Latest / Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40 / Collagen Protein Does NOT Build Muscle (Bayesian Inference) | Ep 216

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Collagen Protein Does NOT Build Muscle (Bayesian Inference) | Ep 216 · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:01
  Philip Pape: If you've been spending money on collagen protein for muscle building or wondering whether it's worth the investment, this episode's for you.
• 0:07
  Philip Pape: Today, we're breaking down the truth about collagen protein and muscle growth using a framework called Bayesian Inference.
• 0:13
  Philip Pape: This is a powerful tool from statistics and engineering, and we'll use it to explore what the latest research says about collagen's effectiveness specifically, and why you might need to rethink your overall strategy, but, more generally, how to apply Bayesian thinking to any fitness claim so that you can make smarter decisions about your nutrition and training.
• 0:32
  Philip Pape: So get ready not only to challenge your assumptions, but to learn how to challenge them and any claim out there, so that you can build muscle and train and eat more effectively.
• 0:41
  Philip Pape: Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique.
• 1:00
  Philip Pape: I'm your host, philip Pape, and today we're diving into a topic that might upend your protein supplement routine, because many of you are using collagen protein or you're wondering about it, and I often talk to potential clients and clients who say, yeah, I get 20 or 40 grams of my 120 grams of protein from collagen peptides.
• 1:20
  Philip Pape: Is that effective?
• 1:21
  Philip Pape: Or sometimes they just assume it is, and so today we are going to explore why collagen protein might not be the muscle building powerhouse or even helpful at all for muscle building that it's usually marketed at, especially to older individuals, who definitely are a market for anything talking about maintaining skeletal muscle mass.
• 1:41
  Philip Pape: We're going to evaluate this claim using a powerful tool from statistics engineering called Bayesian inference.
• 1:48
  Philip Pape: So if you're new to the podcast, the Wednesday episodes we take a framework or a concept from engineering and apply it to fitness, because it's a different perspective and a helpful way to apply our critical thinking skills to this topic, and then by the end of the episode, you'll have a new framework for evaluating any fitness claim.
• 2:06
  Philip Pape: You see whether it's on Instagram, on a podcast, on my own show and then make smarter decisions for you about your nutrition Before we get into it.
• 2:14
  Philip Pape: If you enjoy the show and you want more content on building muscle and losing fat efficiently, hit the follow button.
• 2:21
  Philip Pape: That's all I ask that you do.
• 2:22
  Philip Pape: Just hit the follow button in your podcast app so you'll get notified of the next episode, help more people find the show and also allow me to understand whether you like the show or a specific topic so that I can create more content like that.
• 2:37
  Philip Pape: So first let's talk about what Bayesian inference is In simple terms, it is a method of updating our beliefs as we get new information.
• 2:47
  Philip Pape: That's all it is.
• 2:48
  Philip Pape: It's named after Thomas Bayes, an 18th century statistician, and we're not going to get into any formulas or too much of that history.
• 2:55
  Philip Pape: I want you to think of Bayesian inference like this you start with an initial belief about something, then you get some new evidence and, based on that evidence, you adjust your belief.
• 3:04
  Philip Pape: It's just a simple mental workout for your critical thinking skills and something that we basically want to do to everything that comes our way, everything, every source of information that comes into our ears, our eyes, our brains.
• 3:16
  Philip Pape: And you know who does this really well is my daughter both my daughters.
• 3:19
  Philip Pape: So we homeschool our kids and they take logic something I never took as a kid, and I wish every human being had to take logic in grade school, especially politicians, but even fitness influencers, because the ability to identify logical fallacies and take evidence and adjust our beliefs is super important.
• 3:39
  Philip Pape: But in the fitness world, you know, we are constantly bombarded with new information, with new studies, with new claims, and Bayesian thinking gives us a structured way to process all of this and then come to more accurate conclusions without necessarily having to dive deeply into all of the studies and all of the details at that level.
• 3:59
  Philip Pape: And we're not saying that we're going to abandon all our prior beliefs every time.
