of the cancer pod. On today's episode, we're talking about collagen. What is it? What does it do? Where does it come from? Can it be vegan? Is it even safe to take we'll answer these questions and more so stick around.

Tina 0:17

I'm Dr Tina Kaczor and as Leah likes to say I'm the science-y one

Leah 0:21

and I'm Dr Leah Sherman and on the cancer inside

Tina 0:24

And we're two naturopathic doctors who practice integrative cancer care

Leah 0:29

But we're not your doctors

Tina 0:31

This is for education entertainment and informational purposes only

Leah 0:35

do not apply any of this information without first speaking to your doctor

Tina 0:39

The views and opinions expressed on this podcast by the hosts and their guests are solely their own

Leah 0:46

Welcome to the cancer pod Hi Tina. Hi Leah. Oh my gosh. What did we go through to get one of these things put together?

Tina 1:12

Do we, do we share with everyone? Where are we? Located as we record this one, it feels a little less than professional, or maybe it's

Leah 1:20

actually very professional. I am in a bathroom,

Tina 1:23

I'm in a closet and I'm barely fitting with a TV tray and a very small chair under my bun.

Leah 1:29

We have construction going on in our respective locations. And so, um,

Tina 1:35

when it tries to spare people, the Jack hammers that are going on in the background,

Leah 1:39

so.

Introduction: Collagen

Leah 1:40

I am so glad that you are doing a talk on this subject later because, I failed to study for the

Tina 1:48

assignment. Yeah. I'm knee deep in collagen.

Leah 1:51

We're talking about collagen today. Yup. So got a lot of patients who ask this. I've had, people in Instagram asked me, what do you think about collagen? And I'm like, I don't know. I asked Tina,

Tina 2:04

it must be all the rage right now because it's also happened on the naturopathic physicians, Facebook group. I came up, people were asking about it.

Leah 2:12

I, I feel like college has been kind of a big. Thing for the last few years. yeah, I mean, it's kind of everywhere. Like you see college and powders are face creams. There are, protein bars that have collagen in them. It's just kind of all over the place. So, like we mentioned, this is the episode on collagen. What is it? What's it do. Should you be taking

Tina 2:35

it? Yeah. And the big conundrum within cancer care is, you know, is it safe to take?

Leah 2:41

Yeah. No, that's huge. Yeah. So, um, let's just do a little short musical break and come back and talk COVID

Tina 2:48

sounds good.

What is collagen?

Tina 2:52

All right. So we probably should start with what is collagen, right? That's

Leah 2:55

right. It's it's made of amino acids.

Tina 2:58

So you would like me to take it from there. Please do.

Leah 3:02

I I've been up since three, so. And I didn't and I didn't do my side.

Tina 3:06

So you're like a, like, you're like a teenager. I'm totally like sitting out of bed at three. You got up at three. Can I

Leah 3:14

look at your test? Yeah, I'm cheating. Cheating

Tina 3:18

to me. So collagen, first of all. Okay. So collagen is a protein, as you just said, it's made up of amino acids. It is a major protein in the human body. It's an all animals for that matter It makes up about 30% of the protein in the whole human body, but collagen isn't one thing there's 28 different types of collagen. So it varies by tissue. So collagen basically think of collagen as something that gives structure to various tissues in the body. So the bones have college in the muscle has college in tendons. Every organ in the body,

Extracellular Matrix(ECM)/ Fibroblasts

Tina 3:49

it's basically the gelatinous stuff. That's around the cells that is called the extracellular matrix. And the extracellular matrix is where you'll find the collagen and the collagen is produced. And assembled in these extracellular matrix, that's produced by cells within the extracellular matrix called blast. So that's the short story.

