If you’re at all health conscious, you’ve likely heard of collagen. Collagen is a protein that is taken in supplement form for many different purposes. People take to improve their skin, their bones, their nails, and even to improve their gut health. Collagen provides extra cushioning to the joints, leaves skin and nails looking visibly healthier, and helps form and strengthen the gut lining. For these reasons and several more, you can find collagen in just about every drug and grocery store you visit, and if you suffer the symptoms of leaky gut, it can be really useful for you.
Leaky gut is a syndrome that is debilitating for many people, and if it's a problem that you are suffering from, collagen could really help. Collagen naturally has some gut healing properties, and some supplements are made specifically for gut healing. There are many types of collagen out there to help your gut stay in top shape, and you can find out if it is right for you. When your gut is healthy, the rest of your body will be healthy as well, so treating a leaky gut is of the utmost importance.
What Is Leaky Gut?
When your gut is in the process of digesting food, it transfers nutrients into your bloodstream. These nutrients travel through your system and give your body’s cells what they need to thrive. But when the gut isn’t in the best state, when the lining isn’t solid for a number of different reasons, the wrong substances can leak into the bloodstream. Instead of your body’s cells getting everything they need to thrive, they will be bombarded with toxic substances that will change the way your body functions for the worst.
Our stomachs contain intestinal lining that cover over 4,000 square feet of surface space, and it is there to provide a secure barrier to keep the wrong substances from seeping into the rest of your system from your gut. When your stomach lining is unhealthy, cracks in this wall develop, and it can release toxins, bugs, and partially digested food into your system and cause further negative effects from there. A leaky gut can lead to even more severe issues like irritable bowel syndrome, chronic fatigue, and even autoimmune diseases.
What Causes Leaky Gut?
There are numerous potential causes of leaky gut. Some of those causes include poor diet, stress, excessive alcohol use, ulcerative colitis, and irritable bowel syndrome. All of these issues can lead to an imbalanced gut that doesn’t function as well as it should. When your gut has issues, your gut microbiome is not healthy enough to keep your stomach lining as strong as it needs to be. Inflammation can also impact your stomach lining and make it weaker. Leaky gut can also be caused by food allergies and infections. Anything that can negatively impact your stomach can cause some weakening of the stomach lining that can lead to leaky gut.
Symptoms of A Leaky Gut
Leaky gut can be caused by some bad symptoms that affect the stomach, and it also comes with its own list of negative effects. A few signs that you should be experiencing leaky gut syndrome include indigestion, diarrhea, gas, bloating, and low energy. These are all signs that your stomach isn’t functioning at its best and that you might need to look into the cause of your symptoms. If you suspect that you have a leaky gut, you can certainly take action in a way that can reverse the changes, especially with collagen.
What Is Collagen?
Collagen is a protein that the body naturally produces. It makes up a large percentage of the protein in the body, and is often used as a supplement for health purposes because of its many benefits. Collagen provides benefits to several major parts of your body. Your skin, bones, and muscles require a lot of it to perform at their best capacity because 30 percent of the protein in the body is made up of collagen. It is known as a “building block” for this reason. It builds and repairs different parts of the body.
There are several different types of collagen, 28 types to be specific. Each one has its own functions in different parts of the body, and four of them stand out the most. There are types I, II, III, and IV collagen, and they each provide specific benefits to certain parts of the body. Type I repairs connective tissue, type II works on the joints as well as the gut lining, and type III plays a part in the function of the skin and blood vessels. Several types of collagen can benefit the gut, but type II collagen often provides the most benefit to the gut.
Collagen is a popular health supplement that can be taken as a capsule, as a powder, or in liquid form. It is most popularly taken in powder form, and that also happens to be the best way to take it. Collagen powder can go easily into your drinks and food, and give you a boost without affecting the taste of your food. Liquid collagen can also be added to your drinks like the powder can, and collagen supplements can be taken with or without a meal.
Collagen’s Overall Benefits
Collagen builds and maintains the health of every major organ in the body. It replaces dead skin cells, gives skin elasticity, helps blood clot, reduces joint pain, keeps skin moisturized, and more. The body loses collagen with age, and that causes a host of issues that come with losing this necessary substance. Adding collagen to your diet is something that helps to reduce some of the effects of aging. Collagen helps boost muscle mass, build up arteries, and even help to regulate weight. And these aren’t all the benefits. It can target multiple parts of the body at once.
How Does Collagen Help With Leaky Gut?
