How To Boost Collagen & Repair The Body For Longevity | Dr. William Li

today I'm going to talk about A protein that you need to know about and that is collagen if you are somebody who's always wanted to have strong youthful radiant skin and you also care about your joints you want them to be flexible and pain-free you want to have a resilient body that ages well then what you need to know is that boosting your collagen is actually very very important and today I'm going to show you the best foods and the best lifestyle habits that's going to help you repair and fortify your body's collagen and that's

it really from the inside out so that you can actually Thrive all right because that's what we always do all want to do in our lives is to actually Thrive now you've probably heard about collagen in beauty products or maybe even lip injections you know the uh people that you see that look like really really puffy lips and maybe that kind of turned you off from the idea of collagen um but it's true collagen is found in cosmetics and in plastic surgery and for body enhancement but it's much more than a cosmetic Buzz work and

that's really what I want to talk to you about today is what role does collagen play in health and how can you actually enhance your own collagen and why do you want to to do it all right so collagen is a natural protein that plays an absolutely fundamental and key role in keeping your body strong and resilient all right and is also important if you want your body to heal naturally so let's go ahead and start by defining what is collagen and what does it do for our health all right ready let's dive in so

I told you the collagen is a protein in fact it's one of the most abundant proteins in our body our body's largely made out of protein okay makes up about 30% of our body's protein content imagine that that's a third of our body is actually made of collagen and what collagen does is it acts like scaffolding between our tissues and our organs it kind of holds everything together all right so if you imagine a building that is actually our body the stuff inside it the scaffolding all right that that actually helps keep everything together is

actually made of collagen that's 30% of our body now this is kind of like a protein net it provides structure though Nets kind of like soft and flexible this actually provides tensile strength and structure right ever see inside a building inside of the walls of the building they have iron rods and poles this is kind of like that it provides actually structure and support and what does it support well it supports not only skin but it also supports our muscles it supports our bones and our connective tissue that's the found in joints all right um

really really important and in fact the word collagen itself actually means glue comes from a Greek word Cola all right which actually means glue all right so you're going to think about collagen as the glue and the structural support of our body now if you don't have enough collagen why is that a problem well based on what I just told you your body is going to become weakened and our structures actually um start to fall apart right and in fact as we age that's actually what happens if you our collagen starts to actually decline um

sagging skin needs more collagen joints that aren't working so well in fact they may be painful not enough collagen collagen is wearing down all right and collagen is actually really really important for healing as well so if you're older an older person who cuts themselves all right not going to heal even if it's like a you know you're cut you're cutting uh uh vegetables in the kitchen oops you sliced your skin all right when you were a kid right or you're teenager even your 20s that wound healed up fast your 50 your 60 or maybe

even older that wound starts to heal more slowly you know why your your collagen levels are actually down and you need collagen for actually healing all right if you have surgery um now you're really doing cutting uh very deliberately intentionally somebody who's older getting surgery is always going to heal more slowly than somebody who's younger who kind of bounces right back really quickly all right older people take a little longer to heal up and that's partly due to the lack of collagen declining collagen as we age there's no magic age the collagen begins to decline

it's kind of you know kind of like we start we we have a lot of it maintain it um and then at a certain point it starts to WAN like let's say 60 years old and above maybe for some people even younger um but that is actually a connection between collagen and aging this protein that makes except 30% of our body goes down when we age and because this protein is important for structural strength resiliency healing that's why I'm actually making this video about collagen so you can actually understand why it's important it's not just

injecting your lips all right now your body's actually making collagen right from the time that you're you were still in your mom's womb all right and after you were born it was still making more collagen of course as you're getting older and growing up your body has to shape itself and that body sculpture requires that collagen to be able to shape your shoulders and shape your hips and shape your uh the body Contours all right so through childhood through adolescence through young adulthood your body needs to make collagen and we don't really notice our collagen

declining until you know after mid middle age but in fact Studies have shown that our body's production of collagen goes up as we're you know kind of like uh developing then after about 25 the production of collagen slows down doesn't mean that it breaks down it means that it starts to slow down we start to notice our collagen problems when actually when our collagen is breaking down but our production of collagen slows down while we're about 25 or so all right and that's why even people who are young adults if you're um you know over

25 and you're watching this you got to think about colle and to because your body's not making as much as it used to but that means that your body is not as resilient or as strong as it used to be that's why collagen is actually a real important subject and if you're somebody who is thinking about longevity which is what a lot of people are now it's a very very popular subject and in fact my research is going into longevity healthy vibrant longevity is what I'm actually working on but if you want to actually get

there meaning older ages all right however long you actually want to live or wind up living you need collagen in order to be able to have get you through that whole way all right now I've given you mostly a description of collagen that talks about structure and strength and ways that you can actually easily see or feel right bones joints skin but actually collagen is found elsewhere in your body as well for example in your eyes did you know that your cornea which is like the crystal clear face of a watch it's on the front

that's what you put a contact lens on all right that cornea the clear part is actually made of collagen and the collagen fibers are lined up perfectly so they're optically transparent that means that collagen even though it's a it's a protein structure is aligned so that light can go right through it you can see right through it like a drinking glass right like this all right that's what you're like like the the collagen orientation protein is aligned in a way that light can go right through it now collagen is also found in your blood vessels

all over your body all right now you know how many blood vessels we have we have 60,000 miles worth of blood vessels that's so extensive that if you pull out all your blood vessels and line them up end to end to end to end you'd form a ribbon that would wrap around the earth twice that's how extensive it is that whole structure is actually partly constructed out of collagen so if you want good vascular Health as you're aging and remember your body slows down collagen production after the age of 25 by the time you're 50