• 4:03
  Philip Pape: It's kind of like a scientific hypothesis.
• 4:06
  Philip Pape: You know we have the hypothesis and the evidence comes in and supports the hypothesis over and over and over again and so it becomes a stronger and stronger belief.
• 4:14
  Philip Pape: But eventually something might upend that that has never been studied before and it either rejects part or all of the hypothesis with the new information.
• 4:22
  Philip Pape: And so, same thing in our brain we have these beliefs and we want to update the beliefs in proportion to the strength of the new evidence.
• 4:31
  Philip Pape: So even it's not abandoning everything, it's just updating our beliefs proportionally.
• 4:37
  Philip Pape: So let's apply this to today's topic, which is collagen protein and muscle growth.
• 4:42
  Philip Pape: Our prior belief, our starting point, might be that all protein sources are equally effective for building muscle.
• 4:50
  Philip Pape: In fact I and many other people will say just get your total protein for the day from any source, whether it's animal, plant sources, and you're good.
• 5:01
  Philip Pape: And generally I still stand by that statement because many people who are consuming collagen protein, it's probably a small percentage of their protein anyway, it's probably not a big deal.
• 5:12
  Philip Pape: However, if you're trying to make choices and maybe even save some money in your supplements and not have to try to game the system with something that doesn't work, we want to dig in and say, well, what about collagen protein specifically?
• 5:25
  Philip Pape: After all, protein's protein, right.
• 5:27
  Philip Pape: And then this belief is reinforced by the supplement companies who market collagen as a muscle building aid, along with all these wonderful benefits for hair, skin, nails, right Kind of the beauty side of it, which you see prevalent in the beauty industry as well.
• 5:43
  Philip Pape: Yeah, so here's where things get interesting.
• 5:46
  Philip Pape: There's a new study that came out.
• 5:47
  Philip Pape: It was reviewed in mass the monthly application of strength sport a very well-respected research review from Stronger Byte Science, right, dr Eric Helms and those guys and it challenges the belief and this is where we can apply the Bayesian thinking.
• 6:01
  Philip Pape: The study conducted by researchers like James McKendry and Stuart Phillips.
• 6:06
  Philip Pape: It looked at the effects of different protein supplements on muscle protein synthesis in older males.
• 6:13
  Philip Pape: So we've got they're isolating to the specific supplement, they're looking at how it affects muscle growth and they're looking at older population all the things we generally care about here.
• 6:22
  Philip Pape: They compared whey protein, pea protein and collagen protein, and what they found is that both whey and pea protein increased muscle protein synthesis by about 9% compared to a control diet, but collagen protein didn't increase it at all Zero.
• 6:40
  Philip Pape: So let's put on our Bayesian thinking caps.
• 6:43
  Philip Pape: We started with the belief that all proteins are equal for muscle growth.
• 6:46
  Philip Pape: This evidence suggests strongly that that is not the case, and so we have to update our belief.
• 6:51
  Philip Pape: So, in Bayesian terms, we are calculating the likelihood of collagen being effective for muscle growth.
• 6:56
  Philip Pape: Given this new data and based on this study, that likelihood has dropped quite a bit.
• 7:01
  Philip Pape: So what's our new, updated belief?
• 7:04
  Philip Pape: That not all proteins are equal when it comes to muscle growth, and we have evidence saying that whey and pea protein are, collagen isn't, and so this has some important implications.
• 7:13
  Philip Pape: First, it suggests that when you choose a supplement for muscle growth whey or pea protein in fact, I prefer pea slash rice blend protein if you're vegan, vegetarian or you cannot tolerate dairy or whey products, so whey or pea and rice might be better choices than collagen.
• 7:30
  Philip Pape: And second, it highlights the importance of protein quality, not just quantity, which sometimes gets dismissed because we say look, if you eat enough protein from multiple sources, you will not have to worry so much about quality, but I would argue that if you are heavily leaning toward one source that is low quality, that could have a negative impact on the overall quality.
• 7:50
  Philip Pape: Now, this is just one study.
