Dental Health
Can Collagen Heal Your Gums?
Collagen may hold the key to healthy gums and strong bones. Research suggests we might not be getting enough glycine to support our body's collagen production.
Dental Health
Collagen may hold the key to healthy gums and strong bones. Research suggests we might not be getting enough glycine to support our body's collagen production.
Line items
So many wonders escape our notice. This often happens because we limit our horizons. Perhaps from fear. Perhaps from lack of belief and trust. You might say: we keep our lives small. Science doesn't help matters these days either. Because Corona has made it clear we're increasingly becoming a technocracy. Here we must be very cautious: if you constrain your lived reality only to what "current scientific findings" allow, then ... well, goodnight. You'd have lived a very poor life in the Middle Ages.
On the contrary. What many people don't understand: the more you know, the more you learn about science and life, the greater becomes the fascination within the realm of possibilities. You become small again and open to the wonders of life. Isn't that a much more beautiful perspective? Being human means being allowed to marvel at things.
Personally, I always feel strange when I sit in the dentist's chair. It feels odd. It seems like everyone has cavities and gum recession. Can that really be? Is that actually "normal"? You could certainly argue about it. But here's what many don't know: years ago, groundbreaking research showed that "a novel approach using bovine collagen can improve gum healing. This resulted in thicker tissue margins around the tooth and in over half of cases, complete coverage of exposed roots." Essentially—put simply—they applied bovine collagen from the outside directly to the gums.
The background: "The collagen appears to act as a scaffold for the body's own cells to repair the damage, yielding results comparable to those from soft tissue grafts. Bovine collagen is a viable solution for patients with limited donor tissue availability or for whom multiple surgeries aren't feasible."
Interesting, isn't it? It makes you think. For instance, about why our gums recede in the first place. You can explain it biologically, of course. Bacteria migrate deeper into the gum pockets and ... well, what exactly? For bacteria to penetrate that far and cause damage, two things must happen: First, the immune system must overreact. This also damages your own tissue. But simultaneously—second—bacteria must weaken the bonds between tooth and gum. These connections are made of collagen. In other words: only with collagen can gums stay attached to teeth. Bacteria cut through by producing collagenases, collagen-degrading enzymes.
This brings us to another point worth considering. There are ancient studies on prehistoric humans—for example, Neanderthals. What's striking? They had incredibly thick, strong bones. Hard to believe given they had no milk and far less calcium in their diet. No, their secret was movement. Heavy mechanical loading. Sometimes too much loading, which wasn't ideal. But the fact is: for anything to grow (or regrow), you must create stress—set a stimulus ("use it or lose it"). I often think about our delicate teeth, which bear little resemblance to the primate teeth we once had. Here's what matters: bone and teeth are very similar. Both use calcium as a key structural component, plus phosphate—called hydroxyapatite—and ... collagen.
Maybe we, hopefully wanting healthy teeth, should bite into solid food (raw vegetables?) instead of soft bread, then follow it with bone broth or a collagen shake? If you think we're spinning tales from a Bavarian beer hall here, you'd be wrong. On one of the most respected platforms for micronutrient information—most know it as examine—it states:
An average adult human needs nearly 15 grams of glycine per day, of which 12 g goes to collagen synthesis (...) However, glycine synthesis is limited to about 2.5 g per day, suggesting humans need about 12 g of glycine from food to meet daily metabolic demands.
I'm quoting this only because ... it means something when they state it that clearly.
Recall: glycine is the most abundant amino acid in collagen, making up roughly one-third of the total mass. Glycine occurs so abundantly because it's the smallest amino acid and is what enables the characteristic spiraling structure of collagen strands in the first place. Evidence from years ago showed that without glycine or collagen supplementation in the diet, we simply cannot supply the body with enough glycine and collagen-building blocks so it can consistently produce sufficient collagen. Think carefully about this: it implies that wrinkles in aging (= collagen deficiency in skin) might be ... unnecessary?
Indeed: data suggests we're short by at least 5 grams daily (= one teaspoon of glycine powder) from our food to keep our collagen fresh. In the short term, you barely notice. But long-term? Then you think about broken teeth and gum recession. Wrinkled skin. And damaged bones (osteoporosis)—and much more. This connects us to Bruce Ames and his Triage Theory, which states that your body manages micronutrients to fuel two systems: one serving short-term survival, and another serving long-term wellbeing. We modern humans mainly feed the first system. The second falls by the wayside—glycine and collagen synthesis could be the example.
Isn't that fascinatingly remarkable?
