Dear Friends,
Collagen can be a confusing supplement topic and is often misunderstood.
To help answer some common questions and explore an exciting new collagen ingredient called Cartidyss, I interviewed Jocelyn Bérubé, who is the Executive Vice President for Scientific and Regulatory Affairs at InnoVactiv – the North American distributor.
Here is Part 1 of the interview:
Carl: So, Jocelyn, let's just jump into it and start by discussing what makes Cartidyss different from other collagen ingredients found in supplements. Perhaps as part of this you can address the different types of collagen ingredients that are found in supplements, because sometimes you see 15 milligrams, sometimes you see 10 grams. It's a little confusing how there can be such a variance in different types and different forms.
Jocelyn: I think about 4% of our body weight is collagen. So it's a very important protein in our body, but it's also a very intriguing one as well. Like all proteins, it is formed as a long chain of amino acids, but within collagen, these amino acids will basically form a coil structure, just like a coil spring on your car. And that is what gives collagen its mechanical properties, its elasticity, and its capacity to return back to its original shape.
But that's also what makes this protein very hard to digest, because our digestive system has a hard time getting around that coil spring and getting within it to break down the long chain and give us access to the amino acids that are inside the collagen.
The body has a use for collagen in all sorts of places, organs and tissues. And in fact, we do have at least 28 different types of collagen in our body. There's collagen of any type anywhere there needs to be mechanical strength and flexibility all at once. So if you're thinking of tendons, ligaments, your bones, your blood vessel walls and everything — it's a primordial protein for us to have.
So there are 28 types in the body. Depending on where you're getting the collagen, you may end up having a specific type in your supplement. So when you look at the supplements offered in the collagen world, the first distinction is: where is it coming from? First of all, collagen is always an animal-derived product. There's no such thing as plant collagen. So if you're buying a supplement that is plant collagen, well, it's probably false labeling at best — collagen only comes animal sources.
Carl: There's no vegan collagen, folks.
Jocelyn: No, not yet. Exactly. So within the normal sources, we see bovine, we see porcine collagen, chicken collagen, I think there's sheep collagen also, and there's marine collagen as well, coming from fish. So when you look at the sources, I think the best question to ask is: do you like the story of that source in particular?
If you're looking at, for example, bovine collagen, to me personally I don't really like that origin, because they are quite often using hides and skins that are being rejected by the leather industry. As a quality person, when I see a product that goes out of the food chain and then back into it again, it's kind of a worry to me.
In terms of porcine, I know there's a lot of fat that comes with it, so there are usually some chemical processes to remove the fat — again, sometimes a source of concern. So to me, I would go more into what story is behind the sourcing.
In terms of marine collagen, for example, most of them are derived from discarded skin of fish. In the case of Cartidyss, we're not using skin. We are the only company that is actually extracting collagen out of fish cartilage. So this is all upcycled fish cartilage. When you're using a product that comes from skin, then you'll get more Type I and Type III collagen from that source; if you're using a product that comes from cartilage, you may end up having more Type II collagen, because this is the prominent form of collagen in those tissues.
Carl: So Jocelyn, that actually brings up a good point that I want to get your opinion on. Since the collagen for supplement purposes is being hydrolyzed — and folks, what we mean by that is the protein is basically being chopped up into peptides, into different pieces, a peptide being more than one amino acid — does it matter so much what you start with? It used to be Type I was more for skin, Type II was more for joints. But I'm curious: does it really matter what you're starting with?
Jocelyn: No. In fact, when you break down that long coil of the collagen molecule, you're actually ending up with peptides that have a very high degree of similarity, regardless of whether you're starting from type I, II, or III collagen. So that distinction between types of collagen really reduces drastically when you're looking at peptides. So the critical aspect for your source of collagen should be, first of all, do you like the story behind the sourcing? Second, is it hydrolyzed or not? Because that's where you'll see the most dramatic improvement in terms of functionality for your collagen.
As I mentioned, we don't have a very good capacity to digest collagen, so if we have a process that does the digestion for us, that helps drastically in terms of absorption rate, efficacy, and your satisfaction using the product. If you're looking, for example, at Cartidyss, our process is actually able to break down collagen to a very, very low size of peptides. About 48% of the peptides that we generate are five amino acids or less, and about 85% are less than 10 amino acids.
It's a very extensive and thorough hydrolysis process. And we do all of that using only plant-based enzymes. So it's really a very clean process without any chemicals, and it makes Cartidyss very easy to digest and obviously much more effective.
Carl: And one of the differentiating points of Cartidyss is that it's not only collagen, right? Because you're getting it from the cartilage of the fish, it naturally contains other GAGs — glycosaminoglycans — which are things like chondroitin, glucosamine, hyaluronic acid. For hair and skin specifically, and you could talk about joints too, I guess, how does this help a consumer and provide maybe incremental or synergistic benefits compared to other collagen ingredients?
Jocelyn: Yeah, there's actually existing literature, besides the literature we have created for Cartidyss, that shows these glycosaminoglycans can support the health of skin and hair. And of course joint is the traditional application for these GAGs. But I would say there still needs to be additional research. The fact is that currently the research has been heavily directed toward joint health. We don't find a lot of research currently on skin and hair benefits, for example, for glucosamine or chondroitin.
Hyaluronic acid has been tested in beauty-from-within applications. It shows that it can help bring up skin moisture. It can also help increase the survival and proliferation of fibroblasts — those are skin cells within our dermis that promote and produce the extracellular matrix, the fibers of collagen and elastin that support the skin structure. So obviously, if you have a dry scalp, for example, hyaluronic acid can help support hydration that will have some implication for your hair.
