Collagen is the key ingredient in your body’s connective tissue. It is found throughout all of your tissues, including skin, bones, cartilage, and ligaments. The benefits of collagen stimulation are vast, and collagen production treatments are becoming more popular every day. Here at the Southeastern Institute of Restorative Medicine in Dothan, AL, we offer these treatments to help you look younger.
What Is the Benefit of Collagen Stimulation?
There are many benefits of collagen stimulation. The most notable benefit is that it can reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, but there are other significant benefits to be aware of as well. Below are 10 benefits of this treatment:
1) Can Improve Skin Health
This process can improve your skin health by regenerating the collagen that is lost over time. It’s effective in improving overall skin texture and tone.
2) Reduces Wrinkles and Fine Lines
This process can reduce the appearance of wrinkles and fine lines, giving your skin a younger look. It’s an effective weapon against common signs of aging like age spots, sagging skin, and discoloration.
3) Helps Relieve Joint Pain
Increased collagen production can also help relieve joint pain. When a patient is suffering from osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis, this treatment effectively reduces inflammation and even the severity of their symptoms.
4) Can Prevent Bone Loss
As we age, the cells in our bones start to decrease, leading to a condition known as osteoporosis. Collagen stimulation has been shown to increase bone density by stimulating new cell growth.
5) Can Boost Muscle Mass
This treatment can also boost muscle mass. Muscle is made up of collagen, so when collagen levels are increased, it will lead to an increase in muscle tone and strength as well.
6) Improve Overall Skin Elasticity
As we age, our skin loses its ability to bounce back, which increases the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles. This process helps your body restore its natural collagen levels so that it will look more youthful again.
7) Promote Heart Health
Collagen can also promote heart health by preventing plaque build-up and reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease. Collagen can also increase nitric oxide levels in your blood vessels, which helps them become more elastic and less prone to damage from high blood pressure. The more collagen you have in your body, the healthier your blood vessels will be.
8) Increased Strength of Hair and Nails
When collagen levels are high, your hair will be more lustrous and stronger. Your skin will look younger as well because collagen ensures that every cell in our body can regenerate properly.
9) Improved Gut Health
A healthy gut is essential to overall health. Collagen can promote improved gut function by strengthening the lining of your intestines and preventing leaky gut syndrome from occurring. Also, collagen is important for gut health because it can reduce inflammation in the digestive tract, helping reduce symptoms of IBS, ulcers, and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
10) Protects Your Skin From Harmful Free Radicals
Free radicals can be extremely harmful to our body, and they cause damage that leads to aging, disease, and even death. Collagen can protect your skin from harmful free radicals like pollution and UV rays. This, therefore, reduces oxidative stress on your skin, which is one of the main causes of wrinkles and fine lines.
Collagen Stimulation Treatments
There’re different types of collagen stimulation treatments available for people interested in improving their skin health. Some of these treatments include Forma, Microneeding, Fractora, among others. Let’s discuss these treatments and why they are effective in stimulating collagen production.
Fractora
The Fractora RF skin rejuvenation system is a type of radiofrequency treatment that treats the entire face and neck. This non-invasive process uses thermal heating to stimulate collagen production, which can help reduce fine lines and wrinkles. This treatment also stimulates elastin production, which reduces deep facial folds caused by sagging skin or excess weight loss.
Fractora’s advanced technology ensures that only specific layers are heated while the others remain cool, preventing damage to healthy cells underneath your skin surface. This treatment provides consistent results every time without any downtime or recovery time needed.
Microneeding
Microneedling is a process that uses tiny needles to create multiple micro-injuries in the top layer of your skin. These injuries are small enough so you won’t even notice them, but they’re big enough for collagen production to be stimulated. After microneeding treatment, these micro-wounds have time to heal before being exposed again, allowing new cells and blood vessels to grow back into areas where collagen has been lost or damaged.
Forma
Forma is a type of non-invasive body contouring treatment that uses ultrasound waves to heat deep dermal layers. This stimulates collagen production and helps reduce fat deposits underneath your skin by increasing blood flow. This will tighten sagging areas of the body where loose, saggy skin occurs most often, such as thighs, buttocks, abdomen, or upper arms. Forma treatments are effective for both men and women who want to improve their appearance without surgery.
In addition, there is no risk of burning healthy tissue because Forma’s advanced technology ensures that this doesn’t happen at any point during the treatment process. You can resume regular activities immediately after receiving a single session since almost zero recovery time is required afterward. The results of Forma treatments are usually visible after one treatment, but this will depend on the area being treated, with some areas showing improvements after multiple sessions.
What Damages Collagen?
When collagen is exposed to certain factors, it becomes damaged, which contributes to skin aging and the development of wrinkles. Let’s discuss some of these factors in detail:
Lifestyle
A person’s lifestyle can contribute to collagen damage, especially if they are constantly stressed out or lack sleep regularly. This causes the body’s immune system to weaken, allowing harmful free radicals to form more easily and cause cellular damage.
Sun Exposure
Sun exposure is another factor that damages collagen because it increases your risk of developing skin cancer and other types of harmful diseases. Overexposure to the sun leads to hyperpigmentation and photoaging, which speeds up cellular damage caused by free radicals. When the damage starts to happen, you will notice more wrinkles forming on areas exposed to sunlight frequently, such as hands and face.
To prevent further damage from occurring due to UV rays, be sure to always wear sunscreen with a high protection rating before going outside for extended periods.
High Sugar Consumption
When your diet consists of high sugar foods, your body produces more advanced glycation end products or AGEs, which are chemicals that break down collagen. This metabolic process can lead to the development of wrinkles and other signs of aging much faster than they would appear otherwise.
Smoking
Smoking affects your body’s ability to produce vitamin C, which is essential for collagen production. When this happens, you’ll start noticing more fine lines and wrinkles form on areas of the skin where collagen has been lost or damaged. Not only that, but smoking also contributes to premature aging. That’s because it reduces blood flow around the body, which also limits oxygen supply. This causes an increase in oxidative stress because cells can no longer get enough nutrients to stay healthy.
Autoimmune Disorders
Some autoimmune disorders can contribute to collagen damage as well. For example, lupus causes your body’s immune system to attack healthy cells by mistake, which increases the risk of developing skin lesions that often lead to scarring over time if not treated properly.
Dehydration
Drinking enough water daily is very important when it comes to collagen production. Water helps flush out harmful toxins in the body, which will lead to healthier-looking skin overall. For this reason, dehydration can contribute to signs of aging even faster than they would appear otherwise because your cells are unable to function properly.
Natural Aging Process
As you get older, your body’s ability to produce collagen slowly decreases. This contributes to signs of aging appearing on the skin, such as fine lines and wrinkles. This process can be slowed down with treatments like Forma and Microneeding, which aim to boost collagen production so it stays at a consistent level.
Schedule An Appointment Today!
Collagen stimulation is a great way to restore collagen production and reduce the signs of aging. There are many benefits to receiving these treatments at your local medical center, so come visit us at the Southeastern Institute of Restorative Medicine in Dothan, AL. We would love to help you achieve better skin health in no time.