Collagen is a commonly used supplement that is known for its skin and joint benefits. It helps to heal a number of different ailments that attack different parts of the stomach, and that includes the gut, but does collagen help with IBS? IBS is a chronic stomach disorder that can make you feel stressed, and having a remedy can feel like a lifesaver. Knowing about what collagen can and can’t do for you has the potential to change your daily life. It makes up a large part of your body in general, but can building up the gut heal the issues within it? And does collagen help IBS in different ways?
IBS isn’t an issue that just goes away, so you’re always going to need to find ways to keep it at bay. Collagen is one of the most safe and natural ways that you can do that, as long as it truly provides all the benefits that you need to get a comfortable life back. If you want to know if collagen is the right fit for you, keep reading to find out!
What is Collagen And How Does It Work?
Collagen is a substance sold abundantly in stores for its benefits, and if you’re suffering from gut issues, you’re likely wondering what it can do for the gut. Collagen is naturally occurring in the body, and that is one thing that makes it so beneficial. It is a protein that makes up a large percentage of the body, and works to build and benefit your skin, bones, and muscles. Without a good amount of collagen, your body won’t be in top shape, and you can face some unwanted issues.
Collagen makes up over 30 percent of the protein in your body, making it the most important protein that your body produces. Without enough collagen, major body functions would fall apart. There are four types of collagen that are most commonly used in supplements, and those types are type I, type II, type III, and type IV, but sometimes others of the 28 types are used as well. Several types of collagen are beneficial to the gut’s health, and contribute to keeping it functioning properly. Some of these collagen types are especially beneficial towards the health of the gut lining.
Collagen builds and maintains the health of every major organ, including the gut. It replaces dead skin cells, gives skin elasticity, helps blood clot, reduces joint pain, and keeps skin moisturized, boosts muscle mass, builds up the arteries, and gives strength to hair and nails. Collagen even contributes to your brain health and can have an effect on weight loss. Once collagen enters your system, it will get right to work replacing dead cells and even providing a protective covering for your organs. These benefits are numerous, but still don’t completely encompass everything that collagen does for your system.
How Does Collagen Work for the Gut?
Collagen is one of the healthiest substances you can feed to the gut. It helps out with the digestion process, builds and repairs the gut lining, and helps to heal a number of digestive illnesses. Collagen can heal mild digestive symptoms like upset stomach and bloating, as well as more severe symptoms like irritable bowel syndrome, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, cramps, and acid reflux. If any of these gut related functions is malfunctioning for you, it could definitely be worth it to see if collagen can help. It won’t help immediately, but it will get there eventually.
The stomach symptoms that collagen helps fix aren’t life threatening, but can be chronic and debilitating. Even mild stomach pains can be tough to deal with when they occur at all times, so the relief that collagen can provide the stomach makes it useful for many people. One part of the stomach wall that collagen works to build is the intestinal epithelium. The intestinal epithelium works as a barrier between internal and external environments that regulates toxins and keeps the internal homeostasis.
Collagen helps to keep the gut at the right equilibrium. That is something that helps do anything from fighting gut inflammation to healing the leaky gut syndrome that can sometimes come with that. Having a lack of equilibrium in the gut can lead to a host of negative symptoms, and collagen will work to reverse that. Collagen will help keep the gut from becoming inflamed in the first place, and will reverse it after the fact. Keeping the gut functioning properly is also something that keeps the rest of the body from malfunctioning as well. Stomach inflammation can easily pass on to the rest of the body and a healthy dose of collagen can prevent that.
Each type of collagen in the body has its own function to perform, and many of them have several functions that they carry out each day. Collagen types 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 10 are the types of collagen that do the most work in the gut. Type 1 collagen heals gut issues and makes up over 90 percent of the collagen in the gut, type 2 collagen helps build the gut lining, type 3 collagen also plays a big role in healing gut issues, and type 4 is the next most important collagen to the gut after type one. Type 5 collagen soothes the digestive lining and type 10 collagen is involved with bone formation, but also works to build and improve the gut’s health.
What Is Irritable Bowel Syndrome?