and 60 you start noticing the breakdown of collagen right but if you want good vascular structure you need to pay attention to collagen and the good news by the way I'm going to tell you ways of things that you can eat and Lifestyles you can actually uh undertake lifestyle habits that actually help you with collagen so don't worry I'm going to give you the payoff on this video all right very soon now the other thing that you need to know is that even your heart contains collagen now your heart's about y big all right it's

kind of shaped like an oblong uh oval sits an angle in your chest it's got a beat all right and uh the skeleton of your heart that gives it its shape is made out of collagen and so are the valves in your heart now your heart has got four chambers in it you've got the Atria two atria and you got two ventricles the Atria kind of fill with blood the ventricles pump it out in different directions the right side handles the lung the left hand side hand the rest of your body but there are valves

uh okay that are throughout your heart those valves are made out of collagen so you've might have heard of people who have valve problems mitro valve problem mitro valve prolapse mitro valve replacement or you may have heard of the aortic valve oh somebody I know had a big- Time surgery they had their aortic valve replaced that's what we're talking about and usually when those valves are replaced it's because the valves have failed meaning they're not Sealing the chambers anymore or maybe they're stuck um and part of the reason is that the collagen is actually not

doing its job all right collagen is also found in your spine your spine is made of these bones called vertebrae right like you've seen it in Halloween the Halloween skeleton vertebrae vertebrae vertebrae vertebrae between each vertebrae uh is actually uh a layer of uh his joint and there's a layer of collagen that's provides a cushion all right so when you actually hear about people who are getting older oh man I got back problems it's usually because the collagen the joints are wearing down and that can compress on the nerves that are popping out through the

spinal cord so these vertebrae are like basically um they're uh like shells and they got a little uh uh tunnel in between and that's where the spinal cord goes down so now we're tipping it up spinal cord goes down the little nerves pop out to the left and pop out to the right got two vertebrae look the nerves are coming out right through this Gap if they Crush down because you don't have enough collagen you're going to have pain all right so collagen very very important for not only proper structure and strength but actually prevent

you from actually having the kind of chronic back pain sciatica that's a really big one when you actually have U the the vertebrae crushing down or cervical vertebrae in the neck all right eventually we all wind up having wear and tear of those joint and then that can brush down and now you've got arm pain and back pain and leg pain so collagen really really important for your skeleton as well collagen is founded our mouth in our gums and our teeth uh and our muscles have collagen as well all right about 6% of your muscle

isn't actually muscle fiber actually met out of collagen right think about the shape your bicep you need to actually have collagen holding that shape that classic football shape that it actually has now tell you a little bit more about col C now collagen is a protein and proteins are made out of what do you know amino acids right so collagen is a protein proteins are made out of amino acids and amino acids are basically the building blocks of our body right for life to have formed on Earth basically amino acids were created other the raw

chemicals and then the amino acids came together we started to form proteins and that's basically how we crawled out of the swamp out of the soup all right now if you are science geek you really really want to uh know what are the proteins in collagen well the main ones in collagen are glycine Proline and hydroxyproline right those are the three glycine Proline and hydroxyproline but most of you guys are not going to be science Geeks all right um uh but here's what you do need to know these amino acids right they're kind of like

Little Fibers uh they're Twisted together all right uh like in it like three imagine three strings that are twisted together now what's what are you going to form you're going to form a twisted rope that's what gives it strength in fact we call it a triple helix might have heard about Helix in biology like DNA is a double helix DNA is pretty important well collagen which is also very important is a triple helix it's three strings of protein that you twist around imagine the strength of trying to pull that apart okay Twisted piece of twine

that's what collagen actually is and that's what gives it its strength now your body relies on these twisting structures right to be able to keep your skin nice and plump all right and give it its like structure it has going to keep your joints flexible right look at this my joint's flexible you need collagen to be able to do that and your muscles have to be strong you need that collagen all right and if you want to look youthful all right back to something that we all relate to vanity right we look ourselves in a

mirror if you uh actually want to kind of look the way that you remember yourself looking that you want to look you need collagen on your skin because when your collagen in your face for example starts to break down that's when people start to look skeletal all right they start to their cheekbones start jutting out they start uh their face changes right like you're and then of course the skin sags and you change even more okay collagen important important as we age slows down production after 25 when you get to middle age you start noticing

collagen breaking down and that's when you have back pain and our heart valves start to fail and your SPI starts to change you know all the things that we care about right and if you want to actually look youthful you're going to need to maintain your collagen as you age and there are different foods and lifestyle things you can do to help you maintain that collagen that's what's important all right that's what this video is going to be about hey there I've got something important to share with you and that is my guide to the

three healthy foods that you might want to avoid if you're looking for longevity many products that are marketed as nutritious can actually undermine your health and if you want to find out more about these sneaky ingredients and how to make better choices then just click on the link below the video for all the details it's very important to know what's really in your food and this resource that I'm giving you gives you a head start get it right now for free in the description below or you can access the guy by scanning the QR code

on the screen with your smartphone now let's jump back into the video but there's one more thing I need to tell you about collagen and that is that there isn't just one type of collagen in fact there's many different types of collagen in our body in fact about 28 types as of last count probably more we just haven't discovered them yet that's the amazing thing we're discovering new things about the human body uh by the way like we're still discovering new organs in the body believe it or not topic for another video um but it's

pretty cool actually I'm going to just tell you right now the interstitium uh is actually a new organ in the body and it's very important for our health we're just beginning to uh understand how it works I'm a scientist as well as a doctor so I'm I totally geek out on like the discovery of new organs but back to collagen at least 28 different types of collagen right okay so you you ever go to a candy store and you see all the different kind kinds of candy out there imagine collagen 28 different types all right

