Collagen Over 40: What Every Menopausal Woman Needs to Know (But Isn’t Told)

Hello. Welcome back to mess during the Menopause Transition Summit 4.0. I am still your doctor Sharon Stills, and I'm super excited for our next conversation.

It is one of our sponsors and I always like to bow and give gratitude to our sponsors because without our sponsors, we just wouldn't be here. So we are.

We are truly grateful for your sponsorship, for your support and my audience. My existing audience loves you and loves your products. And so I just had to bring you back because we've got we've got oldies here, you know, who've been coming to every menopause summit and we've got a whole new crew of lovely ladies, and I'm really excited for them to hear what you have to share.

We're going to be talking about collagen, which is like the hot topic these days. And how, you know, to me, collagen is is crucially important. And it's when we talk about like beauty inside and out.

I think of collagen. And so this is Christina mackay. She is the the founder, the brains, the everything behind ever. Bella, which she named because of her grandmother.

Right. And your grandmother. Yeah. They're called you ever Bella or I. So my grandmother, so my heritage is Italian, and my grandmother would always say to me, can't say Bella, which means you are so beautiful in Italian, so ever Bella to me is forever beautiful.

Ever being, forever Bella being beautiful. Just a nice little rolls off the tongue and has a lot of sentimental value to me. So yes, that's where the name comes.

I love it, I love it, I love that, so welcome. It's so great to have you here. And thank you. I'm honored to be here. Yes. And sharing. And so I think there's a lot of confusion about college.

And plus her products are like they taste great. So they're like sweet treats. So we're going to learn all about that over the next 30 minutes about collagen.

And how do you know if you're deficient and how do you produce it. And how do you know like how do you get through the noise, the weeds of all the different collagen?

Because there's a lot of them out there. And so we're going to learn what you need to know. Yes, absolutely. I like to always tell people, you know, because collagen is such a buzzword.

It is such a popular thing. And is it really the secret to anti-aging or is this a complete hoax? Right. So I try to give you some actionable things. You can take away so that there is less confusion and you can really know, is this going to help me with my menopausal symptoms?

And just as you journey through life, period. Right. So I'm in my 30s. I am not going through menopause, but that doesn't mean I don't understand the impacts of having estrogen drops.

So when I was coming into my 30s, I was losing my hair and handfuls. My skin was terrible. It was very weathered. I had a lot of sunspots. I had low energy.

Frankly, I had low sex drive as well. And every doctor just said, oh, you're getting older. And I kind of was really depressed, as I'm sure many women feel that way.

When you start having these changes. And I had low estrogen drops from prolonged stress. I was just working too much. I was not having a very balanced life.

I had some family turmoil and cortisol, high cortisol levels, which is your stress hormone, can really suppress your estrogen and make you feel like total garbage and physically as well.

And I've also experienced estrogen drops with postpartum. I'm a mother of two children. I have a son who's one and a daughter who's three, and, all of these things can mimic a lot of menopausal symptoms.

And frankly, most of my customers are not women my age. They are women going through menopause. So, truthfully, my passion is helping women through every season of life.

You know, I'm a regenerative, regenerative health advocate for all women through all ages. So I'm really excited to share as much information I can with you today.

With the time that allows. So why don't we just jump into it? So of course, if you think of collagen, you think of your skin, right? It makes sense because collagen is the fundamental building block, not just of your skin, but your your hair, your ligaments, your joints, even your bones.

All of these things are made up of collagen. But it does so much more in the body then, of course, like I said, your face. So you need it to keep your tissues, you know, and your ligaments and everything lubricated.

So when you feel ickiness and things like that, you definitely need collagen to help you. It does help your skin. And it definitely helps your hair as well.

So I'm here to help you, recognize that the reality is, you know, many of us experience low collagen or a collagen deficiency at some point in your life.

And sometimes it can lead to a full blown deficiency where your body just can't make enough collagen for you to function normally. So how does this happen?

Right. So for starters, when you turn 25 every year after that, your body loses its ability to create 1% of its collagen. So every year that passes, you lose more and more collagen that your body produces naturally.

Which is why supplementing with it is so important. So I want to start by exploring some warning signs. Doctor sales. I feel like we've gone through this before, and I feel like every woman put a finger down for these.

