Collagen is one of the components of hair and the most abundant protein in our bodies. It makes up the major component of connective tissues in our bodies.
Does collagen help with beard growth? Collagen can help with beard growth by promoting the production of keratin, prevent beard follicle damage, prevent beard thinning, and slow beard graying. Besides beard growth, collagen will also promote healthy skin. However, on its own collagen can not help with beard growth.
However, rogaine or minoxidil have been proven to help grow a beard for people struggling to grow a beard.
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Collagen and beard growth
Naturally, your body can produce collagen, but there are supplements that you can consume to boost your levels of collagen in your body. Including foods such as bone broth.
How does collagen help grow facial hair?
Below is a list of scientifically proven ways that collagen can help you grow facial hair.
Keratin production
During the processing of keratin, your body uses several amino acids as the building blocks, some of these amino acids are found in collagen. Keratin is the protein that hair is made of.
This means if you have sufficient levels of collagen in your body, your body will be able to maintain the right levels of keratin. Hence, your beard growth will be unaffected by keratin wise as shown in this study.
Based on this study, your body breaks down the available collagen to make amino acids and uses the new amino acids to make new proteins.
Primarily collagen is made up of 3 nonessential amino acids namely: hydroxyproline, proline, and glycine. Proline is the main amino acid that makes up keratin, hence consuming collagen will provide this amino acid, which translates into increased production of keratin.
Fight damage to hair follicles
One of the benefits of collagen in the body is that it helps fight damage as a result of free radicals due to its antioxidants properties.
Some of the causes of free radicals in the body include alcohol, poor diet, smoking, and stress and air pollutants. Excessive free radicals in the body can result in damaged DNA and proteins as shown here.
Based on research published here free radicals have been found to damage hair follicles. As your body ages so do the defense against free radicals. As a result, older people are more susceptible to hair damage as compared to young people.
Antioxidants are some of the mechanisms that your body fights these free radicals. Based on this research published here, collagen especially one extracted from fish scales has been proven to have high antioxidants properties.
Prevent beard thinning
The skin dermis is made of about 70% collagen, the skin dermis anchors the root of the hair. Collagen is the compound responsible for the strength and elasticity of the dermis.
As your body ages, the production of collagen reduces consequently reducing the strength and elasticity of the dermis. As a result, the hair becomes thinner with age.
Providing your body with enough collagen at this stage in life may prevent thinning of your facial hair.
Based on this study conducted on sixty-nine women who were aged between 35-55 years, daily consumption of collagen supplements improved the elasticity of their skin as compared to the control group.
Another study published here conducted on a larger group of adults for 12 weeks showed that daily consumption of collagen supplements led to the improvement of their skin and reduced the signs of skin aging.
Therefore, it makes sense to conclude that since collagen counteracts skin aging and promotes skin strength and elasticity increasing collagen in the skin will lead to decreased facial hair thinning.
Help slow beard graying
The antioxidants properties of collagen play a major role in fighting cell damage.
Genetics are the main influencers of age-related hair graying. Additionally, free radicals cause damage to the cells that are responsible for producing hair color.
With age, the cells that are responsible for producing melanin pigment that gives your hair its color begin to fade off and die.
Free radicals as a result of stress, poor diet, and environmental pollutants may cause damage to cells that produce melanin.
Given that antioxidants help fight free radicals in the body, they may help slow graying of your facial hair.
Test tube studies published here, have shown that collagen fights free radicals, theoretically, collagen can help fight off free radicals and prevent them from harming melanin-producing cells and therefore prevent premature graying of your facial hair.
Other benefits of consuming collagen supplements include
- Collagen relieves joint pain
- Improve skin health
- Improve mood
- Reduce anxiety
- Promote healthy nails
Bottom line
So will collagen help beard growth? Definitely, despite the fact that there is limited research that has been conducted on humans focused on using collagen to grow human hair, evidence-based research clearly shows that collagen will help grow facial hair. You can boost your levels of collagen by consuming collagen supplements that are sold by online retailers.