now there is one predominant type of collagen in your body about 90% of all the collagen in your body is called type one collagen now you're going to not going to need to remember all these different things but I do want to give you enough background so that you know if you ever talk about it with somebody you have some knowledge about it 90% of our collagen in our body stuff we rely on is type one collagen all right and this is the type of collagen that you need to heal a wound cut yourself o

you got to actually heal it from the Inside Out stuff's got to grow including collagen and then the Skin's got to close all right you're going to have to wound closure that involves collagen as well and then if a scarf forms it's going to be collagen there too all right now type one collagen important for wound healing all right whether it's trauma surgery whatever it is the collagen in your tissue by the way also once it starts healing remember like forms the structure it also guides tissue regenerations because once you actually have those struts all

right the Scaffolding in a wound for example then stem cells are going to come out now stem cells are regenerative cells that are inside our own body and they're going to actually come out and they're going to stick and follow the scaffolding to rebuild the tissue that needs to be rebuilt now if you're interested in hearing more about stem cells uh I wrote a book called e to beat disease let me show you where it is right here e to beat disease it's a whole chapter on stem cells regeneration and the foods that can actually

help you do regeneration ation speed up regeneration as well and by the way I just tell you one of those Foods is dark chocolate all right so you got to read the book if you want to find all the foods I'm telling you they can actually help you regenerate but for regeneration those stem cells will follow along the collagen and cagen will actually help the skin close it'll actually help um scar form so you don't actually break open again and it provides a strength for your tissue like how many times have you cut yourself right

each time you needed collagen as well all right now before we dive into the foods and habits that can help lose collagen all right I'm going to actually tell you that eating collagen helps your body make more collagen so in other words eating the collagen doesn't put the collagen that you ate into your joints or into your skin that's how it's sometimes discussed that's not how it works all right and I used to be very skeptical when people would tell me oh I eat collagen um because collagen is actually good for my joints I used

to say that's BS there's no way that what you're eating will actually survive stomach acids all right but here let me tell you exactly what actually happens when you eat collagen which is a protein made out of amino acids when you swallow it into your stomach all right what winds up happening is that the stomach acid will digest the collagen that you've eaten we're going to talk about what foods that's in going chop it up into a lot of pieces now you got to have a soup of different collagen fragments and those collagen fragments get

absorbed into our bloodstream right so it does break it down into component parts like amino acids but not everything is broken down so you got all these collagen fragments and it turns out that the collagen fragments can activate the cells in our joints in our skin in our heart in other parts of our body those collagen fragments are biologically active and they can actually stimulate our cells that produce collagen called fiberblast to make more collagen so when you eat collagen your you it gets into your stomach your stomach a it chops up into pieces and

and parts of these collagen fragments float around your body and they activate cells that naturally make more collagen now the other thing that happens when you actually eat collagen is that that chopping process of digestion the stomach acid chopping up that collagen a lot of it actually does become just free floating amino acids and you know what happens your body needs amino acids to develop more protein all right so you've heard you know people talk about as you get older you actually need to maintain your protein you want to have enough protein in your diet

absolutely true all right um because partly that amino acids that come from protein that your stomach chops up they're used to build more protein in your body but the key it's not like you know if you eat muscle uh animal muscle like a steak that is actually going to go straight to your muscle to build muscle nope actually protein that you eat wherever that protein comes from and there's plenty of plant-based proteins but wherever that protein comes from the stomach acid chops it up during digestions and it creates amino acids and those amino acids are

what your body actually uses in order to build more protein the fragments from collagen that you eat chop chop chop chop into fragments circulates in your body they can actually activate your cells called fiber blast to actually create more natural collagen what what kind of collagen you need in a place you need it all right and by the way this is how collagen Works to benefit your your skin your hair your muscles your joints and the same thing actually happens whether you're eating collagen from your food or if you actually take collagen as a dietary

supplement the only thing about collagen dietary supplements I think is that as I told everyone who's watched my videos when you get a supplement you want to really look at the ingredients to make sure that there is isn't anything that the manufacturers have put into the supp that you're not comfortable with putting into your body right so not going to go talk too much more about that other than the fact that collagen supplements work the same way all right so what is the evidence all right because I'm all about evidence what is the evidence clinical

evidence in people the collagen Works to benefit your bones and joints so a clinical study from Penn State University look at 97 athletes okay these are athletes who had a lot of wear and tear and pain in their uh joints and our muscles from their sport right what whatever they were doing actually like really gave them a serious workout they were sore afterwards and half the subjects were actually given gelatin now gelatin like jello is actually made of collagen that's like all collagen right they were given it for 24 weeks that's six months and another

group okay a part of the group was given a placebo right that's how you do a clinical study you your test uh substance which is a collagen which is Jello gelatin and the other one U just a placebo for um 24 weeks or six months and the group that actually received the gelatin the collagen had a 37% decrease in their joint pain 37% decrease in their joint pain all right um another study from Washington State University looked at 80 elderly people now that study from Penn State looked at young people young athletes this one looked

at 80 elderly people with osteoarthritis now osteoarthritis is wear and tear pain in your joints because you're you've actually worn down a lot of the uh joints that's made out of collagen right and now you got bone on bone okay and these people all had joint pain bone on bone pain osteoarthritis for at least three months all right if you're an older person like 16 and above you probably have osteoarthritis somewhere in your body all right and if you know people who are elderly I guarantee you they're going to have osteoarthritis that's actually just a

normal part of aging because the collagen wears down which is why we're talking about collagen in this video now in this group of 80 elderly people uh some of the subjects were given collagen made from chicken bones now we're going to talk about this later but if you boil down chicken bones you know basically like a carcass you're going to wind up getting this like very very nutrient-rich broth a lot all the collagen in the chicken bones are going to actually kind of dissolve into the soup right so this is basically why probably your grandmother

told you have some chicken soup it's really really nutritious well it's a nutritious broth chicken broth is very very nutritious and part of the nutrients in it are um actually uh collagen from the chicken right okay it's protein all right and what they found is that those elderly adults who were giving the chicken broth actually had their joint pain significantly decreased okay now let's now talk about foods that help your body produce collagen because chicken soup is actually one of them I'm going to come back to that but the first food I want to talk

about are you ready let's talk about food number one so if you're taking notes Now's the Time that you pull out your paper and pad or pull it up on your mobile phone all right food number one that helps your body build collagen is foods that contain high amounts of vitamin C C is in Charlie all right and the reason is Vitamin C is necessary to help your body make collagen naturally right remember production slows so you want to actually make sure it's got the fuel it needs actually make more collagen it's a co-actor vitamin