So don't be alarmed if you do have some warning signs. Okay. Warning sign number one. I'll even put some fingers up myself. Wrinkles. So wrinkles are one of the clear signs that you have collagen loss and wrinkles form basically due to loss in elasticity of your skin, which is a direct result of depleted collagen levels.

So despite the fact that your skin is 70 to 80% collagen, if you have low levels of collagen, your body's going to stop focusing on repairing your skin and start to, prioritize sending that collagen elsewhere, right?

Like your ligaments, your joints, your bones. So your skin is going to be the first place that it starts sucking away that collagen and putting it elsewhere.

So when wrinkles start to happen again, this is a clear sign that your collagen levels are dropping. That's warning sign number one. Warning sign number two is slow muscle recovery.

So of course, you know, if you feel like you have sore muscles and you have not been doing strenuous, strenuous exercise, you know, so you weren't running or doing hiking, but your muscles are feeling really sore.

It can be a sign of low collagen. So if you find that, you know, hey, I, you know, I did a light walk with the dog, and the next day I'm feeling really sore, or, I don't know, I vacuumed the house and I'm really sore.

It could be a sign that you have low collagen. Because collagen works to repair your muscles so that they keep that flexibility. So a deficiency will result in low recovery times with your muscles.

And you can also lose muscle mass as well. So if you also feel like, you know, you just feel like you're thinning out and you can't really explain it, a lot of your muscle mass can be going away as well.

When you're losing that collagen. Warning sign number three is digestive problems. So a collagen deficiency is also linked to something called leaky gut syndrome.

So in your intestines, there are tiny little junctions that are really tight. And help your help your body absorb nutrients. And so a leaky gut basically means that these junctions aren't as tight as they should be.

And then the tissues start to separate. So as a result, basically unwanted substances kind of slip through those gaps and can create inflammation in your stomach.

So collagen actually plays a really important role in repairing that. And it keeps your intestinal walls really tight and strong. So therefore if you don't have enough collagen in your body, you're going to have that leaky gut syndrome. You're going to bloat a lot.

You're going to feel really uncomfortable, you know, when you're eating food. There's cramping this gas in digestion, and sometimes even food sensitivities.

So if you have any of those symptoms, it may be due to the fact that you have low collagen intake. Warning sign number four. This was definitely me. Poor hair health.

So collagen is a very important part of your hair health for a few reasons. Number one, collagen is present in every single one of these little hair follicles, and it's responsible for delivering nutrients to your hair to keep it healthy.

So if you don't have enough collagen, your hair will not receive the nutrients it needs to prevent stunted growth and to prevent that kind of brittle and dryness happening in your hair.

In addition, a large part of what makes up your hair itself is collagen. So I mentioned that earlier. It is the building block of your skin, your hair, your nails.

And without collagen, it will just really get weak, break off, dry out, and fall out. Again, if that isn't awful enough, collagen is in every hair follicle.

So the more you are also damaging your hair with things like, you know, curling irons and heat and, you know, free radicals, like being out in the sun too much or, you know, smoke.

All these things can also impact your hair as well. And, you know, the collagen doesn't have its ability to repair fast enough. You have all these other things also impacting your hair's health.

So, again, poor health could be a sign that you have low collagen. Warning sign number five is joint pain. So most people mistake. Joint pain is, you know, just a part of getting older.

Which, don't get me wrong, you can have painful joints as you get older. I mean, I'm not saying you're not going to age, but if you have a lot of, like, very uncomfortable pain that is not resolving from rest or even trying some other supplements, it might just be collagen is what your body really needs.

Because the cartilage in your joints, a large majority of that is also collagen. It is essential for rebuilding and repairing your joints and maintaining structure.

So again, if you lose too much collagen, you're going to lose that cushion in your joints. You're gonna lose flexibility and you're really going to have a lot of discomfort.

So if you were having that and you're feeling that in your joints, you might be low in collagen. And the last one is slow injury recovery. So being the most abundant protein in the body, the collagen, you know, if you have, let's say a broken bone even just like a little cut on your hand and you just feel like it's taking a long time for things to heal, your body can't make a full repair if you're low in collagen, so it's going to take a really long time for you to recover from any type of injury.

