I'm so excited for today's video because this is a topic I've been wanting to cover for a while, which is how to boost collagen levels in your skin. I get asked about this all the time as a dermatologist because collagen is the main protein in your skin. It's what gives it firmness, strength, bounce. It's what makes your skin look more youthful and we all want more of it. So, today I am covering the scientifically proven ways to boost your collagen. So happy you're here today. I'm Dr. Sam Ellis. I am a board-certified medical and cosmetic dermatologist in Northern California and your go-to for sciencebacked skincare advice. I help you cut through the noise, decode your skin, and find products that actually work for you. So, if you want healthy, glowing skin, hair, and nails, make sure you hit that like button and subscribe to the channel because you're in the right place. So, at the end of this video, we'll talk about some things you can do in the office to boost your collagen levels. But I really wanted to focus on things you can do at home. I realize not everyone has the same resources for professional treatments. And there's still so much you can do outside of a dermatologist's office to improve the health and quality of your skin. I'm also going to give you the tea on whether collagen creams and collagen supplements work and whether or not they're worth it. So, make sure you stick around for that. And thank you to Dermtore for partnering with me on this video. It is one of my absolute favorite places to shop for skincare online. They carry a curated range of high quality products and they're actually having a huge sale right now. So, if you want to stock up, I will be mentioning a few of my favorite products that they carry in this video. And if you're watching this video after the sale, no worries. I still have a discount code for you. I'll put all the details in the description box. If you clicked on this video, you probably already know what collagen is because you recognize that you want more of it. But in case you're not familiar, collagen is the most abundant protein in our entire body and certainly in our skin. And it really acts as like the structural scaffolding of our skin. It's what gives it firmness. So as you age, your collagen starts to break down due to the natural aging process, due to things like UV radiation, pollution, poor diet, increased stress. And so your skin starts to kind of break down with it. and you start to see those changes as fine lines and wrinkles, sagging, salowess. So, it makes sense that as you get older, you would want to do everything possible to not only hold on to the collagen that you already have, but make new collagen to replace the collagen that you're breaking down. Unfortunately, starting at around the age of 25, we begin losing 1% of our collagen every single year. And what's worse is you have this accelerated loss of collagen when you go through menopause. And it's estimated that in the first 5 years of menopause, you lose about 30% of your collagen, which is honestly devastating. So, I personally want to be doing everything possible, I mean, I guess within reason, to hold on to my collagen and to build new collagen. When you are younger, we call that process collagen banking. You're essentially building up a collagen reservoir so that as you age and you have that inevitable loss of collagen to some degree, those changes will be less obvious, less problematic, less aging for you because you had more collagen to begin with. First and foremost, we got to make sure that your skincare routine is on point. You don't have to have every single product that I'm about to talk about. You certainly don't need a 10-step skincare routine. But a few key ingredients when used consistently over a lifetime. I'm talking decades will make a huge difference in how your skin ages and how much collagen you make and protect. I feel like this goes without saying, but just in case, you must protect your skin from the sun. It's estimated that somewhere between 80 and 90% of all skin aging happens from UV radiation, from the sun's rays. So, if you care about your collagen, you care about the quality of your skin. Honestly, if you care about not getting skin cancer, if you're a fairkinned individual, you want to be protecting your skin from the sun. And I'm not saying go live as a hermit and never go outside and don't enjoy your activities, but be smart about it. Wear a widebrim hat. Maybe invest in some UPF clothing. Wear sunscreen. Do what you got to do. If you want great sunscreen recommendations or you want Rex for sunprotective clothing or hats, I have videos on all of those things here on YouTube, but also make sure you're following on Instagram and on Tik Tok. I am constantly updating those recommendations and giving links, especially in my Instagram stories. That's where we hang out. So, sun protection is going to help protect the collagen that you have. But let's talk about skincare that helps you build the collagen that you want. At the very tippy top of my list is topical retinoids. Those are things like retinol, retinaldahhide, adapylene, prescription