• 7:52
  Philip Pape: This is just one study.
• 7:53
  Philip Pape: So, in the spirit of Bayesian thinking, we should be open to updating our beliefs further as more evidence comes in.
• 8:00
  Philip Pape: Maybe future studies will show a benefit to collagen for muscle growth in certain contexts, or maybe they'll just confirm what we just read.
• 8:08
  Philip Pape: So, practically, if your goal is to build muscle, I would just say there's no need to use collagen.
• 8:13
  Philip Pape: Like most people, when they consume collagen, they're having to go out of their way to buy it as a specific source of protein, and I would say just don't worry about it.
• 8:21
  Philip Pape: Just focus on high quality protein sources from food, mostly predominantly animal products if you're an omnivore, and then plant sources as well, but vegans, vegetarians, can get plenty of high quality protein just from a diverse diet.
• 8:35
  Philip Pape: And as far as supplements, many of us who need a decent amount of protein, yeah, we've got to have a whey protein shake or pea slash rice protein shake in there.
• 8:43
  Philip Pape: There's no issues with that.
• 8:44
  Philip Pape: There's no problem with that.
• 8:45
  Philip Pape: So we got whole food sources lean meats, fish, eggs, legumes, soybean type products, and then we have, of course, our supplements whey or pea slash rice.
• 8:57
  Philip Pape: Now you might say, well, what about all the other benefits of collagen?
• 8:59
  Philip Pape: Right?
• 9:00
  Philip Pape: Should I just stop taking it and then I avoid or I miss out on those benefits?
• 9:04
  Philip Pape: So let's again Bayesian hat on here.
• 9:07
  Philip Pape: Look at some of the other claimed benefits.
• 9:09
  Philip Pape: The first one is skin health, and there is some evidence that collagen supplementation might improve skin elasticity and hydration.
• 9:19
  Philip Pape: But and what I'm going to say here when I say, but for that?
• 9:23
  Philip Pape: And the hair?
• 9:24
  Philip Pape: Claim?
• 9:25
  Philip Pape: So hair and nail strength, right?
• 9:27
  Philip Pape: Sometimes evidence shows benefits of that.
• 9:30
  Philip Pape: I think if you look at the confounding or moderating factors and somebody has just a generally good diet and are well hydrated, we see mixed to anecdotal or no implications whatsoever here, and I've found that people who start to eat more protein and eat more nutrient dense foods and a variety of foods actually have improved skin, hair and nail health anyway.
• 9:55
  Philip Pape: And so then you wonder is it the collagen or not?
• 9:58
  Philip Pape: Now, collagen has a couple of amino acids, so if you're getting protein from higher quality sources, you're still getting the amino acids that are also in collagen generally.
• 10:07
  Philip Pape: So maybe that's where the benefit comes from, and then why isolate the protein to just collagen in that case if you're not also getting other benefits for the muscle side of the equation?
• 10:18
  Philip Pape: That's my logic.
• 10:21
  Philip Pape: Joint health some studies indicate it might help reduce joint pain, for example in athletes and in people with osteoarthritis.
• 10:28
  Philip Pape: It is not super strong evidence, but where there is evidence is for type 2 collagen, which is usually not the collagen that's contained in these peptides.
• 10:37
  Philip Pape: You'd have to go out of your way to get a special supplement for that.
• 10:40
  Philip Pape: Like I know, legion makes one called Fortify.
• 10:42
  Philip Pape: That I personally take.
• 10:43
  Philip Pape: It seems to be slightly helpful for me.
• 10:45
  Philip Pape: I have a what do you call it, I can't think of the word with my hip when you're missing a little bit of the material in the cartilage.
• 10:53
  Philip Pape: Uh, the, the the word escapes me, but, um, I do take it personally.
• 10:57
  Philip Pape: I know others who found it quite helpful, uh, when they have joint pain or joint issues.
• 11:02
  Philip Pape: Once they've addressed the other things like are you strength training, for example, are you squatting and deadlifting?