C is a co-actor for the enzymes for the Machinery in your body the factory your body's collagen Factory you need Vitamin C to actually you know Grease the joints so that you're so to speak so that your body can actually work more collagen and people who can regularly consume high amounts of foods that contain vitamin C guess what Studies have shown that they've got better skin elasticity all right bounce back faster and they also heal their wounds faster or however they get their wounds all right now the other benefit of eating foods with high amounts

of vitamin C Guess What vitamin C is an anti-inflammatory bioactive so not only you get to build your joints and build your get better skin uh but you also actually are going to lower inflammation in your body as well in fact some clinical studies that I wrote about in eat to beat disease actually show that um people with an autoimmune disease called Lupus if they're eating foods with high amounts of C that their lupus flares are much less frequent and uh much less severe and their inflammatory but blood markers C reactive protein which is you

know what your doctor might measure the biomarkers are down if you eat foods that are high in vitamin C all right more collagen better collag building collagen less inflammation that's all great right like that all decreases the risk of actually developing chronic diseases when you actually lower nutrition now it was a study that was published in the American journal of clinical nutrition that found that women who have a higher intake of vitamin C from fruits and vegetables all right are 177% less likely to experience dryness and 11% less likely to um Have Wrinkles a wrinkly

appearance on their skin right this is just from eating foods containing uh fruits food fruits and vegetables containing vitamin C so like less dryness dry skin and less wrinkling so when do we actually think about dryness and wrinkling the skin well as we age right people who are aging now we're all aging all right so I'm I'm talking about sort of in the second half of your life if you're in the second half of your life and you start noticing your skin is getting drier more parched looking and wrinkly okay that's what we classically saw

call aging skin it's because you're having less collag in your skin and if you have more vit foods containing vitamin C your um symptoms are actually going to the signs are going to be not as bad all right so my Pro tip is to load up your uh plate when you're eating with colorful Foods fruits and vegetables this is like eating the rainbow because there a lot of those colorful Foods actually have vitamin C so what are the foods that you might want to eat that are have high have high vitamin C to help your

body make more collagen which is better for your hair your skin your joints Etc okay here's my list strawberries I love straw strawberries all right high in vitamin C Tomatoes really high in vitamin C all right um bell peppers like could be red ones it could be green ones I can be yellow ones all contain a lot of vitamin C broccoli contains a lot of vitamin C all right kale as well that's a Brasa family guava um it's a fruit um contains vitamin C kiwi you know the little green emerald like uh fruits I strongly

advise you to try it if you have't but they're really delicious super easy to eat for breakfast great vitamin C Properties also good for dietary fiber good for gut health all right a super simple little thing to eat that's good for your body uh cantaloupe right nice ripe cantaloupe which I love to eat and pineapple all right so I like to buy like a when I see a pineapple I don't get it pre-cut I like to have it on my counter actually looks pretty nice and uh it'll ripen over time you can smell it if

you smell the base of it um you can smell that nice ripe pineapple flavor so that's what I do when I'm buying it you want it to feel that the when you go to a grocery store and you buy pineapple see if it kind of is a not very soft but when it's actually you kind of the flesh itself you can feel from the outside the skin you can compress it a little bit look at the bottom smell the base all right that's what I always do it should smell like a pineapple that's going to

get ripe and you're going to bring it home it's going to get even riper and smell even better and another little tip that I use for buying pineapples all right wiggle the the top uh leafy you know those little Cactus sea leaves wiggle it when it's Wiggly it means actually it's on its way to being ripen so you want to buy a pineapple that's on its way being to being ripen all right not too raw all right like a super hard pineapple no scent at all at the base and like the top doesn't wiggle look

for another one that actually has that property because when you breing it home you stick it on your counter for a couple of days guarantee you it's actually going to start to ripen more don't put it in the fridge just have it in your counter and you'll start to actually uh get that higher stronger Aroma that it'll get a little more Wiggly and the fles should be soft couple of days slice it open how do I do it with pineapple I know we're going to get back to the whole vitamin C and collagen story but

I just want to tell you because I love pineapples you um cut the top off all right uh and um then what I like to do is just take that football likee pineapple cut it straight down on a wooden cutting board all right now you got two halves it's got the skin on it skin not edible I don't recommend it all right um it's got a lot of dietary fiber but don't eat doesn't taste good all right and what you do is you just like with two halves of the pineapple on your cutting board all

you got to do is like slice vertically down to remove the skin don't take away too much of that delicious flesh scrape off all the skin I like to kind of wash it off and oh by the way make sure you wash your pineapple here's a little Pro tip that pineapple used to be in a tree fell on the ground almost certainly all right or or S was sitting in the bottom of a box someplace probably sat in a airplane maybe a truck for a long time and sat in the back of the grocery store

wherever it is it might have even been transported by a horseback or doggy back whatever wash it rinse it under the sink before you cut into it all right for 60 seconds in cold water sing happy your birthday twice to your pineapple all right and then cut it in half like I said on the cutting board and then just literally vertical slices that get off all the skin throw the skin away all right now you get this beautiful two halves of pineapple and they're just in the right size and they because you've cut the base