Leah 4:11

So

Leah summarizes in plain English

Leah 4:12

it's a type of protein, but it's not just one type of protein. There are 28 types of colleges. I'm summarizing it for those of us who study exactly. It's the cliff notes. Um, and it's, I mean, it's, it's connective tissue, right? I mean, it just kind of like it's in our joints. bones,

The basic structure of collagen

Tina 4:33

all of these colleges have something in common architecturally they're like long ropes, right. They contain what is basically it's called pro collagen and pro college and is made by those fiber blasts. Yeah. At least in the skin college and one, which is the one that we're most concerned about in cancer care as well, college. And one is the one that is involved in the extracellular matrix around tumors. Imagine it like a little rope, each of these pro collagen strands is shaped like a corkscrew. It just corkscrews up. And then you put three of them together and that's a lot like a rope, right? You take three things. Corkscrewed or spiraled and you can braid kind of like a braid only. It's not over, under, over, under. You know, screw it's a corkscrew when you put them together and you squeeze them together. So it's more like a rope that has three strands that kinda spiral together. That is the basis of all colleges. And in order to make that structure, all

Delving deep into the structure

Tina 5:30

collagen basically has the same amino acids. Repeats or very similar. They all start with glycine. And then there's an amino acid and amino acids. So there's three amino acids put together glycine, every third amino acid in all of those corkscrew strands of pro collagen. I know that's a lot, but that's, I don't want to Debbie, this, this, this is one,

Leah 5:50

this is 1 0 1. Remember supplements 1 0 1. I know this is in graduate level,

Tina 5:55

but it's so cool. Right that the body makes us at all. And the whole idea you, cause if you picture a corkscrew, you can picture, you could stretch it. You could squish it together. You know, like it's got that elasticity that you want from various.

Type 1 collagen: in skin and cancers

Leah 6:08

Yeah. Yeah. So you said that there's like type one collagen, which plays a role in cancer, but then you also kind of mentioned skin. Is that also type one collagen? It is. Oh, see. That's okay.

Tina 6:21

So this is where it starts to get a little. Sticky and the information we're going to talk about the pros and cons we're going to, we're going to, yeah, we're going to start

Leah 6:28

off with all of the like basic stuff and we're gonna work our way up to safety issues. So why do people take collagen skin as a huge thing? Like, because you know, there are some studies out there whether or not they're, you know, whatever, there's some trials that have taken place at show. Taking college and may help with skin elasticity, may help with joints decreasing pain and helping with mobility. I didn't read the studies. I just read that there are studies.

Tina 7:02

So ultimately,

Leah 7:04

ultimately that's what you need to know. Um, and I, you know, I think some of the issue with the studies is that they were. Put out by people who had some hand in the collagen product or industry. So, you know, just take that for what it is, but, um, Yeah, skin and joints. That's, that's mostly why I hear patients want to take

Tina 7:26

it. Yes. As far as what motivates people to take college and in college, in itself, isn't just those three corkscrews together. If you listened carefully to our listeners who are very astute and it's a pro college, and that makes those three, and then you have to bundle those together. So how those pro college and molecules those three corkscrews come together, they make pro. How that assembles determines the tissue. So obviously your tendons play a very different role than your skin, right? Are they bundled like a bunch of sticks altogether lined up? Cause that's mostly what happens in the skin. They're just lined up together. You know, they kind of fall in line, fairly parallel and another tissues that crisscrossed like a bunch of pixie sticks. Remember all of them are made at the same building blocks though. Right. So. When it comes to ingesting it and looking at pros and cons, when someone has a history of cancer or possible cancer present, I would put all collagen as one thing because of the amino

Leah 8:27

acids, because yeah,

Tina 8:29

if you break it down enough, yes. You're just going to deal with the same amino acids, no matter what the origin of the collagen is. Okay.

Leah 8:35

So in all of the, the reading that you've been doing, Tina,

Collagen benefits: enough evidence?