• 11:07
  Philip Pape: Cause those are much more helpful for most people with joint health.
• 11:11
  Philip Pape: And then gut health there's a little bit of research suggesting collagen might support gut health, but again, I think it's confounded by the fact that a lot of people don't have great diets, a lot of people don't have diverse diets, and once you do have that, a lot of these issues get resolved right.
• 11:24
  Philip Pape: So, yeah, these potential benefits are slightly interesting.
• 11:27
  Philip Pape: But a well-balanced diet, rich in a variety of protein sources, should already provide the amino acids that your body needs for these functions, and you don't have to go out of your way and have bone broth and very specific things like that, necessarily.
• 11:44
  Philip Pape: But if you have a variety of fruits, vegetables, lean meats the things we talked about they will support the skin health, joint health, gut health, without having a supplement.
• 11:55
  Philip Pape: So the goal here isn't to demonize collagen, it's just to understand its role and limitations.
• 11:59
  Philip Pape: If you enjoy using it, if you feel you're benefiting from it that's another important factor is your individual response, and I've seen this.
• 12:06
  Philip Pape: People are like well, I started taking it and all these things improved Great.
• 12:09
  Philip Pape: Now I don't know if they also changed other things in their diet or they started changing the way they move or train, but you always want to isolate these variables one at a time and see, based on your biofeedback and results over, say, a several week period.
• 12:22
  Philip Pape: Is it giving you anything meaningful as a result?
• 12:25
  Philip Pape: If not, maybe that's telling you something.
• 12:27
  Philip Pape: It definitely should not be your primary protein source for muscle building.
• 12:31
  Philip Pape: So if you're trying to add more protein into your diet for that purpose, I would not recommend collagen.
• 12:36
  Philip Pape: So the real takeaway here isn't really about the collagen.
• 12:38
  Philip Pape: It's about how we approach information in general with this Bayesian inference, this Bayesian thinking.
• 12:44
  Philip Pape: When we do that, we first start with what we currently believe, based on the available evidence.
• 12:49
  Philip Pape: Then we look at new studies or information with an open but critical mind.
• 12:53
  Philip Pape: Then we update our beliefs based on the quality and strength, right, the proportion of that evidence, and then we've got to be willing to change our approach if that's what it suggests.
• 13:02
  Philip Pape: And I'm going through this on a constant basis as I research for this podcast, as I talk to all of you.
• 13:08
  Philip Pape: You know, dear listeners, and you might hear my approach shift over the years slightly it's because new evidence is coming in.
• 13:15
  Philip Pape: It's not because I'm a flip-flopper.
• 13:16
  Philip Pape: Maybe I was ignorant as well.
• 13:19
  Philip Pape: That's always a possibility as human beings, and I try to be as informed as possible.
• 13:23
  Philip Pape: But being informed also means being open to change, and so this helps us navigate what seems like a very confusing world of fitness and nutrition advice with the diet trends, with the workouts, with the supplement claims.
• 13:34
  Philip Pape: There's so much out there and a tool like this is very powerful, so remember that applying Bayesian thinking to your fitness is a way to evaluate a claim or trend.
• 13:47
  Philip Pape: Start with your beliefs, consider new evidence, update your understanding and then you're equipped to make more informed decisions.
• 13:54
  Philip Pape: All right if you found value in today's episode.
• 13:55
  Philip Pape: If you want to stay up to date with the latest evidence-based information for nutrition, training, fitness mindset, join my email list.
• 14:03
  Philip Pape: Just go to witsandweightscom slash email or click the link in the show notes Again witsandweightscom slash email or click the link in the show notes and then you will get exclusive content, articles, early access to content, or maybe exclusive content and personalized advice to help you on your journey.
• 14:23
  Philip Pape: Until next time, keep using your wits, lifting those weights and remember, in the world of nutrition, training, fitness, being open to new evidence is just as important as being consistent, taking action.
• 14:34
  Philip Pape: This is Philip Pape and you've been listening to Wits and Weights.
• 14:38
  Philip Pape: I'll talk to you next time.