like cut the base and cut the leaves off top off you got flat surfaces now you can actually cut it very safely I always get worried because um if you peel it off the pineapple is kind of slippery you can cut yourself going to have need to collagen to heal it but actually um better to be safe uh with the pineapple so that's my little tip on pineapple cuz I like pineapple one last thing for you to know about P pineapple helps digestion and it's got a bioactive called Brolin okay that you eat uh and

that's also a bioactive that's good for your body uh as well all right okay so enough about pineapple you know foods that contain vitamin C's strawberry uh tomatoes green Ed bell peppers broccoli kale guava kiwi cantaloupe and pineapple are some of my favorites all right incorporate trying to incorporate one or more of these into your diet every single day you don't need to do the same thing every day switch them out make it like something that you enjoy doing all right and if there's one you don't really like oh man I don't really like kale

I don't like cantaloupe you know don't worry about it switch to something else that's the best way to use food as medicine actually to um make it work for you all right and you should be including the foods that are part of your preferences all right but try to eat some foods with vitamin C every single day and um the key to using food for health is consistency do something consistently all the time all right so collagen Health vitamin C Foods regular part of your diet all right um now there's another hidden benefit to vitamin

C Foods all right um not only is it help your body produce collagen not only is it anti-inflammatory but vitamin C also is an antioxidant so it protects your DNA as well again in my book e to disease I write about um how your DNA is hardwired to protect itself but vitamin C can help to um put a shield uh over your col over your DNA to prevent it from getting damaged all right and by the way also protects these antioxidant uh properties also protects your collagen from being damaged by free radicals now these are

free radicals that you know might be from pollution in the air from ultraviolet radiation from off gas ing from uh artificial uh preservatives or flavorings or additives in your food protect your DNA protect your collagen vitamin C will actually uh do that all right so not only does it actually help your body make new collagen it also helps to protect the collagen that you have as well as your DNA all right ready for food number two food number two that's good for collagen that anybody can actually uh make at home or or have at home

is bone broth all right you've probably heard about bone broth it's all over the internet people talk about bone broth all the time but I like to have a different perspective because I'm not somebody that automatically jumps on the uh a trend because everybody's talking about it in fact I like to go back to tradition and ask okay what are the things that are important that are been sticks to over Generations well there in almost every culture the food tradition is that bone broth is really really healthy and that's why it should be on your

radar every culture has a version some kind of version of bone broth and how do you make bone broth or how do different cultures make bone broth I mean just ask your grandmother um how she makes it usually from the leftover bones and maybe with a little bit of Flesh hanging onto it the carcasses the joints the wings the rib cage you know chickens turkey duck Beef Pork you name it you can use any any kind of leftover carcass from cooking and I know I'm talking to people who are omnivores and not uh uh vegetarians

and and not vegans but I'm sorry you're going to have to bear with me uh it's really the meat protein uh uh that actually contains the collagen right so what do you do you take these bones and carcasses put them into a big heavy pot this is what I do fill it up with water just to the tip of wherever the bones are you don't you don't need to completely flood the compartment U however many you have all right bones put them into the pot all right fill it up right to the top so the

water just covers the top of the bones all right turn it on H to boil it get it to a boil like a real vigorous boil then turn it way down to the lowest possible simmer and in the meantime uh chop up some vegetables right so I like to add carrots and onions going to put a bay leaf in if you want I mean there's all kinds of things you can actually put in there scallions or if you want to do it Asian style um add some ginger you want to have a gingery bone broth

absolutely delicious you can make ramen out of it I mean Ramen Bowl um you can steam rice with it there's all kinds of things you can actually do with this lovely Ginger flavor um but if you do it sort of like western style Mediterranean style take an onion take a some garlic take some carrots stick them in there all right and you're going to wind up getting like the veggie uh flavors you're going to get some of the bioactives in there as well along with the collagen now you simmer low low low low low you

can simmer over overnight if you don't feel comfortable keeping the heat on just keep it out though all right put a lid on it uh while it's really hot all right and then if you're going to turn it off don't worry the the temperature differential will suction the cat lid down so it'll be safe all right the next morning though turn it back up to do a boil that way it'll kill off any bacteria of any bacteria grew and then you'll be back in business all right the longer you actually simmer your bone broth and

you know you've probably heard about this at a Japanese restaurant they're like 36-hour bone broth or broth for the ramen Ramen broth that's what it means like they they're boiling boiling boiling more and more collagen is going to come out all the collagen from the joints of the carcass and the bones are going to dissolve right out into the broth very very rich in amino acids especially Glycine and protein right that's why again your grandmother actually said have some chicken broth or have some pork broth or beef broth this actually is very rich in these

micronutrients um amino acids as well as collagen and when you actually simmer for hours and hours and hours you're going to extract all these amino acids into the broth as well along with some of the minerals from the bone all of this bone broth supports collagen production so if you care about you know your skin and your joints and and how much protein you're getting in bone broth is a really great way of doing it now you should also know that traditional healing traditional medicine often use bone broth as part of their um toolbox all

right so they would um find a way to actually serve up bone broth for joints uh joint repair and pain um and by the way there's even some new evidence fast forward to present day looking at the future the collagen can even help with gut health as well all right specifically leaky gut syndrome looks like collagen can help bu the lining of the gut and maybe strengthen the gut to prevent the leak very important all right um because when you have got leaky gut it sort of like the lining of the inner lining of the

gut kind of starts to create holes it's like like a diver with holes in the wet suit now seawat is going to come in all right or in the case of the gut like your uh it's stuff from the gut that'll actually get into to the lining of the gut now that's very very irritating all right so bone broth the collagen seems actually to be healing for that makes a lot of sense right now the bone broth is also hydrating so think about that so if you're talking about dry skin for example um just having