tininoan, tazeritine. You've probably heard these terms floating around. You don't need all of those in your routine. You just need one of them. Consistent use of topical retinoids not only helps accelerate collagen production, it also slows down the breakdown of collagen. So, you're sort of winning on both ends there. And although all forms of topical retinoids have been shown to be able to boost collagen levels, the one that is most studied is prescription tininoan. Now, the problem with prescription tininoan is one, it's a prescription, so there's an accessibility issue for some people, and two is being able to tolerate tininoan because it can be quite irritating for the skin. And I see this come up a lot with my patients where they want to be using treinoan because they've heard it's the best, but they constantly are having redness, flaking, breakouts, and so they can never use it consistently and get the benefits. So, I'm here to reassure you that if you can't tolerate topical tininoan, don't worry about it. You can still get great collagen boosting effects from things like retinol and retinaldahhide. For example, I can use teninoan on my face, but if I even touch it to my chest or my neck, I am in for a world of hurt. Well, really just like a world of irritation and itch. So, I use retinaldahhide there. I use this one by medicate. This is their crystal retinel 20. So, quite potent but just way less irritating. I love this formula. It's really nice and creamy. So you get kind of like a moisturization and anti-aging situation allin one. But I do a pump of this on my neck and a pump of this on my decllete pretty much every single night. The other thing that I love about this is it comes in multiple strengths. So like I said, this is the 20. She's pretty strong. You could start at the level three or maybe even the level six and then as you go through a tube of that, you can graduate to the next strength and the next strength and maybe one day you work all the way up to prescription treino. And if you can't quite get there, it helps you find the most effective and the most potent retinoid that you can handle. But let's say you're already using a topical retinoid and you're like, well, how can I step it up? Or maybe you can't use a topical retinoid because you're trying to conceive or you are pregnant. That's when retinoids are no- nos. I also really love peptides. It's important to recognize though that there are multiple types of peptides that can be incorporated into topical skincare. They don't all serve to boost your collagen levels. And probably the two that are the most commonly used for collagen supporting benefits specifically are metatricxel and copper peptides. One of my favorite relatively affordable peptide serums, so we're talking under $50, is the move peptide squad. This has copper peptides. It has metatricxel 3000. It has arjolene, which is another type of peptide that helps with fine lines. So, it really does contain some heavy hitters when it comes to anti-aging. If you have a little more room in your budget and you want a more comprehensive peptide product, I really love the Medicate Liquid Peptides Advanced MP. This has 13 different peptides. It has Metatricxel 3000. It has the copper peptides, but some additional skin boosting peptides in there as well. Really nice lightweight texture. You can layer this before or after your retinoid in the evening. You could use it in the morning if it works better in your routine there. It's very versatile. Now, in addition to retinoids and peptides, the other category of skincare ingredient and the final one I'm going over today when it comes to collagen boosting is vitamin C. You actually need vitamin C to make collagen. It is required. It's why in the past when sailors got scurvy from not eating vitamin C, they would have problems with wound healing and bruising and bleeding gums. It's because they couldn't make healthy collagen. So, of course, you want to be consuming enough vitamin C. We'll get to dietary ways to boost your collagen in a second, but using topical vitamin C has also been shown to give additional collagen boosting benefits. And pretty much all the good data we have when it comes to using topical vitamin C was done on this specific product, the skin ceuic. I think pretty much every dermatologist would agree with me that this is the gold standard sort of holy grail. It's probably one of the most expensive vitamin C's you can buy, but it is also the best studied vitamin C in the world. Now, if you want a drugstore option for this that also uses 15% eloscorbic acid, 15% vitamin C, may I recommend the Prequel Lucent C. So, this is my skincare brand, but I knew when I created a skincare brand, I wanted to create an effective vitamin C serum that was really affordable. So, this is an option for you if you are within the US. And then for my people out there who know they want to be using vitamin C but they cannot tolerate it in its lcorbic acid form. These are just going to be too irritating for certain sensitive or acne prone skin types. May I recommend the revision skincare C++ correcting complex. I