Leah 8:40

um, do you find that there is in a non-cancer setting, is there enough evidence for somebody to take collagen for either joint or skin

Tina 8:49

health? Um, yeah. Yeah. I think that. Given the risk benefit. Let's just remove cancer from this equation for a moment, because really that's a new storyline. We didn't even know about college's effect within the tumors until recently, relatively recently, but there has been enough studies on what is called hydrolyzed collagen. College and that's been broken down by some means. And usually it's a combination of acid and heat, the college in itself, innate college, and found in the bone and the skin in the connective tissue. You can boil that on the stove. It's not going to break down quite as much as it will. If you add. You know, apple cider vinegar to your broth, right? So that's going to break it down even more. So you end up with these smaller little chains of amino acids. When you make a broth, for example, and you break it down with heat and some acidity, when you buy it over the counter and you buy hydrolyzed collagen, it's gone through some kind of process like that, that breaks down into smaller peptides and makes it more absorbable. You can kind of see how. Much it was broken down by seeing how will it dissolves so you can take collagen and put it in some water. And if the college in dissolves in lukewarm water pretty readily, and it doesn't float on the top, or sink to the bottom, once you stir it, then it's probably broken down pretty small and fairly absorbable. At that point, if you put it in the water and it just floats to the top, or has a really hard time being integrated into the water, then it's not very well broken down and you're probably not gonna have. A whole lot of that.

Vegan Collagen?

Leah 10:22

So I think one thing that we do need to point out is collagen is not vegan. Collagen is derived from animal, fish and from chickens, pork, you know, like mammals, like you were saying. So if one is vegan, collagen is not a product they would take. And I've seen they're like vegan collagen, which I don't

Tina 10:43

know what that means. I'm not sure either. I didn't look at the products that are out there. My guests. Like, yeah, it seems like a oxymoron. Yeah.

Leah 10:53

So what I think they are, and I'm not a hundred percent sure, but there are other nutrients that support collagen production, like your own college and production, like protein zinc, vitamin C, which is interesting because those are all things that are recommended for, um, for wound healing, which we'll get into. Yeah. And so those are kinds of things that, that support natural production of collagen. Yeah. So I like, I have patients asking about, you know, oh, can I do college? And, you know, and I'm like, I don't know, but let's do some vitamin C if it's, you know, okay. With, with whatever their, their treatment is. So providing NC foods. I

Tina 11:34

will admit before

Collagen- as a functional food

Tina 11:36

I really looked at it hard and looked at the studies cancer came into the picture, like I said, relatively recently, as far as research goes. So we didn't really know much about college in that extra cellar matrix until recently. So traditionally I always thought collagen was basically a, a protein source, right. And amino acid. They could just take these amino acids, substituting that for other. Let me know, acids slash proteins in your diet. And it was a supplement of that kind. Now I didn't realize this before, but there's actually what are called bioactive peptides in there. So they, they're not just providing amino acids. They're actually having an active effect on the tissue. Affecting how much collagen is produced in the tissue. So when it comes to some of the colleges out there for skincare, especially, they'll make sure they have a certain amount of these bioactive peptides that then once you ingest them, you absorb them into your bloodstream. They go to the dermal layer of the skin, to the dermis and tell in air quotes the fibroblasts to make more of that type one call. And that's what I

Leah 12:40

remember reading several years ago about that. Cause I was thinking, oh, I want to take it for myself. You know, you go through treatment for cancer years, go by. And you're like, oh, I feel old. I want to take something to make myself useful again. And so I had actually read that as well. Ingesting certain colleges will stimulate your body to produce collagen.

Tina 13:00

Yeah. And so just for the record, a lot of times when people buy a hydrolyzed collagen out there, they don't tell you how much of the bioactive peptides are found in the powder. So you don't know, it's not like it's on the label every time. Um, and some companies are pulling out just the bioactive peptides and saying, here are they. Take these specifically for your skin. So they're not doing it in a large powder amount. They're doing a small quantity with a concentration of just those.