So if it's taking a long time likelihood of having low collagen. So I know many of you, if you had six fingers up, you could have put four down. You could have put two down, maybe all six.

Don't be alarmed because yes, you probably are low in collagen and it probably is causing a lot of these issues. But I have good news for you. So don't freak out yet.

Do you have anything you want to add, doctor stills? Yeah. No, I mean, those are all I would say. Well, one, I was thinking just when you were saying because I just, you know, like, sometimes women are like, oh, you're so young.

You have, you know, no idea, like what it's like to age, but I actually when I started working with menopausal women, I was also in my early 30s. And so you don't have to be menopausal to be empathetic or compassionate or understand the plight of, of the aging process.

And, you know, around here we're like very pro aging, and we love aging, and aging is a joy and a gift. And, you know, I would say I don't believe like aging means your joints have to ache.

It really does mean like, are you deficient in college and are you deficient in estrogen? Are you dehydrated? Are you not doing good body mechanics like, you know, maybe when we're like 115, maybe by then, but it doesn't have to be that way in our 50s, 60s or 70s.

And the things that you're talking about, you know, these are things I hear all day long. And so like, to me, it's super exciting that like, collagen has such a wide range of hitting.

You know, I talk about hormones like that, right? Like hormones have a wide range of hitting so many different systems and issues. And so to me, collagen is like the same thing from wrinkles on your skin to leaky gut.

I mean, leaky gut is an epidemic. Oh for sure. So I see it pretty if I don't see it in a patient when I do, they're still test. At this point I'm like, wow, is the test around?

Are you? What kind of what kind of unicorn are you? Gosh. Well, I mean, so I'm sure you all connected to some of those and yeah, it's normal if you're not supporting it. So.

So how is it possible? Like there's so many different ways expensive treatments this that like is it possible to support your collagen production. And we know the answer is yes. Yes.

But tell us like what about like your like your product and what went into the formulation and what makes your superior. And you know, just tell us all the good stuff.

Yeah, absolutely. Before because here I want you to have actionable takeaways. So before I share the collagen that I have, I do want to share some true action items women can do.

And then of course, if you want to supplement, that's great too. And I'll explain why supplementation is so important. But can you restore your collagen levels?

The answer is yes. Right. Are you going to go from, you know, being a six year old woman and looked like you're 20 again? No. Right. I'm not going to give you a false promise.

But the truth is, just like doctor still said, you can age gracefully. You absolutely can, you know, mitigate and reverse some of these things. Right?

Like the achy joints or, you know, if you feel like your hair is really thinning and very dry, can you restore that? Absolutely. In fact, I have over 100,000 women globally who have bought my products and have said within a few weeks they're like, oh my gosh, my hair got it shine back.

I had less fallout in the shower. Oh, my crow's feet diminished. Well, I had unbearable knee pain. I couldn't even go up the stairs. And now I can again. Right.

So all kinds of success stories from women. But I it is a very, you know, a holistic approach, right? Yes. Can my product help you? Absolutely. But you really do need to understand there's other lifestyle changes you should make as well to help you.

So number one is nutrition. So yes, supplementing with actual collagen is great, but there's other things you can do that can promote collagen production within your body naturally as well.

So number one is nutrition vitamin C. So it's essential for something called collagen synthesis. So synthesis is a process by which cells produce collagen.

So up your vitamin C intake good choices right. Citrus fruits strawberries kiwis even bell peppers and dark leafy greens. Another thing you should do nutritionally is amino acids.

So collagen is made up of amino acids. And so consuming protein rich foods will boost your amino acid intake. So try meats such as fish, eggs, dairy and beans, red meat as well.

And another thing you can do is increase your intake of zinc and copper. So, these minerals again are vital for collagen synthesis. So eat foods such as nuts, seeds, whole grains and shellfish.

So those three things so vitamin C, amino acids zinc and copper really good to help with your collagen. Another thing you can do which doctor stills or I talked about is hydration.

So yes staying well hydrated absolutely helps maintain your skin elasticity. It's going to keep you looking more youthful. And it also does help collagen production within the body.

So really push I think what is what is the world say eight cups of eight glasses of water a day? I'll arguably say drink more than that if you can. But yes, hydrating is very important.