am obsessed with this. They have really good clinical data on this specific formula. It is lovely. So this formula uses tetrahexyl ascorbate also known as THD ascorbate. It's just a different form of vitamin C, less irritating, little more stable, too. So, you'll see that this is white, whereas most vitamin C serums are going to be slightly yellowish, and that's from the vitamin C starting to oxidize a little bit. But this is so beautiful. I would put this on in the morning before I do my sunscreen. That's how I would use these vitamin C's as well. If you cannot use your vitamin C in the morning, it is okay to use it at night. It's a myth that it can only be used in the morning, but my preference is for morning. Okay, real quick before we move on to other things that you can do to be boosting your collagen, I want to spend one second to talk about collagen creams. A lot of products out there will market themselves as collagen creams or contains collagen. And I think they're hoping that you think, "Ooh, if I put this cream on, it's going to stimulate my collagen or that collagen is going to get into my skin and deposit there." And that is not how it works at all. When a product contains collagen, collagen is acting as a hctin. It's acting as an ingredient that helps bind water to the skin surface. So, it will make your skin look more plump and help with hydration, but the collagen in that product is not going to improve the collagen in your skin. I hope that makes sense. Another thing you can be doing to boost your collagen levels is incorporating red light into your skincare routine. I won't go too deep into this because I do have a couple of pretty in-depth videos here on this platform, but essentially red light was initially studied for its ability to help with wound healing and tissue repair. And that science was then applied to at home red light devices like these masks right here to stimulate collagen production within your skin. Red light is also anti-inflammatory. So for people who struggle with redness, sensitive skin, they notice a lot of benefits in their skin when they use red light. as well. So, it's not just for improving fine lines and tissue quality, though I would say, you know, that's the focus of this video. Now, it certainly doesn't have to be in a mask. You could get it in a panel form, but if you are wondering what masks I usually use, I like the Omniux. This one's a little bit cheaper. I also like the current body. I like the way this one fits the face a bit more, but both get the job done. I love my red light devices. Of course, they do not take the place of inoff treatments, but even though I have every device at my fingertips, I don't always have time to do them. And so, having an athome maintenance treatment that I can do that's easy, that I also find so relaxing, it's such a win for me. Now, I absolutely could not do a video on ways to boost collagen without talking about collagen boosting foods and the way diet affects how you make collagen. Number one, you got to eat your antioxidants. We already talked about earlier how vitamin C, which is an antioxidant, is essential for the production of collagen. But there are so many other antioxidants that you consume when you eat things like berries, citrus, leafy greens, bell peppers that help you protect your skin. You also want to make sure that you are getting enough protein. I feel like everyone is talking about like protein, protein, protein. So, I'm probably not the first person to tell you this. You don't need an excessive amount of protein. You shouldn't be thinking about protein every second of the day, but you want at least enough that you can build healthy collagen. So, protein is made up of amino acids. When you consume protein, your body will break those down into the little amino acids, which then can be reassembled into the building blocks of your body, like collagen, for example. You also want to make sure you're getting enough of the micronutrients, zinc and copper, both play essential roles in collagen production. You're going to find those in things like beans, nuts, whole grains, shellfish. Whenever I talk about diet or dietary interventions and skincare, I always want to make the point that you never really should be eating just for your skin. As a physician, I will always advise you to eat for your whole body. Eat for your cardiac health, your liver function, your brain health. And you're basically never going to go wrong with a diet that is rich in colorful fruits and vegetables, that is rich in unprocessed foods because your body, all parts of it, benefit from that. Now, one thing I get asked about a ton is whether or not collagen supplementation, so taking like a collagen powder with your coffee or in your smoothie, for example, helps you produce more collagen. And we don't know yet. What I will tell you is that there have been a couple great systematic reviews, so scientific papers that have rounded up all the best data about collagen supplementation in the last 5, 10, 15 years that have showed that when you consume collagen peptides, it does make your skin thicker. It can make your