{"id":678944,"date":"2026-09-08T18:01:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T18:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/678944\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T18:01:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T18:01:09","slug":"the-best-collagen-products-tested-by-a-health-editor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/678944\/","title":{"rendered":"The best collagen products, tested by a health editor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At some point in my thirties, Botox and joint pain became regular segments in conversations. On a group holiday with friends this summer, I counted one slipped disk, one sprained knee, two sore shoulders and several discussions about whether we should get facial tweakments to make us look 25 again.<\/p>\n<p>I would be delighted if a good collagen supplement would save me from it all.<\/p>\n<p>Obsessed as we all are with ageing, the collagen supplement market is exploding: you can buy it in tablets, ampoules, gels, sachets and powders, in an array of fruity flavours \u2013 and it promises to stimulate collagen production and do away with your fine lines and wrinkles, and soothe joint pain.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSometimes collagen marketing makes you think you\u2019re going to wake up looking like a baby the next day,\u201d says consultant dermatologist and nutritionist Dr Thivi Marauthappu. \u201cI would not hang your hat on that,\u201d she says. Registered nutritionist and author of the Low Appetite Cookbook Rob Hobson also warns that its effectiveness can be oversold and points to research which is \u201cpromising but not definitive\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve been testing collagen products for months. My full reviews are below, but here\u2019s a quick look at my favourite collagens. At Telegraph Recommended, we only award our Best Buy badge to products that <a class=\"ck-custom-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/recommended\/how-telegraph-recommended-test-products\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">achieve five stars<\/a>. The following collagen products achieved that accolade \u2013 and two Holland &amp; Barrett products also met our criteria for a Best Value product.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCollagen is the most abundant protein in your body,\u201d explains Dr Marauthappu. \u201cIn skin, it\u2019s like a structural scaffold. I like to think of it as the mattress under your duvet. All your springs in your mattress need to be strong and bouncy and it\u2019s the collagen that\u2019s responsible for that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt helps provide strength and structure to tissues including the skin, bones, tendons and cartilage,\u201d adds Hobson.<\/p>\n<p>Your body naturally makes collagen using amino acids in the protein that you eat, but as you age, production slows and after early adulthood, our ability to replenish collagen depletes by one per cent each year. \u201cIt really falls off a cliff when your oestrogen starts dropping in perimenopause and it\u2019s at that point women notice structural changes in their skin,\u201d explains Dr Marauthappu.<\/p>\n<p>The theory is that when you ingest a collagen supplement, your body will break it into peptides and amino acids that will stimulate collagen production but as yet, there is no definitive research to prove that\u2019s what\u2019s happening. What\u2019s more, the research that has been conducted is often funded by the companies selling the supplement.<\/p>\n<p>In fact a review of these studies found a clear split between those that were industry funded and those that were not, with the former finding significant improvements in skin hydration after taking collagen and the latter finding no effect on skin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At some point in my thirties, Botox and joint pain became regular segments in conversations. On a group&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":678945,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[277],"tags":[18,135,19,17,508,164602,164597,164599,3013],"class_list":["post-678944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nutrition","tag-eire","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-nutrition","tag-recommended","tag-recommended-health-and-fitness","tag-special-exclusion","tag-supplements"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117236733233947511","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}