bone broth not only builds a collagen but it also hydrates your body um that's one thing that happens also when people tend to get older they don't stay hydrated properly hydrated so bone broth is a way of sort of knocking out both of those things all at the same time good for skin good for joint health good for bone health good for hydration that is bone broth okay ready for food number three food number three leafy greens sulfur Rich vegetables I'm talking about Sal Brasa vegetables so broccoli kale all right Brasa spinach is another one

all right these are leafy greens now I don't need to tell you that leafy greens are beneficial for your health because you already know that all right but what I do need to tell you is that when you actually have leafy greens a bras family they can actually have isoo cyanates or itc's and suanes all right and they also have a lot of dietary fiber which is good for gut health and when you have um a wellfed gut because of dietary fiber your gut bacteria wellfed but gut bacteria help you lower inflammation in your body

as well so leafy greens help you your body lower inflammation and guess what but the isothiocyanates the itc's and sorines they help support collagen production all right sophanes are important for supporting your own body's production of collagen all right um what does sulfur do sophanes what does the sulfur do well remember I told you collagen is three chains of protein that are twisted together right into a triple helix sulfur actually stabilizes that triple helix right they're they actually make the the Helix even stronger to give it that strength that tensile strength and by the way

leafy greens like spinach as I said uh but also kale a good source of vitamin A talked about vitamin C earlier to help your body the co-actor co-enzyme to actually create uh collagen well vitamin A actually has been shown to stimulate trigger new collagen production in aging skin all right so here's another great way way to actually have your greens now you're actually stimulating uh with vitamin A you're stimulating collagen production in your skin so spinach Cale great way to do that when you've got collag in your skin guess what you're going to have greater

elasticity all right you want it to be able to stretch and spring back all right smoother their appearance all right that's also what we actually you want it's supposed to wrinkly lots of lines sulfur Rich vegetables are something you can easily add to your diet um uh some of them that I love I like broccoli um I like broccoli rub I like regular broccoli by the way here's a little Pro tip when you buy broccoli don't just get the fettes all right unless you're going to buy Frozen and they usually just sell you the fettes

fettes are good they actually have that so those sorines but what you need to know is that a broccoli plant is a really um long it's got a long trunk like a stem and then it's got the fettes at the very end mostly the stem that's plants is most mostly stem all right um and we tend to eat only the fettes but if you go to the farmers marker buy the whole broccoli don't throw the stem away all right A lot of people used to trim the stem and throw it away I used to do

it too years ago but keep the stem because the sorines and a lot of good beneficial dietary fiber in the stem and if you go wait a minute I have no idea what I'm going to do with the stem here's what I tell you I do all right um sometimes you want to um skin the stem because the outside skin of the stem can be a little tough dietary fiber all right but sometimes you want to uh basically skin it and slice it in like diagonally into kind of medallions um now you can actually sauté

that and it absolutely delicious whatever you're cooking the tops on you could sauté the broccoli stems separately or guess what you don't want to deal with the broccoli stems that way put them in a blender and make a broccoli soup you know one of the favorite broccoli soups that I have I actually I wrote I included the recipe in here it's broccoli oregano soup try it it is so good all right and you get all the goodness of the broccoli you can make it with broccoli fettes of course uh which I like to steam but

you can actually make it with the stem all right I'm just telling you a little tip all right so um another source of on sulfur in your diet onions and garlic these are alien they're not Brasa onions have sulfur garlic has sulfur that's why the partly is responsible for that really pungent potent smell that you get wonderful smell for cooking by the way all right those are also sulfur sulfur actually makes your collagen stronger all right and the vitamin A from spinach and kale makes your body make more collagen as well all right hey there

are you ready to use food to improve your health I Do cover a lot in my YouTube videos but there's only so much time to dive deep into how to use food as medicine that's why I created my eat to beat disease course in my course I walk you through how to use everyday foods that you can find in your grocery store to boost your body's Health defenses this is all based on my research and everything is rooted in science and I've made it super easy to follow with practical everyday tips whether you're trying to

prevent disease or just want to optimize your health for longevity my eat to beat disease course gives you all the tools to make it real and to help you get lasting changes that will help you live longer and live better to learn more click the link below or scan the QR code on the screen I can't wait to get started together in my course now back to the video so you know a study actually been looking at women who ate leafy greens they actually have fewer wrinkles than people uh women who did not eat leafy

greens as well all right um by the way I talked about spinach so since I'm giving you little cooking tips I'm going to tell you one way I like to do spinach whether you use like grown-up spinach or whether you use baby spinach I learned this dish um from a restaurant that was cooking Spanish food wash your spinach leaves right um take some extra virgin olive oil in a cast iron pan or stainless steel pan all right great polyphenols good healthy mono saturated acids slice up some garlic throw it in there flavor up the um

the oil with garlic all right um and then throw your spinach leaves in there big pile of spinach leaves will reduce really fast into not very much spinach so you want to make sure you buy enough or do enough at a time I usually fill up whatever the whole pan is it's go quickly uh once the spinach kind of wilts it'll quickly melt down into a kind of like a much smaller amount of spinach sauté that add a pinch of salt not too much because you don't want to raise your blood pressure and then if

you want to have some toasted pine nuts and some golden raisins throw them right in there okay turn it around once or twice you want to throw a little chili flake in there take it off like literally you'll be done with this thing in like less than five minutes it's the fastest way to make a vegetable dish that I actually have that tastes amazing and you get your vitamin A and you get your polyphenol from from the hydroxy tyone ooc can on the olive oil and you get the Allison and the sulfur sulfur from uh