skin have better elasticity and better hydration, but we don't know specifically if your skin has more collagen in it, but it improves the quality of your skin nonetheless. So, collagen supplements certainly provide a form of protein. They provide the necessary amino acids to build collagen, but we need more studies to really understand if they actually lead to more collagen deposition within the skin. Now, if you want the deep dive that I did on that as well as the collagen supplements that I recommend, I totally recommend that you check out the video that I dedicated to that, but I will also link my favorite collagen supplements in the description box. So, diet is certainly one lifestyle intervention that can help optimize your collagen levels, but exercise is another one. There was a study done in I believe 2023 in Japan where they took sedentary middle-aged Japanese women and they had them do resistance training, so weightlifting or just aerobic training, cardio, and then looked at how it affected their skin. And there were some pretty interesting results in both of the study groups. So in the women who did the resistance training and the women who did the aerobic training, they had increased expression of the genes that code for collagen production. So essentially the genes that make collagen were turned on or revved up from the exercise. And as an added bonus for the women who did the weight training, they also had thicker skin measurements. So their dermal thickness was increased because of that exercise that they did. There is more and more data coming out about why resistance training is beneficial as you age regardless of what it does for your skin. But if you needed even more motivation to pick up the weights, there you go. So, if we're going to boost our collagen levels at home, we are going to optimize our skincare routine with retinoids, peptides, vitamin C, excellent sun protection. We may incorporate red light. We also are going to have a really well-rounded diet rich in fruits and vegetables and adequate protein intake. And we're going to exercise on a regular basis. Now when it comes to inoff treatments which is literally my specialty the main concept I try to convey to my patients is that we are going to in a controlled way damage your skin in order to stimulate it to build itself back stronger and in a more robust way. One of my favorite ways to do this and this is relatively affordable in the grand scheme of cosmetic treatment. So take affordable with a grain of salt is micro needling. Micro needling is also literally known as collagen induction therapy. There's even a study that shows that consistent micro needling increases collagen production in the skin 400%. Because essentially what you're doing with micro needling is exactly what it sounds like. You are taking very tiny sterile needles and using them to create channels within the skin. But you're also leaving surrounding skin untouched so that healthy undamaged skin can signal a wound healing response to the damaged skin and stimulate more collagen production. The same concept applies to resurfacing lasers like clear and brilliant and fraal. But instead of using micro needling, you are using heat to create channels of damage that the skin can then heal around. Even IPL, also known as photofacials, which are generally marketed as treatments that help with red spots and brown spots, they're also collagen stimulatory because they deliver heat to the skin, and heat stimulates collagen. The other thing I do to stimulate collagen is to use something called bio stimulatory fillers. You may have heard of the brands Sculptra and Rads. These are essentially particles that we dilute in fluid, typically water, and then inject into the skin. And then when those little particles are within the skin, they stimulate the surrounding skin to make new collagen and new elastin. These types of procedures tend to be particularly helpful for people who get gaunt as they get older. So they get really skeletonized or thin, their skin gets really kind of crepey, saggy. Using something like Sculptra or Rads in the appropriate diluted forms can really help tighten up the skin, add volume where volume is lost. And we don't just do it in the face. You can do it in the neck, in the decllete, in the upper inner arms, above the knees, in the butt. You can kind of put it everywhere. If you have questions about any of those inoff procedures, definitely let me know in the comments. I also have videos here on YouTube that go a bit deeper into micro needling, lasers, sculptra, you name it, I probably have a video on it. And if I don't, let me know so I can make one. Okay, I got to know, are you doing any of the things that I mentioned in this video, or are you inspired to try some of them? If you are doing them, let us know what has worked for you. I love hearing from this community. I love watching you guys help each other out in the comments. Thank you so much for being here. Don't forget to give this video a thumbs up. Make sure you're subscribed to the channel. Maybe tell a friend about the channel. And I'll see you next time. [Music]