Leah 13:26

I used to like the collagen as a protein supplement. I mean, it's not a fantastic high dose of protein, but it's nice because it can tolerate heat, you know? And it's like, if you add whey protein or other kinds of protein powders to soups, you have to make sure they're not too hot because it'll break it down. And so collagen was always kind of a nice thing where someone could add it. Something that's hot. I tried that. I tried doing the whole, like, there was that whole, like, Jennifer Aniston or someone was like promoting, putting in. A certain brand and like she put it in her coffee or whatever. I know I talked to you about this. Remember I kept tasting it and it's supposed to be unflavored and I was like, Nope, I taste it.

Tina 14:08

It's beefy. So strange, super sensitive to that. Yes. I'm a

Leah 14:13

super collagen taster. So. Okay. So I talked a little bit about things that kind of boost your own college and production, and, you know, this could be important. Like I said, for wound healing, because collagen is involved in wound healing. You know, whether it's after surgery or whatever, um,

What prevents loss of collagen?

Leah 14:30

other things that support collagen are making sure you get enough sleep.

Tina 14:34

Yep.

Leah 14:35

Don't laugh at me. He's been up since

Tina 14:38

3:00 AM. I didn't say anything out loud. I just, you just laugh. I don't have a stupid grin on my face.

Leah 14:46

Um, reducing stress because interestingly enough, cortisol. Which increases at times of stress can decrease collagen production. Yep. not smoking or stop smoking if you are currently smoking and then sun exposure also can lead to the breakdown of collagen.

Tina 15:05

Yep. And there's a natural. Decline in our production of collagen as we age. Of course. I mean, I think that goes without saying, but since you're doing such a complete list,

Leah 15:15

that's a really good thing to bring up. I just don't, you know, I just want to

Tina 15:19

go there. You're in deep denial about that one. I'm in deep denial.

Leah 15:24

Anything else before we take a break and we move on to our next

Tina 15:27

section, no, along the same lines as a cigarette smoke might be air quality in general. Oh, wow. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So for air pollution. Yeah.

Leah 15:39

Hmm. Well, that's a good lead in for our next section. So let's take a little break and we'll be back. All right.

15:47

Just how much collagen isn't bone. The amount can vary anywhere from two and a half to 15 grams. When making bone broth know where your bones come from, any contaminants, the animal was exposed to may end up in your soup.

Leah 16:04

Okay. So I was going to talk about, Collagen cause that's what we've been talking about.

Tina 16:11

Did we wake you,

Leah 16:13

sorry, I'm just waking up here. I did want to kind of

Collagen= green medicine

Leah 16:16

cover, what we talked about with previous supplements is, you know, they can be used for acute deficiencies, chronic deficiencies or as green medicine. And I mean college and is just green medicine. Yeah. Sure. I mean, there are collagen, you know, deficiencies, but that's not a reason to take college in. Like that would be something else.

Tina 16:37

Yeah. I guess if somebody was protein deficient, you could see it like say someone's not for whatever reason not getting enough protein or they can't break down protein very well because it is the hydrolyzed collagen is pre digested. So.

Leah 16:49

Okay. So I just Googled college and deficiency and it talks about aging. So yeah, so, um,

Topical collagen?

Leah 16:57

speaking of aging, does collagen work when you apply it topically on the skin and from everything that I read, which wasn't that much? Um, it does not because it's not absorbed through the skin.

Tina 17:11

Well, that's interesting. Now, granted again, kind of what you said earlier, there is a little bit, but I think it was all done by companies that make products like that. So how rigorous the studies were? I don't know. Full disclosure though. It may be the only girly thing I do. Really. Yeah. I've always liked. College and mass, you know, the ones that you play peel apart and they've got aloe and collagen and nutrients sometimes. I dunno. I just mix them all up. I have no loyalty to any particular brand, but I do them. Wow. You didn't even know that. I did not

Leah 17:45

know that. I love how you're like the only girly thing I do is apply college into my face, but it could be the other things in the mask. Right. I mean, it could be

Tina 17:53

the. Well, if it's doing anything, I mean, we're making this assumption, it's doing something. I don't know if it is or not. I just like to do it. Cause it feels good. It makes my skin feel soft when I'm done.

