Chapter 2
What's Happening under the Skin: The Collagen Story
Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty.
- Coco Chanel, French fashion designer, 1883-1971
Quick-name the largest organ in the body. Liver? Nope. Intestines? Close, but no. Brain? Forget about it. The correct answer is the skin. It may be hard to imagine, but the skin isn't just a layer of dead cells. Underneath that first layer of epidermis (which is composed of dead skin cells) lie several thicker layers of living dermis and subcutaneous tissues.
Okay, so skin is your body's largest organ. It's your first line of defense against the outside world, and it encompasses a vast network of blood vessels, nerves, and glands (for sweat and oil). The average person's skin covers about twenty-five square feet and weighs more than six pounds when properly hydrated (more on this later).
Your skin offers you more protection than you may think. Aside from affording protection for underlying tissues and organs, harmful light rays, and disease-causing infectious agents, your skin also assists in controlling body temperature, prevents excessive loss of vitamins and minerals, receives sensory input from the environment, excretes water and salts, and synthesizes many important compounds, including vitamin D. What a busy, helpful organ!
The Structure of the Skin
Structurally, skin is composed of two primary parts: the outer, thinner portion called the epidermis and the deeper, thicker connective-tissue layer called the dermis. Beneath these two layers of skin lie subcutaneous tissues, including adipose tissue, or fat. Fibers from the dermis extend downward to anchor the skin to the subcutaneous layers. In turn, the subcutaneous layers are firmly attached to even deeper tissues and organs.
Although the skin is about 60 percent water, the remaining "dry" portion is mostly composed of three types of protein that play critical roles in skin structure and health. A great deal of what causes skin to wrinkle stems from problems with building and maintaining this network of three skin proteins :
- Keratin, your skin's strongest protein, is found in the outer epidermis layer and is responsible for skin rigidity.
- Collagen, which is found in the dermis, is the most abundant protein, comprising roughly 90 percent of skin tissue. Collagen is about the closest thing we have to a fountain of youth since it wards off lines and wrinkles.
- Elastin, collagen's protein buddy and also found in the dermis, is the elastic that gives skin its structure. It is diminished levels of elastin that can cause your skin to sag.
Hair and Nails: Where Collagen Goes to Die
Why doesn't it hurt to get a haircut or to clip your fingernails? Many people might automatically answer that hair and nails have no feeling because they are "dead." A more accurate answer would be that hair and nails have no nerve endings, and thus they don't receive or perceive painful stimuli. To think about this question in another way, ask, "Why does it hurt if you have your hair pulled?" The answer is because the hair is being detached from its "living" attachment in the skin.
The cells that make up hair and nail tissue originate in and receive support from the healthy collagen fibers in the skin matrix. As the hair and nail cells accumulate, the interior of each cell is slowly replaced with keratin, a protein very similar to collagen. We know from decades of research in humans and animals that supporting collagen metabolism with diet and exercise can help support the process of hair and nail growth "from the inside"-by supporting the early steps of collagen and keratin formation.
What we know as "aging" is really the outward observation of an imbalance between collagen breakdown and repair-and the interplay of oxidation, inflammation, glycation, and stress that governs that process.
by