from the garlic that you're throwing in there right they get a little resol and uh or solic acid from the golden raisins as well see what I'm saying you don't need to worry about the science worry about the flavor but I'm just telling you people who study food is medicine like that's what I appreciate about a dish like that okay all right by the way so everything I'm telling you about is actually how to help support colge collagen production collagen maintenance collagen repair in your body all right and I can throw dishes together in a

few minutes that can actually support uh collagen and remember the more leafy greens that you're eating the more benefits you're going to have for your overall health these plant-based Foods they've got lots of polyphenols that actually activate your other health body's Health defenses and lower inflammation boost immune function all right good for your gut the dietary fiber helps your stem cells improve your circulation it's all good all right just make sure you find a way to cook greens in ways that you actually enjoy it's not those greens that you didn't want to eat when you

were growing up in your mom's cooking find the ones that you absolutely enjoy all right food number four you ready gelatin we talked about this already a little bit of the clinical trial people getting gelatin the athletes well gelatin is something that's really useful for cooking so if you want to go on Google and look up gelatin g l a t i n um recipe or cooking techniques and just click on video and watch somebody show you all the different ways to actually you make gelatin so um so you get I'm not going to go

through all the tips on how to actually use gelatin but where would you actually have heard of gelatin because I'm sure you're we're all familiar with it well remember the jello J L L O that's a brand I think um that we used to have growing up right that's all collagen right it means it's loaded with those Amino it's a great sorts of protein we used to have them as kids right and your body needs that protein and needs those amino acids it's really really great and that Jello gelatin that Jell-O actually was made the

same way that the bone broth is made is made by boiling down the skin and the bones and ligaments of the pork and chicken all right it's a byproduct the gelatin that you get you can buy in a grocery store um is actually is a byproduct for the food industry like they're making things out of chicken and pork and all that kind of stuff stuff right and I give it to you as a powder all right and gelatin as a powder which is collagen and collagen fragment it's colorless it's flavorless can come in a box

or a bag and it dissolves in hot water and when you dissolve it in hot water Stir It Up and when it cools you stick it in the fridge guess what it's going to have a jellylike texture firmness to it packed with those amino acids you'd expect from collagen right good for protein all right now amino acids by the way remember if you have any with amino acids your body's going to take those amino acids that you're loading into it and use it to make other protein that your body actually needs so how do you

make what do you do with gelatin well you can make your own Jello all right um you want to cut your own seasonal ripe fruits in the summer go for Cherries or go for strawberries or go for blueberries or whenever you're actually whatever is ripe right that you can actually find I guess cherries are a little bit later peaches in the summer pears in the fall whatever it is like amazingly delicious and ripe by the way those fruits have their own polyphenols and dietary fire cut them up into small pieces throw them into um the

gelatin mixture that you boiled with hot water stirred it and you can throw the fruit in there fruit pieces they're going to settle to the bottom all right and uh if you want to do it like your mom used to do it make one layer of gelatin put it in the fridge when it's kind of firm add the fruit then put another layer of gelatin on it now it's kind of locked in the middle of it's floating in the middle that's actually how you build those layers up all right put in the fridge don't add

any extra sugar don't any any other flavorings or anything just let the incredible flavors of the ripe seasonal fruits shine through it all right um and then when you cut it you can eat it you're going to get the sweetness you're going to get the juice from all these fruits mixing together by the way do not do what we used to do your mom probably did this I know my mom did we used to buy whatever cans of of cut preut seasonal fruit packed in syrup which is all added sugar and preservatives and things like

that uh don't do that that's so old school and like like out of school from today's uh appreciation of Health cut your own ripe fruit into pieces throw them into gel gelatin put in the fridge and then really enjoy some fresh Jell-O like let's let's go ahead and work together and reinvent the idea of healthy Jello as opposed to that nuclear colored stuff remember it was red and bright red and Wiggly or bright green or Wiggly or bright orange or Wiggly those were all artificial colors and then the the jelly the Jello-O stuff that we

used to buy packed with added sugar and additives that you don't want in your body so you want to um have collagen that's protein in your body and you want to make a dessert out of it okay a healthy dessert it's another way to actually have fresh seasonal fruits cut them up and do it yourself avoid that Atomic red fluorescent green uh that we actually had when we were kids but doesn't mean that that Jello you know uh I guess we can't use the brand but um invent your own gelatin dessert absolutely amazing and definitely

avoid all uh uh artificial coloring all right now by the way if you're going to make something Savory as well you can throw a little bit of gelatin powder into a soup or stew into a sauce you're making you're going to thicken it up right so that's another way of actually getting protein and amino acids into some of your cooking right so that's actually another way to use gelatin all right now I'm going to switch gears and give you two lifestyle tips on how to naturally boost your body's own production of collagen right number one

lifestyle tip exercise turns out that regular physical uh activity uh especially strength training and like lifting weights actually stimulat your body's production of collagen right because your the movement of your muscles and your tendons and your ligaments actually stimulates the cells remember those cells called fiber blasts I told you that make collagen when you're working out that the pull that your cells feel know oh I think we need a little more strength let's make a little more collagen so that's a like kind of a knee-jerk reaction from your cells that the C Level um that

your muscles and Joints need to remain strong your body will produce more collagen that's another reason why exercise is important all right now what you need to know also when it comes to that's your muscle now when it comes to your joints you got to realize that exercise is also beneficial for joint health because even though as you get older you're going to get some wear and tear osteoarthritis all right um when you're physically active again that stretch on those fiber blasts on your joints are going to basically say hey can we make a little

more collagen here now it's not going to make a huge amount but it's enough to actually counter some of the joint problems of Aging you know slow it down a bit okay don't need to hit the gym you don't for hours you don't need have a trainer to get these benefits um uh these are simple uh types of exercises you can do at home uh squats or lunges or push-ups there're all ways to stimulate collagen production in your body the key thing is consistency if you really want to do this don't do push-ups like once