18:05

Oh,

Leah 18:05

well that's nice. But you, I mean, yeah, like I said, I mean, you got, you got aloe and said, I don't mean to talk you down. Cause I'm all for face masks and all that stuff, but, and I probably applied to a college in product at one point. Um, but yeah,

Tina 18:18

I don't think it's really, no, I think the aloe is huge. I mean, Ella aloe contains Allen Toine, which we know is, you know, helpful for making the skin supple and such. So, yeah, probably have more faith in the aloe than the collagen, to be honest, for sure. First topically

Leah 18:37

and they're both kind of slimy, like I wonder, like, you know, just kind of adds to the slime factor. Yeah. Which makes you

Tina 18:43

think it's working exactly. Yeah, it could totally be just totally a magic trick of like, you know, totally fooling me into think I'm doing something, but, you know, regardless I still do them. Okay.

Leah 18:52

I learned something new about you. Wow. Okay. So there

Special case use of collagen (Juven)

Leah 18:58

is a time when I do use a product that contains collagen prior to patients getting certain surgeries, as well as if somebody is having difficulty with wound healing, then there's a product that is called Juven and it's not just collagen. It's got a little bit all glutamine. It's got our Janine and some other things and it's, it's not a cheap product. It's. I don't know who makes it Abbott or some, some pharmaceutical company I think makes it, um, I think you take two packets a day and we used to have this protocol where patients going in, especially for GI surgeries would start taking it, leading up to their surgery. In addition to. Making sure they're getting all the other nutrients that help to support healing. And then they take it for after surgery too. And yeah, it totally supports wound healing. Like it's

Tina 19:52

incredible. Well, if it's coming from a pharmaceutical company, I'm going to guess they put it up head to head against some placebo. Um, I'm not familiar with it. I've never used it.

Leah 20:02

Yeah, I haven't seen the studies for it, but I mean, and they comes in fruit punch and orange and all these kind of like flavors. And then there's unflavored I actually did the unflavored for my last, um, reconstruction revision. and threw it in my smoothie and it totally makes it really like, if you don't drink your smoothie fast enough, it starts to

Tina 20:20

like

Leah 20:20

cheat because you can put it in juice, you know, they, they tell you like different ways of doing it. And I was like, I'll just throw it in my smoothie. But yeah, I used it for that and we used it for a dog. One of our dogs had, um, a double mastectomy. And so we knew that was going to be a big surgery. And so I gave it to her. I checked with her vet and she got some unflavored Juven as well, and she heals. Great. So there you go. Ask your doctor, talk to your doctor. What Juven can do

Tina 20:50

for you. I was just going to say the same thing. Talk to your doctor to see if Juven is right for you. There you go.

Leah 20:55

Um, yeah, no, I'm not paid by them in any way.

Tina 20:58

Um, so let's

Let's talk about cancer...

Tina 21:00

talk about cancer and we're going to talk about cancer now. Yeah. So do you want to just give the full story? Should we just, can I just go for it? I

Leah 21:07

just cut to the chase because we have been holding off on this part and this is what people want.

Tina 21:11

Okay. So think back about 15 minutes ago, we talked about way back, 15 minutes, maybe 20. I don't even know. The extra cellular matrix. What we call the ECM for short is around all of your cells in your body. So that extracellular matrix, the ECM is where the collagen is found in all the tissues in your body. And if you have a tumor, the tumor also has an ECM around the cancer cells, themselves. That ECM is where the collagen is. Collagen can be in some cancers. Overproduced in the ECM of the tumor. So there's more of it. And then it lines up in certain ways that can facilitate migration of those cancer cells so they can move more freely in that ECM. So they become more mobile than they should be. So you can see where I'm headed there that could encourage spread of those cancer cells and this higher density of the ECM within a tumor. It's a bit of a mystery itself. We don't know the signals for this. We don't know what spurs that on, but we do know that collagen becomes more dense in the ECM, making it denser is not a good thing. It also has other effects on the immune system that are immune suppressive. So. We knew that ECM is dense. It's dense with a lot of collagen that college and happens to be type one college in this very same one. That's in the dermis of the skin, unfortunately, and it is immune suppressive. In addition to making it easier for the cancer cell to basically move away from the tumor primary tumor and find its way into the limp for. So it's not good. There's nothing about college and type one that is great for someone who has an existing tumor.