Next thing is lifestyle changes. So try to avoid excess sun exposure. So UV rays do break down collagen. So when you're outside, you know, try to use a really good quality sunscreen or protective clothing.

And if you are a smoker, I'm here to tell you a quick smoking, smoking does decrease your collagen production. It also impairs blood flow, which leads to accelerated aging in the skin.

If it gives anybody hope, that is a smoker. My 89 year old grandmother quit smoking cold turkey like four months ago and has been game changer. She, like, I don't know what it was she just got this wall here for but and said, you know what, I'm going to quit.

I said wrong that she been smoking for like dead. She's like 18. I can't I was so proud of her. I got some going. Amazing. She's like, you know, I just decide I don't want to do this anymore.

Anyway, she said it's probably too late for my skin and started laughing. But hilarious. Okay, next thing you can do is exercise. So regular physical activity improves circulation in the body, which actually supports collagen production.

So I'm not telling you to go outside and run seven miles, but just like movement, right. Just go for a walk every single day. Move your body. It's so important.

And then finally is supplementation. So, doctor Sales obviously graciously mentioned my product, so I'll jump into it. So if you're supplementing with collagen, you really want to do a high quality collagen.

That is really absorbable. So, you know, the truth is, is there's so many collagen out there and I'm sure you probably have one in your house. And here's the thing that most people don't know is if you're not taking a collagen and what's called a liquid or mysel liposomal format, you are really flushing a lot of your money down the toilet.

So when you take in a product that is in a powder form, your body's only going to absorb about 30% of it. So basic math, let's say you're taking 1000mg of collagen.

You're only going to actually absorb about 300 of that. So you really are flushing a lot of it down the toilet. So let me kind of break down, you know, the facts about collagen.

So most collagen is two big for your body to absorb. So if you're drinking a lot of bone broth, for example, I'm not saying it's bad, but you're not. It's not really going to reach your skin in the areas it's needed unless you're drinking a lot of it.

Natural collagen is just a really big protein that your intestines really can't absorb most of it. So what happens? You pick it up. Another one. It's a lot of, a lot of products are filled with a lot of fillers, right?

They're not really potent. They're not very clean products. And so, you know, if they're using beef bones, for example, they'll try to disguise the taste and add sugar, right.

Sugar's going to spike your blood sugar. And here's another thing about sugar being in a product. When there's sugar in a supplement, your body absorbs the color or absorbs sugar first. It prioritizes the sugar.

And a lot of times it processes the sugar and focuses on that. And then it loses a lot of those nutrients. So you really want to avoid a product that has any sugar in it.

And then the last thing is that, I talked about this myself liposomal process. So what does that mean? Because it's a really big word and most people glaze over when I say it.

So I'll break it down for you. So you really want your collagen to be packaged up. And so the packages I'm talking about are called micelles. And to understand why they're important, you need to understand what happens when you ingest collagen.

So as you eat collagen, it travels through your digestive system. When it gets broken down by your stomach, your body creates these little packages to wrap around the nutrients so they can safely travel through your stomach acid and get to your bloodstream.

And so you kind of think of your think of your body is like a fulfillment center, right? So you get an item before you get to put it somewhere, you have to put in a box and put it put an address on it. Right.

You have to put a label in a box and tell the shipping center where it needs to go. So that's what my cells do. So they're little packages that actually wrap around the collagen nutrient.

So that way when it travels through your digestive track and gets to your stomach lining, it says, hey, wait a minute. This is something recognized by the body.

Don't send it down out the body. Let's put it through the bloodstream. Put it where it needs to go. So it's almost like a secret code that communicates with your body about where to take the nutrients.

So with my collagen in this, my cell liposomal format, it wraps it in a vitamin E barrier. And so vitamin E is readily available and recognized in the body.

So when it hits the stomach acid, it slowly breaks away. And then finally all those wonderful nutrients are able to absorb through your stomach lining into the bloodstream.

So with this type of process, instead of only absorbing 30%, you're actually going absorb 80 to 100%. It just depends. But it's in that range much more absorbable.

So again, let me show you the product now, because I feel like I'm rambling on and on about it and I don't want you to glaze over. So this is, a product I have called Complete Collagen Plus.