a week do a few every day all right and doing something for as short a time as you have all right is better than doing nothing or doing it just rarely all right regular daily physical activity of some sort particularly strength training resistance training will actually help your body produce more collagen bake this into your daily routine if you can all right can't do it every day for whatever reason do it a couple of times a week all right do it every other day that'll actually be better for your choice all right lifestyle tip number

two for better collagen all right this is the opposite of exercise and what is that lifesty tip number two is sleep when you're sleeping your body may be resting but it's not inactive in fact during sleep your body's Factory wakes up it's a night shift all right and it starts doing healing all over the body and one of the things it does for healing is when you're sleep in your body produces collagen all right so sleep is part of your body's natural repair cyle cycle Mother Nature figured out during Evolution you know like you might

injure yourself during the day but when you're sleeping time to fix things all right so your brain is kind of turned off from Consciousness but guess what the rest of your body is really really active by the way it's not just building collagen but you're rebuild your immune system heal your gut there's all kinds of things that are happening when you're sleeping that are good for you um uh in any case but building collagen is one of the things that happens when you are getting good night's sleep so how do you do this well that's

a whole topic for another video but I can tell you give you some quick tips right now don't drink caffeine late at night all right don't eat midnight snacks late at night because actually you don't get good quality sleep when you've got lots of food in your stomach just as you're starting to go down your body sort of needs to stay awake a little bit to digest that food for a while so you're cutting down on your quality sleep time which should be about eight hours all right think about that what's eight hours of sleep

go to bed 11:00 get up at 7: in the morning does that sound reasonable or go to bed at midnight and get up at 8: listen these days so many people are working from home you can figure it out if you don't have a meeting before 8 you know go to bed at midnight and get up at 8 or go to bed at 11 and get up at 7 that's eight hours of Healthy sleeping before sleeping don't drink too much alcohol alcohol also disrupts your brain waves so you don't it's harder to get good quality

sleep and before sleeping try to put away your mobile device your laptop don't stare at that blue screen that blue screen actually the blue light from coming from the screen even from your phone even if you turn on dark Mode still got blue light um it actually has been shown to disrupt your uh sleeping patterns all right so basically uh if you're thinking about your body's collagen make sure that you're doing everything possible to get enough good sleep which is not just good for bones and joints and muscles uh it's also good for overall health

and lowering inflammation and avoiding brain fog in the morning by the way because while you're sleeping guess what your brain is actually going to be um purging itself there's like a whole sewer system and drains of toxins that have accumulated during the day so what I try to do is I make sure that I actually get a good night solid night sleep every single night like that's part of my health hygiene is I take about I care about sleeping uh and I want to enjoy my sleep as well you know sleep is kind of a

pleasure able thing you don't want to be tossing and turning all night if you can avoid it all right so think about that um so look um how do we know that this is important for sleeping in collagen well there was a study at Case Western University that there's a medical school that that looked at the important of sleep and skin Health this was done by dermatologists and they showed that in 60 premenopausal women all right between just ages of 30 and 49 all right that's the range of adults that are before menopause and they

looked at their sleep pattern and they found that women who had poor sleep all right um there's a measurement scale that they use called the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index guess what when they correlated sleep and the quality of sleep with skin the women who had poorer quality sleep had more aged skin when they actually looked and objectively looked at their skin um they had more fine lines in their skin they had more wrinkles In Their Skin they even had more uneven pigmentation you know that's what happens during aging skin if you look at somebody in

their AG or 90s you know they got spots in their skin their skin isn't evenly colored well that's what actually happened when the women who had poor sleep they had more you know pigmented uneven pigment on their skin and they also had slacker skin slack skin means you don't have a lot of resilience right boom you want to be able to actually have resiliency all right on the skin um slack skin you pull it out actually stays like saggy all right a Telltale sign of Aging Telltale sign of poor collagen not enough collagen not enough

sleep all right by contrast in that study from Case Western University of premenopausal women between the ages of 40 30 and 49 the good sleepers guess what they had objectively younger looking skin so it works all right so a for eight hours every night all right you want me to be realistic 7 to9 hours that gives you some flexibility right just try to get eight hours but 7 to n hours somewhere in that window is good all right that's a sweet spot for better overall health and by the way the other thing of getting good

sleep it lowers your stress levels as well all right if you chronically don't get enough sleep your stress is going to build and during the day and that's going to make it harder for you to actually sleep well uh later in the evening again anyway so protect your body's collagen producing ability get a calming good night's sleep all right you know what before bed rather than look at your uh your phone read a book old school all right um it's you know I think two of us are just looking at screens these days I I

love books all right um you want to pick up one of mine all right actually you're G to be so excited reading my stuff you might actually not sleep as well so read uh some fiction something that actually gets your imagination going like that's the other thing that we need to be doing if you don't flood yourself with like you know little news bits um read a book that you really really enjoy make sure your environment's dark your temperature is cool you want good restorative sleep oh one last little Health tip like little Pro tip

on getting sleep guess what that old tradition of chamomile tea herbal tea no caffeine just chamomile there are bioactives in chamomile that have been shown in clinical research to relax your brain calm your mind relax your body get a good night's rest all right um and here's one thing all right right don't get hung up on any one piece of information I've just given you everyone's going to be different all right everyone's pattern is going to be different but just cons create a consistent evening pattern all right that can actually help you get good sleep

figure out what works best for you but good sleep is important for collagen as well so there you have it food is medicine lifestyle tips to help your body boost its production of collagen protect collagen all right and get enough protein in your body and also get some anti-inflammation as well I hope you learned something new with this video and thanks for watching I will see you on the next video Dr Le out hi there if you enjoyed watching this video I know you'll love the next one stay here and check it out and I'll

see you there