Evidence on collagen use & cancer outcomes?

Tina 22:54

Now we have no evidence that somebody with a cancer or who has had cancer, who's taken, this has any detrimental effects. There's zero studies on this. And so this is more

Leah 23:05

just see, this is theoretical. This is

Tina 23:08

a theoretical risk, a hundred percent theoretical risk because we know that college type one density in tumors is not good. We know that we can increase the production of collagen type one collagen with these bioactive peptides in some of these products out there, because we want to do that for our skin. Could we unwittingly be doing something detrimental for a tumor we don't know is present or is present and you know, it it's possible. It's a completely theoretical risk. We have zero evidence that I know of and humans anyways can, and that's all that really counts is what's going on in humans. Um, So that's, that's the story. I mean, so it's like everything you put in your mouth, it's a risk benefit, you know, what's the risk, what's the benefit, is it worth it?

Leah 23:49

And

Bone broth?

Leah 23:50

so like that would bring us to something like bone broth, which, you know, again, it's very popular. I've made recommendations for patients to, to drink it. Um, so yeah, I mean, are we doing patients a disservice by recommending bone broth? We don't know.

Tina 24:11

We don't know. I would say. I don't, I'm really not concerned with bone broth because it's not, it's not broken down quite as much as some of these products that people are in products that say specifically for skin like this is for your skin. A lot of times they're actively. Making sure they have these bioactive peptides for the skin, right. Because those are the ones that are proven to help skin. And it's, they're going to go with what's proven. So they're gonna have either a concentration of that or make sure that they have a certain amount of those bioactive peptides that cause college in one production. So I would avoid those. The specifics are the ones

Leah 24:47

that are manufactured to be easily absorbed and to stimulate collagen and bone broth is basically you're making stock. I mean, it's, overcooking the bones so that you get the gelatinous, what not used in stock. So that's not breaking down enough to be. It's not like, yeah. Artificially broken down.

Tina 25:08

Right, right. So you're unlikely to get as much of those, um, bioactive peptides as you would in a, you know, altered powder that you buy over the counter that's specifically made for your skin. So when you see these things that do say that they're. Bolstering type one, collagen or bolstering the college and in your skin, especially production of these, that word, then those, yeah. Don't, don't take those, but that's out of an abundance of caution. Not because we have evidence that it's some bad idea, right?

Leah 25:37

So. Joints have type one and type three collagen. Okay. So I'm guessing that's what comes out from the bone broth anyways. I don't know. I haven't looked at, because I didn't do my homework. I did not look into the makeup of, of

Tina 25:54

bone broth. Yeah. And how much just heat and, or just heat in a very mild amount of acidic. I don't know how far it can be broken down. Like, does it keep it into longer chains of collagen? Because like I said that the small ones, these little bioactive peptides are very, very small. Um, I don't know if we can do it with just boiling

Leah 26:12

and then yeah, they have those bone broth protein powders too. Which again, I liked because you could add it to heat. Um, so, well, you don't have to, if you like a beefy,

Tina 26:23

if you like a beefy smooth. Okay,

Specific cancers that warrant more caution.

Leah 26:26

go for it. yeah. Specifically with cancer there from you and I talking previously, there are some cancers that are more concerning than others, right?

Tina 26:39

When it comes to taking collagen. yeah, it has to do with how much we know about that ECM. And how collagen is affecting it in animals or in a dish, um, breast.

