Hair, Skin, and Nails Supplements Loaded with “Collagen,” Biotin, Vitamins – Wasting Money and Diminishing Your Health 

 Hair, skin, and nails (HSN) supplements are increasingly purchased despite limited evidence they work and evidence they are harmful, and suffer from lack of regulatory oversight. Stop substituting expensive, harmful supplements for a healthy whole plant-forward diet. And remember, collagen supplements don’t contain collagen, they contain amino acids and peptides (protein fragments).

Supplements marketed for skin, hair, and nail benefits, often called “dermatology” or “beauty” supplements, are increasingly being sold by unscrupulous and/or ignorant salespeople , with the global beauty supplement market expected to reach $7 billion by 2024 (Sanchez et al, 2020). So much money can be made selling these unregulated products that practicing physicians are stepping into this industry in large numbers. It’s a booming business where a supplement manufacturer makes a supplement, then recruits a physician to sell it – and then the marketing claim is made that the supplement is “doctor formulated.” It’s called a physician “side-gig” Despite the narrative that physicians are overworked, at least 40% of them have a side-gig in addition to their physician practice. What better way to make money than to stick your name on a bottle of supplements. Just ask Dr. Oz.

No U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval or registration is required to produce and market a dietary supplement. There is no need for manufacturers to provide proof of safety or efficacy to sell these products. Since no approval is required, like other foods, there is no centralized database of currently available dietary supplements. While it’s hard to immediately harm yourself when eating natural foods, there is no restriction on concentrated doses of vitamins, minerals, and other ingredients that may be eaten, even for nutrients with defined tolerable upper limits (ULs). For example, high levels of vitamin B12 may cause lung cancer (Fanidi et al, 2019), and high levels of Vitamin B1 have been correlated with breast cancer (Tan et al, 2023). Many of these supplements contain iron, and common adverse effects of iron overdose are constipation, gastrointestinal upset, reduced zinc uptake, and iron overload in acquired hemochromatosis (iron can build in the skin and darken and damage it). Zinc toxicity is another problem with many attendant problems including poor cholesterol regulation. I could go on, but you get the idea.

There’s another problem too, of which many, consumers, physicians, and manufacturers alike, are unaware. Biotin (vitamin B7) is widely used in “nail” and “hair” supplements that the FDA has warned may cause interactions between biotin and certain laboratory tests, including those that test for cardiac function and thyroid function. There are numerous reports of biotin interference with laboratory testing, specifically with thyroid function tests. Most commonly, biotin use can result in falsely high levels of T4 and T3, and falsely low levels of TSH, leading to either a wrong diagnosis of hyperthyroidism or that the thyroid hormone dose is too high. Not interfering with such testing is important because thyroid hormone (T3 and T4) affects every cell and all the organs in your body.  

Considering collagen, it can be extracted from fish, pig and cattle skin, but wildly popular is the “bovine” variety. Interesting, Type II collagen from animals is used to induce inflammation and arthritis in animal studies – too much collagen is not good – think scleroderma. In this bovine collagen craze lies a veiled industry driving the destruction of tropical forests and fueling violence and human rights abuses in the Brazilian Amazon. When found out, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Vital Proteins, a major supplier of bovine “collagen,” said it would “end sourcing from the Amazon region effective immediately.” ​I ponder. Remember, it’s not collagen, rather the processed, hydrolyzed components of collagen, mainly some amino acids and peptides, is what the product really is. And those peptides will be broken down to amino acids in the gut, including by the gut’s enterocytes. As for fish “collagen,” many reports of reactions, including anaphylaxis, have been reported. Bovine “collagen” too.

Jennifer Aniston is the chief creative officer of Vital Proteins, a leading collagen brand owned by Nestlé that has been deforesting the Amazon.

For those who would like to know, otherwise you can skip this paragraph, here’s how hydrolyzed collagen is made according to Lopez et al (2019).. Denaturation of native collagen produces three α chains in their random coiled form. It can be observed by thermal treatment of collagen above 40 °C. Once the chains are separated, the hydrolysis is carried out by the action of proteolytic enzymes (alcalase, papain, pepsin, and others). The resulting product is commonly called hydrolyzed collagen (HC). It is composed of small peptides with low molecular weight 3–6 KDa. Its solubility and functional activity (antioxidant, antimicrobial) are related to the type and degree of hydrolysis as well as the type of enzyme used in the process. Another type of hydrolysis is by use of chemical products in acidic (acetic acid, hydrochloric acid, and phosphoric acid) or alkaline media. These two types of extraction are strongly corrosive and produce a high salt concentration in the final product after neutralization. Alternative methods of extraction consist in thermal treatment or applying high temperature and pressure to the protein. It includes subcritical water level (SCW) that exists at a temperature between 100 and 374 °C and a pressure of less than 22 MPa. More environmentally unfriendly steps in the production of “collagen” supplements.

You may have heard about a published, systematic review of clinical trials on oral collagen supplements. Like many studies of this type, the study claims their results support that ingesting hydrolyzed collagen can reduce skin wrinkles and improve elasticity and skin hydration. If you’ve read my papers, you know to ask an important question, “compared to what?”

This study was of taking oral hydrolyzed collagen and comparing it to doing nothing. Eat a lousy diet, take a supplement, and see some benefit. That’s what the study found. In other words, taking a supplement was compared to eating a lousy diet. Try this instead. 1. Eat a healthy diet versus a lousy diet and see what happens, and 2. compare that to the take a supplement with a lousy diet versus eat a lousy diet. Which one is better? Probably number one. Because taking a supplement only provides part of what a good diet provides.

Eat vegetables to provide all the nutrient your body needs to grow healthy hair.

Eating a combination of plant foods that can help with this include:

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