For someone with a leaky gut, all of collagen’s other benefits might feel secondary to its gut health benefits. And collagen provides the gut with numerous benefits that can make it function at its best. It helps with the digestion process, builds and repairs the gut lining, and not only helps people who have leaky gut, but also irritable bowel syndrome. Taking collagen daily can even improve both mild and major digestive symptoms, and those can include upset stomach, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, cramps, and acid reflux. As the collagen heals your gut, your overall symptoms will eventually subside.
Leaky gut causes toxic substances from the body to leak out into the rest of your system, and one way that collagen helps with that is by building the intestinal epithelium in the gut. The intestinal epithelium works as a barrier between internal and external environments that regulates toxins and keeps the internal homeostasis. When this is damaged, you can suffer the symptoms of leaky gut syndrome, but collagen is just the right substance to repair it and keep everything in your gut where it belongs.
Collagen also heals gut inflammation, and gut inflammation is one culprit that can contribute to leaky gut. When the gut is inflamed, it can’t function at its best, and that is where collagen can come in and repair the situation. Gut inflammation can be caused by a lack of equilibrium in the gut, and collagen will bring that back. When collagen brings everything back to its proper function, it will reduce inflammation in the gut. And when the gut is kept from staying inflamed, it helps out the rest of the body by keeping the stomach contents contained.
There are certain types of collagen that provide the most benefit to the gut, and those include types 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 10 collagen. The most important collagen in the gut are types 1 and type 2. Type 4 is the next most important collagen when it comes to the gut. Type 2 collagen helps build the gut lining, type 3 collagen heals gut issues, and type 4 collagen aids in cell adhesion and survival. Type 5 collagen soothes the digestive lining, type 10 collagen is involved in bone formation but still affects the gut, and type 1 collagen makes up over 90 percent of the collagen in the body, and therefore is automatically important to the foundation of the gut.
Side Effects of Collagen
Collagen does not cause any major side effects, and that is because it is a necessary protein that your body thrives on. When overdone, though, collagen can have some relatively minor side effects that can cause you some discomfort. But all you have to do to avoid negative side effects from collagen is to always take the right dosage. As long as you take the right doses of collagen, mild discomfort won’t even wind up being an issue for you.
One mild side effect of collagen is a heavy feeling in the stomach. Another one is mild diarrhea. And if you manage to really overdo it, something that is actually quite difficult to do with collagen, you can experience somewhat more major side effects like skin rashes, hyperglycemia, overaccumulation of calcium, and kidney stones. The way to avoid this is to pay close attention to the dosages on the collagen label, and always take the recommended amount. If you ever get to a point where you experience these kinds of symptoms, cut back on your collagen intake a bit, and you will likely go back to normal.
Which Collagen Works Best For Leaky Gut?
There are many options for collagen on the market, but if you are suffering from a leaky gut, you need to choose one that focuses primarily on gut health. When you know the types of collagen that are best for your gut health, you can search for those specific types. Many of them specify that they are meant for gut health, so you can narrow down what you need. Here are the best types of collagen to take if you have a leaky gut:
Dr. Emil’s Multi Collagen Plus has a number of great benefits that make it worth taking. It is the number one best selling collagen on Amazon and contains five different types of collagen that help the gut in some way. This supplement comes in a container of fast dissolving capsules that support healthy joints, bones, and digestion. Dr. Emil even plans to release a collagen supplement designed primarily for gut health soon.
This multi collagen protein supplement contains 5 types of collagen that are good for your gut health. It supports joints, skin, hair, and the immune system, and your digestive system, which is of the utmost importance. The types of collagen this supplement consists of were chosen to maximize the positive benefits on the stomach, and minimize ailments like leaky gut syndrome. This collagen in this supplement comes from diverse sources for the best effects. It comes from grass fed beef collagen, fish, eggshell, and chicken collagen, and should be taken each day for the best results.
This collagen supplement is made specifically to restore the gut. It is made with ten types of collagen, several types that target the gut, and it also includes gut specific super foods for added benefits. This supplement has a light lemon and ginger flavor, so if you want collagen that has a taste to it, you can add some flavor to your drinks with this. This collagen comes with four different sources and comes with a healthy dose of vitamin C.
Leaky gut is a syndrome that can develop from a number of issues, and it can make your overall health worse, not just your stomach health. Collagen can do a lot to fix this issue, especially the types of collagen that focus primarily on gut health, so make sure you go out and find the best collagen for gut health if you suffer from a leaky gut.
