As a martial artist, my joints and bones are under a heavy daily stress. Sprained joints, jammed, swollen digits and bone bruises are just some of the things I deal with when sparring and working techniques. One of the strategies I use to address this issue is the principle “you are what you eat”. Just as eating animal muscles is the most effective way to grow and preserve your own muscle, eating the connective tissue of healthy animals is the most effective way to grow and preserve your own connective tissues and bones (bone is largely connective tissue). This connective tissue processed from animals is referred to as gelatin. This usually is a dried powder and is pure protein. This powder is melted into water, sweetener and flavoring which is then cooled into what we all know as “jello”. Now there is certainly a better way to get gelatin into your body than eating jello (Or is there?), back to that shortly.
I believe gelatin fills a very important empty gap in the modern human diet. To understand how, let us think about how our culture consumes animals as food. The only part most westerners ever eat of the cow chicken, pig or fish is the muscle. This extremely limited, unbalanced and “picky” taste for flesh is a brand new practice to humanity. In fact we have limited ourselves to only picking the muscles off to eat for about 100 years or a little more. From before 1900 all the way back to the beginning of humanity little to nothing was wasted. The organs were consumed and the bones and connective tissue were cooked into bone broth (gelatin) and consumed in soups. This is now rare practice and I would love to quickly illustrate the effects we can all see from this. Let’s answer the question, what happens to the body when the raw ingredients we need to maintain and build our connective tissue are not in place?
Gelatin Regenerates Skin Tissue
The first placed it is noticed is in the skin, which is composed of collagen (like gelatin), or connective tissue. When the building blocks are not there, the skin continues its natural breakdown process. This is naturally countered by a rebuilding process that can only occur when the right building blocks (gelatin) are consumed. When those building blocks are not consumed, the breakdown process moves faster than the rebuild and the skin thins due to lack of collagen. This is what causes wrinkles for those malnourished especially, the thinner the sheet of skin, the more it folds, or wrinkles on itself. This is why the many elderly of modern times have thinner, more wrinkled skin than the elderly of a hundred years ago and back.
With this in mind, let me assure you, consuming gelatin is the most effective natural way to thicken skin and reverse skin wrinkling. This has been shown in multiple studies. One study (Evans et al. 2020) with one group consuming a collagen supplement and the other group abstaining showed that the collagen group scored 35% lower in the “wrinkle score” after 12 weeks. Participants in the collagen supplemental group reported greater percentage improvements in overall skin score (9%) and wrinkle (15%), elasticity (23%), hydration (14%), radiance (22%), and firmness (25%) scores vs placebo.
Another study (Bianchi et al. 2022) had a similar design, the results were as follows. Skin softness statistically improved in 35 percent and 54 percent of participants in the collagen group after 28 and 56 days of treatment, respectively. Skin smoothness statistically improved in 27 percent and 46 percent of participants in the collagen group after 28 and 56 days of treatment, respectively. Skin firmness statistically improved in 27 percent and 58 percent of participants in the collagen group after 28 and 56 days of treatment, respectively. Wrinkle visibility was reduced in the 38 percent of participants in the collagen group after 56 days of treatment. Another study (Tanaka et al. 2009) showed that dietary collagen inhibited the skin damage caused by over exposure to UVB radiation. Not only does gelatin rebuild your skin and joints, it protects it from the harsh sun like an internal sunscreen! This is exciting stuff as scientists have claimed that around 90% of skin aging is a result of sun exposure. Though there are more, the last study (SOUKEN laboratory 2008) that I will mention showed that after just 2 months of collagen supplementation skin hydration increased by 91%. Think of your skin with almost twice the moisture, without any topical moisturizers!
Gelatin Regenerates Joint And Bone Tissue
Your joints and even bones are made of tough collagen fibers. The addition of minerals makes bone more rigid than joints. Rheumatoid and osteoarthritis are the two major “diseases” of joint and bone degeneration. Further, as the average population ages, there is a dramatic reduction in the mass of cartilage, bone, skin and all other connective tissues. This is for the same reason mentioned before. The same dietary deficiency that thins and wrinkles the skin is also responsible for the degeneration of our joints and bones. Since there is always two sides to every coin, we know that we can also rebuild and regrow our joints and bones. A study (Oesser et al. 1999) done in 1999 showed that gelatin hydrolysate, when consumed orally, was concentrated into the cartilage tissues in the first measurement just 192 hours after the first dosage was consumed. Amazingly, this study shows that, by consuming gelatin, you can begin to regrow your joints in just one weeks time. Sign me up!
How about your bones? Bones seem different than skin and joint tissue right? Actually your bones are made of the same gelatinous proteins as your skin and joints. The difference is in the mineral dense matrix that gives the bones more structure. Logically you would think that consuming gelatin would increase bone density too, right? Well if that is your logic, it is a righteous logic. That can be proved by a study (Nomura et al. 2005) that showed consumption of gelatin increased the bone mineral density in the femur of the study (rats) subjects in comparison with the other study subjects. In addition, type 1 collagen and glycosaminoglycan (lubricant and shock absorber that largely makes up bone tissue) content increased in the bone tissues of the subjects consuming gelatin.
Gelatin Improves Sleep Quality And Promotes Sleeping Human Growth Hormone Release
Athletes know that protein consumption is extremely important when it comes to maintaining peak levels of human growth hormone (HGH) in the body. Many athletes also know that, sleep is very important for HGH secretion. Consuming high quality protein before sleep is known to increase HGH secretion by many times. The only problem with this is that many protein foods, especially muscle meat, are very stimulating and can lead to restlessness via dopamine spiking, which is counter productive to sleep. This is where gelatin comes into the picture. Gelatin has an amino acid profile that does not cause stimulation, in fact, it has the opposite effect. The most abundant amino acid present in gelatin, glycine, is one of the most important neural inhibitory substances in the body. This means that it inhibits over-activity of the nervous system which causes restlessness and anxiety and can even become toxic to the brain in extreme scenarios (think of your brains nerves becoming so excited that they actually fry, causing cell death).
So gelatin is a pure protein that can actually act as a sleep aid. The fact that it is pure protein means that it will greatly increase your HGH secretion. The best way to optimize this HGH secretion/sleep aid effect is to fast for three hours before bed and right before you sleep.
Where I Get My Gelatin Hydrolysate
I have tried a few different gelatin products. My only requirements have been that it has to be from grass-fed, free range animals raised without chemicals. Most of these are very pricey but the gelatin I now stick to, Great Lakes, which is my favorite by far, is almost half the price of the last organic gelatin I was using. Great Lakes beef gelatin is purified from free range, grass-fed cattle skin. This is ideal as gelatin derived from bones can tend to be higher in stored heavy metals, which shouldn’t be an issue with grass fed animals. I recommend their beef gelatin hydrolysate powder for convenience. The hydrolysate is broken down to an extremely small particle size so it mixes into liquids and foods better than any protein powder I have ever used. It literally dissolves immediately and has the mildest savory and slightly sweet flavor, very easy to consume. If you want to make your own superfood “jello” you can get their regular beef gelatin granules, melt it into your favorite herbal teas, sweeten, let cool and enjoy.
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