Nobody Told Me Collagen Starts Declining in Your 20s

Nobody handed me a pamphlet at 25 that said: heads up, your collagen production just peaked, and it's declining from here. There was no mention of it at any of my annual physicals, no footnote in the prenatal vitamin instructions, no asterisk next to the daily SPF recommendation. 

We talk to young women about sun damage and calcium and folic acid — all important! — and somehow skip entirely over the protein that makes up most of their bones, holds their joints together, and starts quietly disappearing right around the time they're just figuring out their lives.

Collagen is the most abundant protein in your body. It's the structural foundation of your skin, yes, but also your bones, tendons, cartilage, and connective tissue. Production peaks in your early-to-mid twenties and then drops by roughly 1-1.5% per year after that, gradually at first, then faster when estrogen falls in perimenopause. By 50, you've lost roughly a quarter of your peak levels.

The reason most of us don't get enough through food is straightforward: collagen lives in the bones, skin, and connective tissue of animals, and most of us don't eat that way anymore. Our grandmothers made bone broth because that's how you used the whole animal. We eat chicken breasts and protein bars, which are great, and also not the same thing.

I'm not saying this to add another wellness “thing” to your list. I'm saying it because I genuinely wish someone had told me sooner — ideally before I spent a decade not thinking about it at all.

NativePath Collagen Peptides is one flavorless scoop that dissolves into whatever you're already drinking. A simple place to start.