Collagen Supplementation for Ultrarunning with Luc van Loon, PhD and Keith Baar PhD #206
Episode overview:
Luc van Loon is a Professor of Physiology of Exercise and Nutrition and Head of the M3-research group at the Department of Human Biology at Maastricht University. Luc has an international research standing in the area of skeletal muscle metabolism, has published well over 475 peer-reviewed articles. Current research in his laboratory focuses on the skeletal muscle adaptive response to physical activity, and the impact of nutritional and pharmacological interventions to modulate metabolism in both health and disease.
Episode highlights:
(22:50) Results of collagen research: collagen stimulates neither connective nor contractile proteins in muscle, potential explanations, the benefits of collagen are not confirmed, areas for future research
(42:35) Dietary protein intake: athletes who exercise more consume more food, thus their protein and amino acid intake per kg body mass is already high, recap
(45:57) Sources of collagen: collagen from skin sources are superior, dangers of concentrating heavy metals in bone broth, example of athlete consuming arsenic from salt
Our conversation:
(0:00) Introduction: ubiquity of collagen in the marketplace, 2% of the sports supplement market, introducing Luc’s academic background, Keith’s surprise but welcome guest appearance
(3:05) Luc’s lab: research group of 30-35 people, the interplay between nutrition and exercise, investigating muscle loss and gain, working down the hall from clinical practitioners
(5:10) Clinical research and sport: crossover, exercise is medicine, being sick is like playing professional sports, parallel to KoopCast 73 with Inigo San Milan, treating diseased populations with exercise, examples
(8:06) Questions about collagen: collagen and creatine are the two most asked about supplements
(9:10) Muscles and protein: bodily tissues are constantly being rebuilt, muscle turnover, in 3 months your muscles are completely rebuilt, muscle plasticity, physical activity and nutritional (protein) stimulate muscle growth
(11:20) How collagen works: factors that affects proteins stimulating muscle protein synthesis, easily digested, amino acid composition, lucine, whey protein, collagen has poor amino acids but is necessary to transfer force between tissues, collagen adapts to exercise
(14:04) Nutrition and collagen: glycine and proline, questions about maximizing adaptability
(15:04) The “lucine revolution”: recovery drinks, marketing, hype, are supplements actually necessary, heart of the lion analogy, the complexity of muscle synthesis
(17:11) Pervasiveness of collagen: 2% of the sports marketplace, $1.5 billion segment of the market, collagen is available in any grocery store
(19:28) Research and collagen: reasons for studying collagen, Keith Baar’s research, collagen is sensitive to exercise, protein during recovery stimulates muscle synthesis, mechanisms
(22:50) Results of collagen research: collagen stimulates neither connective nor contractile proteins in muscle, potential explanations, the benefits of collagen are not confirmed, areas for future research
(26:04) Collagen response to exercise: resistance exercise expresses more myofibrillar proteins, endurance exercise expresses more mitochondrial proteins, examples, weight-dependant exercise helps more with connective and structural adaptations
(28:09) Studies on collagen and exercise: resistance training and supplementation studies, goals of increasing the strength of connective tissues, challenges with isolating the effect of collagen supplements, examples
(30:43) Potential uses of collagen supplementation: athletes with low protein intake
(31:30) Keith Baar’s research: differences as compared to Luc’s research, Keith studies plasma biomarkers to investigate tendons and ligaments, Luc studies muscle samples, to study tendon and ligament samples you need to perform surgery
(34:32) Bringing on Keith: setup for mechanisms of collagen supplementation, do the ligaments ever see collagen
(35:56) Keith on mechanisms of collagen: collagen synthesis increases with exercise, people would rather take supplements than exercise but this is not effective, load management is key
(38:35) Camille Herron: work in bone mechanobiology, splitting work into smaller sessions has a better effect on tendon, ligaments, and bone, supplements may be useful for ultramarathoners due to extreme situations
(39:57) Doubling: workouts 2x per day may have a greater effect on structural and connective tissues specifically, there are other factors at play for athletes
(40:30) Does collagen enhance exercise response: the data is too young to know, collagen helps in older populations, the jury is out on young athletic populations
(42:35) Dietary protein intake: athletes who exercise more consume more food, thus their protein and amino acid intake per kg body mass is already high, recap
(44:38) Anecdote: collagen for a broken hip, low risk of extra collagen, nothing is magic
(45:57) Sources of collagen: collagen from skin sources are superior, dangers of concentrating heavy metals in bone broth, example of athlete consuming arsenic from salt
(48:30) Quote from Luc: there are no data to support the fact that collagen peptides stimulate connective protein synthesis rates, building blocks versus stimulants, lucine example
(50:54) Future research: understanding how collagen works regardless of its effectiveness as a supplement, supplements only work when you are deficient, next steps
(53:13) Warp-up: giving thanks, making sense of what collagen means for athletes, ultramarathoners are not typical research subjects, where to find Luc and Keith, everything is open access, if not reach out to Luc and Keith
(56:37) Outro: giving thanks, share the KoopCast, check out Research Essentials for Ultrarunning
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