And not only is it collagen, it's collagen MCT omega threes, and vitamin E. So when I created this product, it honestly was for some health struggles I was dealing with.

I think I forgot to mention that, but I mentioned I was losing my hair and my skin and my libido and all these issues. I actually had a bald spot on the top of my head, which I wish I had a picture of, but I don't.

That was like the size of a softball. I'm not kidding. And this is before I had kids like I was losing my hair and God, I didn't know what was going on.

And so all of these ingredients are really supportive for anti-aging, balancing your hormones and just getting your body kind of where it needs to be to be more regenerative and anti-aging.

So it comes in these little pouches, and all you have to do is tear off the top and you just take the college. And like this. And what's great is there's no sugar.

It tastes like caramel. It looks like it. I mean, you have to you're like, really? There's nothing bad in this because they taste good. They do. They taste delicious.

And what was I going to say? You can eat out of the pouch, but a lot of people get creative with it. Like, I will make, like, an iced caramel latte. I'll put this in a coffee. I'll put it on yogurt.

It tastes that good that you can really put it on anything. And so many women will say within just a few weeks they feel a difference. And then as you stick with it for several months, you really start to see the difference.

But most women talk about the hair fall out almost immediately. Within like a couple weeks, the hair fall out goes away. The joint pain and stuff like that is after a few weeks and then more of the holistic, you know, approach to how you look like your skin, your hair, your joints.

And because there's MCT in there as well, it also helps boost your metabolism. So you're also a lot of men report back that they lost a few pounds, you know, slip back in those genes that they hadn't been fitting in for a while.

So it really is an all encompassing, really great anti-aging collagen, formula. And the reason it tastes sweet without sugar is because we use organic glycerin.

So that's derived from coconuts. So it doesn't taste like coconuts at all. But that's how the sweet where the sweetness comes from. So that's a little bit about the product.

What else did I want to mention? Oh, and it's squeaky clean, so it's free from sugar, gluten, what else? Corn, soy. And it's non-GMO. And we do make it here in the United States in a GMP certified facility.

So every batch is, third party tested for purity, for mold, other toxins. And, you know, it's just a really good quality product. What else did I want to say?

It's a beautiful box. Oh, yeah. Thank you. I feel like my background's a little blurred out, but, Yeah, that's what it looks like. And of course, if you do want to try it, it will really help you again, if you're experiencing things like, you know, your hair is falling out, your skin is just not as youthful looking as it used to be.

Your joints are hurting, right? You had that slow recovery time. This is formulated to help you with all those warning signs I mentioned. And of course, if you stick with it, you know, you can expect to have fuller hair, more radiant, supple skin, shiny strong nails is another one that my nails will break off all the time.

You will have a flatter tummy, I assure you that, you know, hopefully pain free joints and it will also give you a lot of energy as well. So if it is something you do want to try, I do have a special coupon code only for those watching.

And it's doctor stills 30. So dress styles 30 and you can save 30% off if you want to give it a try. And you'd have to go to my website. Thank you guys.

You're welcome. You know, always surprise me. I'm like, I think you're going to give like 10 or 15, 30%. I mean, that's very generous. Thank you. Oh you're welcome.

And what's even better is when you if you do go to my website as you buy more, there's already discounts. So you're like doubling down on the discount.

So if you buy I think it's like two, 4 or 6 boxes you can buy your already get I think 15% off automatically when you get four. I want to say, and I think you get up to 20 when you buy six.

So then you can coupon stack basically. So and I have any problem with that getting better and better and then coupon stacks for getting hair. We're getting rid of wrinkles.

Flat bellies guys. It's like all right who doesn't want to sign up? I mean, this is you know, this is this is as women, this stuff is is important. It's not. Oh for sure.

And that's that's my thing is like, my mission is to help women, you know, is my business profitable? That's all that matters. Yes it is. And so if I can extend these discounts and really help people, that's my mission, right?

I want women to feel their best again. And so many of us, depending what we're going through in life, right? Whether it's postpartum, perimenopause, menopause or just you're just don't feel right.

You know, I want to give you products that help you feel like yourself again and feel comfortable in your skin and just have just feel vibrant again. Right? You know, you don't want to lose your shine.