Leah 26:50

So breast cancer, isn't it most specifically triple negative.

Tina 26:54

It's mostly triple negative. And then recently I just came across kind of across the board. They're saying it too, like possibly it's a concern. Okay. Triple negative. We have the most information. Okay. Um, triple negative. I would say The risk benefit isn't there, right? I mean, what the benefit being your skin mostly and skin is more than just beauty. Of course, skin does protect you from the outside world. There's immune function into your skin. You know, there's, there is a real reason that the skin is still in Oregon and we want it to be healthy. So, um, So when we're talking about just, you know, collagen and skin health, there really is more than just anti-aging circles that it's really popular in. Um, so the triple negative breast cancer, for sure, breast cancer, possibly stomach cancer, possibly pancreatic cancer, possibly, which is a bummer because you know, people with pancreatic cancer don't absorb amino acids easily sometimes because of the problem with pancreatic enzymes. So, you know, college and was a nice source. Protein. We don't know. I mean, the, the big, the big thing is this is just a big question, mark. It's not, again, it's not like, oh, wow. you've done yourself harm. It's more like, we don't know what's happening, so should we do it at all?

Leah 27:59

Right. There's no definitive information. It's just a big question, mark. Yeah.

Tina 28:05

Yeah, yeah. And that's frustrating, right? Cause you're kind of want to, you want answers? Oh, completely,

Leah 28:11

completely. I want to know. And I probably ask you about colleges. At least once a month. cause I figured, you know, about the latest research. Yeah. But do I not like, like legitimately I ask you about college and all the time. Cause I'm just waiting for the, go for it to be like, it's the fountain of youth girls start drinking it.

Tina 28:32

Right. Did they prove it safe? Did they prove it safe? Cause

Collagen: Any known interactions?

Leah 28:35

right. Yeah. So. Any known interactions? I don't think so. I think the only known interaction would be if you're a vegan.

Tina 28:44

Yes. And I guess, you know, maybe took a lot of the powder, like a hydrolyzed college and you might, it might adsorb other things like minerals at the same time. So you wouldn't take your magnesium and collagen together kind of thing. Oh, interesting. Could probably, you know, just think of it as a gelatinous kind of thing, it can grab

Jello/ Gelatin tangent.

Tina 29:02

other things. When you were a little, did you, did you eat. Jellos that had the various types of fruit in it? Yes. I was

Leah 29:08

just going to say something about gelatin. Oh my gosh. Yes, I did. I ate jello and I liked strawberry and cherry.

Tina 29:15

So now imagine there's strawberry, there's cherry, there's pineapples. There's whatever else you want to put in there, blueberries. And they're all in they're jam packed and there's gel and you put them in your jello mold and you turn it upside down. Like that's basically what this stuff is in your. Like that could be, you know, immune cells, cancer cells. Fiberblast those will always a little different fruits are different cell types. Wait, you're asking

Leah 29:35

if I actually ate the jello mold with the floating and oh no, no, no. I ate the flavored stuff, but so gelatin is that that's pretty much COVID.

Tina 29:45

Yeah. Yeah. Gelatin is made up of colleges. Yeah,

Leah 29:49

because, um, my mom, back in the day, like in the seventies, she would add gelatin, like the Knox gelatin packet to orange juice and drink it. And she swore like helped with her nails. All right. I don't know what kind of collagen is in Gillette.

Tina 30:04

I did not look that up, but I think that, um, it's rarely large molecules, so we don't digest it very well. A lot of it stays in our gut. That's what,

Leah 30:13

so then I don't know what made her nails

Tina 30:14

so strong. Maybe she had good digestion. She was, she was breaking down some of that gelatin into amino acids. I'm sure we break down. Some of it is just a matter of, um, you know, how much yeah.

Leah 30:26

So that's a, that's a hot tip from ladies' home journal, 1970.

