Hack Your Hormones
Collagen and the Kid
Collagen 101: the one in which we look at why supplementing the kids’ diets with collagen is a good idea for their bones, guts and sleep.
Growing up is exhausting. You only need to look at baby animals to know that the young have a lot to learn; the world is ever-new and to be worked out and, in the animal kingdom, at least, they sleep accordingly - often dropping to sleep mid playhunting then whimpering in their dreams as their little bones grow too rapidly for comfort. And those furry friends, unlike our own little ‘uns, don’t have school, the training schedule of an Olympic athlete or a world trying to tell them they won’t fit in unless they eat every sugar under the sun, plus a good range of those invented in labs, and a hefty dose of neon food colouring thrown in.
We’re all trying to do our best for our ragamuffins and their nutrition, but, if there’s a quicker way to get from nutritionally compromised to beautiful bones and happy tums without a wrestling match or a full scale pout in which they hate us (there is - its bovine collagen), then, we say, bring it on! Throw in a good night’s sleep and the job’s a good un! Collagen peptides have high safety profiles and A grades in bioavailability, so you won’t be losing any sleep over slipping them some supplementation either. In fact, if you fancy offering those pipsqueaks antioxidant, antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties with a lovely dollop of ability to regulate or modify their immune system for the better, then you’ve just made a new friend! [*]
Collagen and dem bones, dem bones, dem kiddie and grown up bones
While your kid’s interest in bones mainly revolves around Halloween skeletons, as parents, we know how important bone health is in our children. It seems, however, that what we do for our children’s bones right now forms a lifelong legacy. Scientists are increasingly interested in how preconception, gestation, early feeding and childhood nutrition affect the metabolic bases for health in adulthood. For example, bone mass, beyond genetic factors, is partially determined by nutrition and physical activity in childhood. For example, senile osteoporosis, often referred to as brittle bones, has its roots in paediatric disease.
Skeleton Support
We know it’s part of our responsibility to shovel calcium and Vitamin D into the little blighters, and our fridges are so stocked with full fat dairy that there’s the faint sound of mooing from within. In late May or early June, we pop ‘em out, bare-armed, in the sun for half an hour, sans sunscreen, until cooked, but collagen supplementation could support their bone health and the legacy it provides in adulthood further. So, while we might have missed the pre-conception window for forming our children’s future health (anyone else do the pregnancy test with rising panic that you’d been knee deep in tequila and takeaways the week before?), and our children may be past the breastfeeding stage, (that, or our boobs were totally over it once their gnashers grew in, thank you very much), there is still a massive window of growth left for those little skeletons of theirs.
Remember, 30-40% of bone is made up of Type I collagen and bone formation is a process that ceases in late adolescence. There are innumerable big sleeps until then, huh? One study [*] found, ‘administration of collagen in early stages of life may represent a preventative therapy against bone disease’ with the study group being boys and girls who also engaged in physical activity and ‘collagen may play a major role in optimal growth and development at critical stages in life and may have a positive influence on bone remodelling’. The study indicated that ‘prolonged dietary collagen intake seems to stimulate bone formation during important periods of growth and development, influencing both bone formation and bone reabsorption biomarkers’.
The key thing is that, with our WillPowders Bovine Collagen Peptides, it is really easy to fortify your kids for the future. Our hydrolysed collagen is in powder form and disappears into liquids as soon as you can stir and say, piff, paff, puff. Even your supertasters with their forensic taste buds won’t detect it. It doesn’t change taste or viscosity, because no child ever wants to ‘try’ something new in their diet - they learned to avoid the whole ‘try’ scenario after that incident with the sprout - they will be happily oblivious. Meanwhile, you will watch in wonder as though observing wildebeest around the watering hole in a natural history film, marvelling at how they aren’t in the least bit spooked by the collagen peptides in their favourite drink.
Type I Collagen for Your Kiddiewinkles, Yes, but We do Tummy Loving Type III too!