And that's that's really important no matter how old you are. And so I'm happy to extend that coupon. Oh, and where to use it. Right. My website. So ever Bella ever be la ever bella.com.

And as soon as you scroll down you'll see you'll see that complete Collagen Plus product. I have other products if you want to check this out too. By all means.

But you'll find it there and you can use that coupon code. Are there any other questions you can think of? I feel like people always usually ask questions when we do this.

Like, you know, what's in the collagen or you know, the type, the types of collagen. Is there anything you can you talk about the types of collagen for sure. Yep.

So mine is derived from type one and type two collagen, type one collagen for those who don't know, is the most abundant collagen in the human body. In fact, around 90% of your body's total collagen is type one.

So that's for your hair, skin, nails, bones and ligaments. And type three is more functioning for, elasticity and flexibility in your skin and blood vessels and gut lining.

So this has type one and type three. That's what they do. Now where are they derived from. So we use organic bovine collagen. There's a happy little place actually in New Zealand so.

Well everything's made in the United States. I will say we do use these happy cows from New Zealand or New Zealand. I know if you've ever been to New Zealand, it's absolutely beautiful.

So I'm like, I have no problem with this. And so the type one and type three is actually bovine collagen and it's derived from cowhide. So there's a whole process that they harvest to college in this way.

And in addition to that, so I already talked about the micellar liposomal absorption with the liquid process. We also hydrolyzed collagen, which makes it even more absorbable.

It's it's a basically it's a process that how do I explain hydrolyzed? I don't need to fully explain it. I don't think anyone cares that much, but it just it breaks down even smaller and puts in like a peptide format that your body readily recognizes for more absorption.

So that's where the worthy collagen comes from. And then like I said, the other things in there, MCTs, Omega threes and vitamin C. So all these things are really great for anti-aging, and help all the things we've mentioned already.

Yeah. And I, what I like about it also, it's like a multi-generational product. Like, you know, you don't have to be in menopause or perimenopause. You can share it with your the younger ladies in your life, the older ladies like there's benefit for everyone.

And your body will give you the feedback. So it's you know, sometimes we take things and it's like you just gotta trust me. This is helping you. You know, I see it moving a level on a laboratory, but it's like this thing, you get the feedback, you're like, oh, yeah, this is this is working.

This is good. And so, say your their website is ever bella ev. Yep. Our Bella lakum. And what was the coupon code? The coupon code is Doctor Still's 30 to 30.

Just Dr.. Yep. Doctor. Yep. Dr.. So not the full word Dr.. For styles 30 for 30% off your entire purchase no matter how much you get and you can coupon stack because you'll see that you're going to get it ready.

And again ever Belgacom ever be Lakum. I hope you guys have some takeaways. Again. There are so many things you can do in addition to supplementing. Like, you know, we talked about, you know, exercising and hydrating and nutrition, different lifestyle changes.

So, you know, if you really want to give your body the best way to not only be regenerative from within to create its own collagen, but supplementation is very important as you age, do it all, you do it all.

You're going to feel like a million bucks. I can promise you that. Oh, and all my products are backed by a 180 day guarantee. So if you don't feel good in six months, I will give you all your money back.

I don't want your money. If you don't feel good, I want your money. So also note that as well. Wow, that's. That's amazing. So you got nothing to lose and a lot to gain.

So go check out her website. She's got great information on there. Try it out. You know I love that they're well-made. They work and they taste good. It's like the trifecta of amazingness.

And they're they're made with love and care and consciousness. So yes, thank you so much for being here. I just know, like, you know, you're like a gift to the to the perimenopausal menopausal women.

And I know, like, everyone always loves your products. They're they're they're big winners and everyone has such great feedback. So go check her out. And thank you for again for your support and your sponsorship.

And I just love watching what you're doing and what you're making next and how the business is, is growing and expanding. And so thank you for being here.

Thank you for being of course, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And I hope you all enjoyed the information I had to share. It's an honor to, you know, share my knowledge with others.

So, thank you again for having me. I appreciate it. And, I hope to see you all on the other side. All right. Everyone ever valid.com, Dr. stills 30. Go check it out and then come back because we've got more conversations.

So we'll see you soon.