If you're looking more at glucosamine, this is actually the building block the body uses to make other glycosaminoglycans. So in terms of mechanistic support, we know there are glycosaminoglycans in very high concentration in the hair follicle itself, and that content varies throughout the cycle of hair growth. So there could be some structural roles for glucosamine that would go outside of the typical joint-care supplement. But this is still something that needs to be explored in a pure form — pure glucosamine.
Carl: One of the impressive features of Cartidyss is that your research has shown it can improve the look of skin and hair with really a small daily dose of just 500 milligrams. Other research I've looked at, you generally need at least 2.5 grams, which is 2,500 milligrams. So it's far less than some of the other collagen ingredients out there. We have a culture where we always think more is better, right? But how can Cartidyss work so well with just a 500-milligram daily serving size?
Jocelyn: Well, I like to say better should be better. Rather than having more of a so-so ingredient, let's have it in a better way, in a better format. So my take is that Cartidyss is actually covering some of the topics we've already discussed. It's easy to absorb — very easy to absorb — because we take care to break down that long collagen coil into free amino acids and small peptides that are less than 10 amino acids in length. So that makes it a lot more bioavailable and absorbed very quickly by the body.
There are obviously the other synergistic constituents that are all naturally occurring in the cartilage — you mentioned chondroitin sulfate, glucosamine, there's hyaluronic acid, there are minerals in there as well. But you get a synergistic blend all within the same ingredient. So within a single ingredient, you get multiple mechanisms of action that help with efficacy.
The product really is better absorbed than other forms of collagen out there. Plus, we also have all the data to support the bioactivity, the efficacy, and the impact of the use of the product on the signs of aging, including mechanism-of-action data. I think, in a nutshell, that sums up what is distinctive about that dosage and how we can achieve that.
Carl: So when you have these collagen peptides — they're hydrolyzed from the native collagen into these smaller pieces — are they actually just stimulating the body to go into collagen-production mode, or what exactly is happening in the body?
Jocelyn: Yes, that is one of the elements. The collagen peptides are obviously absorbed. This is not collagen that is going from the food, from the supplement, into the skin directly — you have to go through all of that resynthesis process. But what is believed to be happening is that collagen fragments are produced as part of the normal turnover of collagen in the skin. And what triggers collagen production is the presence of collagen fragments, because that means there has been some refurbishing — breakdown of collagen in the vicinity of the cells.
And that is a positive signal for them to start building up again. So when we have those collagen peptides, they're basically moving and migrating in the bloodstream toward the cells, and that triggers them to make all sorts of new structural fibers. We have data on collagen, but we also have data from our mechanistic study on elastin. So there's stimulation not only for collagen, but also for elastin as well.
Carl: That's a great explanation. So stimulating or triggering, as you said, the collagen production in the skin, around joints, muscles, wherever — that's really the value of these supplements. Is that more or less accurate?
Jocelyn: Oh yes, 100%.
Carl: I want to get into the impressive research findings with Cartidyss, but before we do that, you mentioned the importance of caring about where your collagen is sourced from. I know there's a very impressive story here with Cartidyss and where it comes from in France, and the purity and quality control you use to make sure it's a top-notch ingredient. Maybe just tell us a little bit about how it was developed and what makes it unique.
Jocelyn: Of course. Well, the cartilage, as you mentioned, is derived from fish — but more specifically from skate cartilage, all coming from the region of Brittany in France. Skate is first caught primarily for use as a food, but half of its weight is composed of cartilage. So the process we've implemented involves mechanical cleaning of the cartilage and then freezing on site. There's very little waste generated; everything cleaned off the cartilage is used as food. But then we use the thawed cartilage with the plant enzymes to do that full hydrolysis.
So we're not extracting the collagen from the cartilage and generating another byproduct — we're really upcycling the whole cartilage entirely in that process. Once the hydrolysis is completed, there's a simple process of drying. So that is the process: water-based, no chemical additive. And then we ensure that every batch of product meets the strictest requirements in terms of contaminants and microbial quality, so basically it can be safely used by anyone.
In terms of the story behind the product, the manufacturer of Cartidyss, which is called Abyss Ingredients, started with the mission to upcycle fish byproducts within their own region in Brittany, France. This is an area where there's a huge skate fishing industry, but it's a skate population that is very healthy because they've implemented modern fishing practices and management of the resource. Abyss started with more basic upcycling products from the skate cartilage — fish meals and other types of powders.
But then, through the years, they saw a great opportunity to build more value from the specialty-ingredient market, and that's where they started establishing partnerships with renowned research institutes and universities in France and abroad. And that resulted in Cartidyss. We now think Cartidyss will be the next big thing in the collagen market, and it was recently voted as the best new ingredient in the healthy-aging category by Nutrition Industry Executive. So we're very proud of that achievement.
Carl: That's a great story. We love upcycled ingredients, because you're essentially taking what was waste — or material you really didn't have a great use for — and making a wonderful consumer health product. So really, there are no fish being harvested or caught just for the purposes of making this product. It's just the opposite, right?
Jocelyn: Yes, you're right. And the development of Cartidyss really was a story of that very close collaboration between the manufacturer in France and the local fishermen.
They are not large companies — not the fishing companies that send boats out for months at sea. They are really moms and dads who go out every day, and they had that need to maximize what they were catching, not just for food but for every other application there could be.
So while Cartidyss is helping them consolidate their businesses, it's also helping them consolidate their communities as a whole. Because if you lose a job in those small villages, basically a whole family has to be extracted and removed from that community. So it's really a win-win relationship.
Carl: It's just wonderful.
We’ll pause the interview here - be sure to read my next letter, where Jocelyn describes the impressive research findings with Cartidyss and how it can help your skin, hair and joints. You can also read more about Cartidyss on the TrueNuGrow+ product page
Yours for Good Health,
Carl Pradelli
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