Over the years Anthea Turner, a fresh-faced 61-year-old, has been open about the various cosmetic and aesthetic procedures she’s undergone. But her latest anti-ageing advice is a little more bizarre: she’s revealed that the collagen supplements her vet prescribed for her dog, led her to try them for herself. 

“He recommended glucosamine and chondroitin to stop the dog getting hip dysplasia and arthritis,” she says. “Then he jokingly said I should be taking collagen too because, as we age, it’s something we lose from our faces as well as our joints, so I began taking the same collagen tablets as the dog.” 

Granted, the TV presenter has since upgraded to collagen designed for human consumption, but she credits the veterinary advice she was given with being ‘ahead of the curve.’

 It’s a curve that’s become more of a spike in recent years, with the global market for ingestible beauty products tipped to be worth £160bn by next year and so-called ‘Zoom face’ making many of us more conscious of how our stress-ravaged, ageing, unironed visages look to others. It’s caused the injectables market – Botox, filler and the like – to experience a pandemic boom, but for those who are still iffy about such procedures, fixes that can be drunk, eaten or swallowed have been embraced as an alternative.

Small wonder, when there are seemingly ageless celebrities – Jennifer Aniston, Halle Berry and Drew Barrymore, to name a few – extolling the virtues of ingestible collagen. Never mind that they swam out of an incredibly rare and highly desirable gene pool in the first place: I’ll have what she’s having, thanks very much.

I’m no stranger to the call of a collagen supplement: although I never guzzled those recommended for my dog, who has a ruptured cruciate ligament, I’ve taken a variety of pills, powders and liquids with the aim of rebuilding my skin’s scaffolding.

This is essentially what collagen is: the stuff that holds our skin up. It’s why the cheeks of children are so firm and smooth, and why the faces of adults start to droop, complete with marionette lines from nose to mouth, as age progresses and collagen levels diminish.

Has it worked? Maybe so: I recently had my last pre-50 birthday and people (perhaps just being polite) say things about me looking younger than I am. More scientifically, I did a trial with liquid supplement Skinade some time ago, with an independent London clinic – Kensington’s Santi – measuring my skin’s hydration and collagen levels, as well as its elasticity: after two months, these had risen by 18, 17 and 67 per cent, respectively. Unsurprisingly, I now quaff the stuff, derived from freshwater fish, on a daily basis.

Am I – and Anthea – just kidding ourselves though? Opinion is divided on the efficacy of collagen supplements. According to Amish Patel, an award-winning aesthetic practitioner and skincare expert at Intrigue Cosmetic Clinic, there is limited evidence to show that collagen supplements make any difference. Additionally, the fact that collagen’s role within the body affects not only skin but also muscles, bones and joints mean that there’s no guarantee that any supplementation is going to target the areas you want it to.

“That’s not to say that it wouldn’t be beneficial,” he adds (after all, who wouldn’t want better muscles, bones and joints?) “but I’d suggest a minimum of six weeks would be the earliest review point if you are thinking of taking a supplement. However, the older we are, the slower the body’s regeneration process – so you may require longer on the supplement to see any possible results.”

Ruth Micallef, a counsellor and specialist in eating disorders, is even less sure that supplementation is a viable route to ‘wellness’, pointing out that the industry has been quick to capitalise on the concept of ‘self-care.’

“Self-care is literally going for a walk, eating a nutritious meal, talking to friends, spending time by yourself – but it’s been monetised,” she says. “When it comes to supplements, it’s important to think about why you’re taking them: have you been medically advised to take them? Does your body actually need them? Can you get what you need simply by looking after your diet?

 “It’s about stepping back and asking – “Who is telling me that my skin needs to look the same way as it did when I was 20?” she says.

From a psychological point of view, this makes perfect sense. Still, most of us are bombarded with images of youth, whether those images are genuinely of youth or, on the other hand, airbrushed, filtered and filtered to the max.

Even so, Professor Luigi Martini, professor of pharmaceutical innovation at King’s College London, had to overcome his own scepticism when he oversaw an independent medical trial on collagen, According to his observations, because collagen is a protein, it’s broken down by hydrochloric acid as soon as it hits your stomach – so the best way to consume it is via a protected capsule (such as Ingenious) that protects the ingredients from digestion as it works its way down into your small intestine, where the ingredients are released.

“The only way for collagen to really, really work is for it not get broken down into its individual parts; into amino acids,” he says. “So products that keep the protein intact, even via the digestive system, are going to be more efficacious than those that are broken down.” 

As with almost anything in the beauty and wellness sphere, it’s a minefield – and one that’s not easily navigated when we are in the doldrums of pandemics, midlife and Twixmas. Water, sleep and good genes are surely the big hitters here – and if nothing else, I’ll stick to my Skinade and swerve anything intended for my dog. Although – I have to admit – he does look very good for his age.