Sure, our WillPowders Bovine Collagen Peptides provide amino acids for Type I collagen to support bone formation and growth, but with bovine collagen, you’ll also be supporting the hollow organs of the body, like the gut, within the very same mouthful. It’s a rare specimen of a child these days who isn’t being fed gut inflaming foods somewhere during their day. It’s tricky to pack a lunch box minus free sugars, and, even if you did, there’s probably one smart entrepreneurial kid who is smuggling sweets into school and selling that contraband. Besides, the canteen does a nice line in roly poly and custard and they are little and they’re growing. However, sugar can wreak havoc on the stomach because it interrupts the good gut bacteria. But, what you can do is ensure those growing guts are as sound as they can be.
Collagen peptides serve as a nitrogen or carbon source for the friendly bacteria in the gut - those microbes have got to feast on something. It serves our children to have the microbiome in their gut feeding the goodies rather than the baddies! Studies are clear that collagen peptides support the delicate balance in the intestinal tract, for example, collagen peptides ‘can have a prebiotic effect by enhancing the dominance of beneficial bacteria within the intestinal flora’ [*]. With the gut being one of the first lines of defence, you might say taking collagen peptides is a little like launching a counter attack against your child’s ability to attract every pesky germ in a ten mile radius! Happy tummies make for happy mummies, because, guaranteed, if you think you’re part of a parenting tag team, when it comes to the night shift and an under the weather little one, how many of us have found we are like a lone bloody Florence Nightingale clutching her goddamn lamp!
Talking of sleep, are collagen peptides the missing link in the bedtime routine?
You’re religious about bath, book, bed but the buggers still aren’t sleeping and, as a result, you are beginning to look like a new form of cryptid when you arrive at work - bring your inner Big Foot to the office day, anyone? Let us introduce you to the WillPowders double whammy of our WillPowders Bovine Collagen Peptides and Protein Powder in order to try to encourage The Sandman to start paying regular house calls. Collagen peptides could decrease the number of awakenings your child experiences in the night and our protein powder contains tryptophan as part of its amino acid profile which, according to the Sleep Foundation, ‘likely contributes to good sleep because the body uses it to make serotonin, a neurotransmitter. Serotonin helps regulate sleep and is used to create melatonin, a sleep-promoting hormone’.
We’d all like to have a bedtime routine for our kids whose efficiency is akin to a German train timetable, and now we have the potential to up the efficacy of that routine.
Layer up those amino acids for sleep by making our protein powder into a warm bedtime drink - if you do this by adding warm milk, you’ll be building up the tryptophan, which is also in full fat milk, as well as in our protein powder, and you’ll be emulating Mother Nature’s seductive combination of a milky drink that has the perfect combo of satiating good fats and sweetness that we are all hardwired to love for survival from birth. A little bonus is that the smell of vanilla (rife in our vanilla protein powder) might just also provide a little scent therapy to aid sleepiness and calm the startle reflex [*]. Sprinkle in a little collagen peptide powder alongside and the Morning Town Ride train could be puffing into the station before you can read the whole of Go the Fuck to Sleep! You can’t say fairer than that!
Further Reading
To read a little more about the prebiotic effects of collagen peptides try Baojing Ren, Kaiyan Yue, Yuhao Zhang, Yu Fu, Collagen-derived peptides as prebiotics to improve gut health, Current Opinion in Food Science, Volume 55, 2024, 101123, ISSN 2214-7993
Try this A little study on how collagen might help prevent the frequency of waking in the night
Read a little more about Tryptophan and sleep via this link
Read a little more about Vanilla and Sleep via this link
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Disclaimer
Our blogs are written with love in the hope that they go some way in helping you feel like the rockstar you are, and whilst we do our due diligence, research like maniacs and fact check our stuff, we know everyone’s journey is different. They are intended to educate and empower you, not usurp medical advice. We would never advise you to stop, adjust, or modify any prescription medication without the direct supervision of your healthcare practitioner, but don’t be afraid to talk to your doctor about your new found knowledge, brought to you by the marvels of nature because they don't know everything! Blogs are always informed by Davinia but often written by a member of the team. Not all blogs reflect Davinia's experiences and sometimes provide alternative perspectives