Collagen- from Greek word for "glue"

Leah 30:32

so I do know something, I did look something up, I should say. collagen comes from the Greek word Cola. I don't know if that's how you say it. K O L L E. Which means glue. So that fits with your jello mold, gelatin mold analogy.

Tina 30:52

Yes, it is the glue. It's the glue that holds us together. Really? That's why it's 30% of protein the body.

Leah 31:00

I guess, I guess this is it. This is our, this is our college and episodes.

Tina 31:04

Yeah. And you know, you know what I'm thinking? I'm thinking a lot of bone broth I'm avoiding the word but apparently I didn't avoid it cause I just said it out loud. Um, but people who really, I mean, if there are people who know whether bone broth breaks down, how, how small do those peptides really get broken down? When you boil a bunch of bones on the, on the stove top? I'm a little curious about that because I would love to say, oh, they're all, none of these are bioactive peptides because. None of them are that size. They're all too large to be bioactive peptides. That would be nice to know. I'd have even more faith in bone broth that

Leah 31:38

way. Well, and like I said, I mean, it's, it's, uh, it's what I use for like a base of all my soups. I not my non vegetarian vegan friendly soup. So yeah. I want to know too. I will look that up. If I find some information I'll, we'll put it in the show notes. and then we'll try to find some, maybe you have resources that have good diagrams so people can see the extracellular matrix and all the ropes and all of that. Yeah, because visuals, that's what we're about here. I'm on this podcast, all about the visuals.

Tina 32:10

I don't think podcasts should ever be about visuals, but okay.

Leah 32:12

Sure. No, we're linking it to our website then we're we'll put the visual. Oh,

Tina 32:17

right. Okay. We'll have all sorts of good stuff. We'll have these nano ropes, nano ropes. Corkscrews of amino acids that make up pro collagen. Doesn't that sound like fun. It

Leah 32:30

does. So to all of you out there in podcast land, remember to follow us on social media and subscribe to the podcast. And if you go to our website, you can also sign up

We have a newsletter!

Leah 32:45

to get updates. I think I'm going to buy now. I think I sent out the first

Tina 32:49

newsletter and the newsletter is the big announcement.

Leah 32:52

It is a big announcement cause I had to change stuff in it because I was supposed to send it out the first of the year. So I had, I had to do a little editing, but yeah. You know, I'm trying to get a feel for, for what should be in a newsletter and it's just gonna be updates. I'm not going to do it all the time apparently. Um, uh, but yeah, you can sign up. It should be through link tree. And as well as on the website, there should be places for you to sign up if you want to get occasional updates

Tina 33:19

from us. And we don't sell your email just for the record. No, and I, yeah, I, I don't

Leah 33:24

even know if I can keep track of your email. You may not get a newsletter because I may have lost her email. Feel

33:29

free

Tina 33:30

to sign up twice, three times if that's what it takes.

Leah 33:32

Yeah. If you're, if you're not getting anything, but maybe we'll put a link on the website too,

Tina 33:36

for, um, just for the record, you know? You are the last person that should be tooting your own horn because you don't toot your horn very well. In other words, you're going to do a great newsletter. It's going to be awesome. You're going to have recipes information it's going to be, but here you are underselling it because I don't know.

Leah 33:53

I was like, because this is the first one, you know, I need feedback once people are like, that was cool. That was the best newsletter most department. It said we're testing the waters. I just want to make sure that the newsletter gets. People first. I just want to make sure that emails work.

Tina 34:10

Yeah. That's all you want. I'm like, it's just gonna be an awesome newsletter. You're gonna want to give to all your friends you're gonna want for it to everybody. It's going to have great recipes. We're going to have no, no, no, no. Pro college.

Leah 34:19

This is the first one. This is the first one. So, um, anyways, on that note, I'm Dr. Lee Sherman

Tina 34:30

and I'm Dr. Tina Kaeser, and this is the cancer pod until next time. It's just collagen.