Irritable bowel syndrome is an illness that affects a person’s digestive system. It can be debilitating and difficult to deal with, and those who suffer can wind up seeking all kinds of remedies to ease the symptoms. Irritable bowel syndrome, also known as IBS, affects many people, and the symptoms can include constipation, diarrhea, cramping, bloating, and gas. IBS symptoms affect everyone differently, so not everyone experiences all of these symptoms. Some people experience a few of them and some experience several. Some people even experience some less common symptoms from IBS like acid reflux, nausea, and heartburn.
IBS is a condition that can seem to come out of nowhere, but there is sometimes a trigger. If you have an allergy or a food intolerance of any kind, you can be more prone to getting IBS than people who don’t share those issues. The irritants that can potentially bring on IBS include lactose intolerance and glucose intolerance. You can even develop IBS after suffering from an acute illness.
People who have IBS tend to look for different ways to solve their problems, and those can include anything from changing their diet, managing stress, or taking medication. Irritable bowel syndrome can always be a nuisance or it can fluctuate from bad to mild, but it is a chronic condition that tends to last long term. It often attacks the worst in cycles, so sometimes symptoms could be mild or nonexistent, and at other times, it will be at its worst. IBS requires that the person suffering from it find some way to deal with it in order to be comfortable.
Does Collagen Help Irritable Bowel Syndrome?
If you are suffering from irritable bowel syndrome, you may be in constant search for a remedy that will heal your symptoms, and there is a chance that collagen could be that remedy. Collagen is a prominent part of every organ, including the gut, and it has the properties to repair damaged parts of it. Type I collagen is helpful to the gut because it makes up about 90 percent of the body. It is a major part of the gut, and making sure there is enough of it will help keep your gut strong.
Type II collagen is a collagen that builds the lining of the gut, a function that can prevent symptoms that arise from toxins leaking outside of the gut. A leaky gut can potentially be an IBS trigger, and making sure that your stomach lining is strong can prevent irritation from a weak gut. Types III, IV, V and type X collagen. Each of these types of collagen target a different part of the gut, which can help regulate the symptoms of IBS. taking collagen so that your system runs more smoothly won’t get rid of IBS entirely, but it can certainly help manage it.
Type III collagen is the second most collagen that can be found in soft tissues. It is also involved in the early stages of wound healing, so if you take type III collagen, it can help heal the parts of your gut that aren’t properly sealed. Type III collagen also has some overlapping functions with type I collagen, which makes up most of the collagen in the body. Type III collagen has an impact on IBS because it is highly concentrated in the intestine. So if your intestines have any less collagen than they should, they will not be functioning at their best. When the type III collagen is replenished, your digestive system will end up functioning better.
How Long Does It Take For Collagen to Impact IBS?
When you start taking collagen for your IBS, you may hope that it will have an effect right away, but collagen will take some time to have an effect on your gut’s function. Collagen will take a few weeks at minimum to start to have an impact, but certain factors can make the waiting time even shorter or longer. Collagen will take some time to start working at first, but the benefits will feel amazing once you start to experience them, especially if you’ve been dealing with stomach issues for a long time.
Different people report collagen taking different lengths of time to work on their guts, but it always takes a few weeks for everyone. It can take anywhere from six to twelve weeks for someone to start feeling positive effects from collagen, and for some people, it could take even more or less time. A study published in the World Journal of Gastroenterology found that it took on average eight weeks for collagen to have an effect on their participants suffering from IBS. After about eight weeks, most of the participants saw a significant decrease in their abdominal pain and bloating symptoms in particular.
What Are the Side Effects of Collagen?
Collagen doesn’t come with many side effects, but can cause some gastric symptoms when overdone, which is something that people with IBS need to pay attention to. You can experience a feeling of heaviness in the gut from taking too much, as well as diarrhea. These aren’t good side effects for someone with IBS to suffer, but you can avoid even experiencing them by taking the proper dose of collagen each day.
Collagen can have some more serious side effects, but that tends to come from prolonged overuse. Taking too much collagen for a long period of time can lead you to experience symptoms like skin rashes, hyperglycemia, overaccumulation of calcium, or even kidney stones. These symptoms can be serious, but you can overall reverse them by lowering your collagen dose. Though when you stick to the doses printed on the collagen container, these are symptoms that you likely won’t have to deal with.
Collagen helps with a number of ailments, and thankfully, IBS is one of them. IBS can really interfere with a person’s daily life, and there is definitely a chance that collagen can ease some of the burden for you if you suffer from it yourself.
