Silica & Collagen – Everything You Need to Know

Collagen and Silica

Collagen is what makes your skin and hair look radiant and youthful. Collagen is what holds your connective tissues together. But without this essential trace element, your body cannot even begin to produce the collagen it needs for not only your hair, skin, and nails but also for your joints, ligaments, bones, and organs.

Most people are still searching for the fountain of youth. Soft, radiant skin, shiny hair, strong nails – all hallmarks of optimal health and youthfulness. Who wouldn’t want to turn back the clock and look their best?

Although there may not be a "fountain of youth," scientists are learning more and more every day about how the body ages. One of their greatest discoveries in recent years is the power behind an essential trace element called silica or silicon dioxide.

Silica seems to be a vital link for the body to produce collagen, the protein that makes your skin, hair, and nails look vibrant and youthful.

How Silica Works

Silica is important for many vital functions in the body:

• Helps rejuvenate the skin by renewing collagen and elastin fibres and reshaping skin firmness, which helps reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.
• Contributes to thicker, fuller, and shinier hair through its effect on hair follicles.
• Helps strengthen nails by supporting the nail bed.
• Contributes to strong bones, especially as you age, as silica helps regenerate new bone, maintain bone thickness, and elasticity.
• Promotes healthy joints, cartilage, ligaments, and tendons, all of which are primarily composed of collagen.

Silica is one of the 97 natural building blocks from which minerals are formed, and silica appears in the periodic table as symbol Si and atomic number 14. Silica is the second most common substance on Earth, surpassed only by oxygen. It is found in dust, sand, stones, and dust in various forms of either silicon dioxide or silicates. Over 90% of the Earth's crust consists of silicate minerals.

In your body, silica is the third most common trace element and is important for the synthesis of collagen and for activating enzymes that affect the strength and elasticity of your skin, as well as hair thickness and shine. While certain forms of silica, such as crystalline silica, can be highly toxic if ingested or inhaled, the silica used in supplements is considered safe.

Why Silica is Needed and What Happens to Collagen

Of the 18 foods that contain the most silica, 11 are cereal products. Grains like wheat, barley, oats, and brown rice all contain silicon dioxide, a natural building block for collagen. However, this is not something recommended in a healthy lifestyle. Gluten-free diets and diets free from common grains are usually healthy choices. It is estimated that a gluten-free diet provides 30% less silica than the average American diet.

Diet is, however, not the only factor to consider when it comes to silica intake. Research questions whether grains contain enough soluble silica that can be absorbed in the digestive system.

Silica in food must first be converted into a form called orthosilicic acid, or OSA, before it can be absorbed, which requires sufficient stomach acid. As you age, pH levels rise and stomach acid production decreases. Less stomach acid affects the ability to convert silica into the right form for the body to absorb and utilise. Additionally, collagen levels naturally decrease with age. This is why you notice more prominent wrinkles in the skin, thinner hair, and more brittle nails as you age. However, it is not just skin, hair, and nails that are affected by lower collagen levels. Collagen provides structure to bones, muscles, tendons, joint cartilage, blood vessels, and organs, including the entire digestive system.

When you are young, your body produces enough collagen to keep tissues supple and skin, hair, and nails in good condition. This changes around the age of 20. By the age of 40, the body’s ability to produce its own collagen decreases by around 25%. By the age of 60, collagen production drops to about half of what it was when you were younger. By the age of 80, you have approximately four times less collagen. The most significant change happens after menopause. Women typically lose about 30% of collagen in their skin during the first five years, and skin elasticity also decreases by about 0.55% each year. Bone mineral density tends to follow a similar pattern in women after menopause.

Factors That Can Reduce Collagen

Age plays a big role in collagen production, but it is far from the only factor. The following nutritional, lifestyle, and environmental factors can affect the body’s collagen production and accelerate its loss throughout the body, according to Dr. Mercola.

• Deficiency in nutrients (amino acids, vitamins, and minerals) required for collagen synthesis. Vitamin C is one of these.
• Poor gut health can affect the absorption of important nutrients. Probiotics improve gut health.
• Hormonal imbalances between essential hormones such as DHEA, oestrogen, testosterone, progesterone, and pregnenolone.
• Sugar and excess carbohydrates can cause minor inflammations that contribute to skin damage.
• Stress and trauma produce high cortisol, which increases collagen breakdown and reduces bone building and bone density.
• Excess free radicals from smoking and air pollution damage collagen fibres and reduce cellular collagen synthesis.
• Alcohol damages your liver and dehydrates your skin.
• Caffeine significantly reduces cellular collagen synthesis.
• Lack of physical activity decreases collagen turnover, while exercise indirectly builds skin thickness by increasing blood flow, and thereby oxygenation and the presence of nutrients in the skin.
• Insufficient sleep is associated with higher levels of stress hormones that can accelerate collagen breakdown.
• Excessive sun exposure can lead to damaged skin that becomes resistant to collagen synthesis.

Many of these factors involve free radicals. When large amounts of free radicals are produced in your skin, from smoking or toxins for example, they negatively affect the body’s collagen. Reduced collagen or impaired collagen production shows in the skin as dry, sagging, creased, and wrinkled skin.

Supplementing with the right kind of silica can help the body produce the collagen it needs for skin, hair, nails, bones, tendons, ligaments, and blood vessels.

How to Choose the Right Type of Silica Supplement for Optimal Collagen Production

Silica absorption is low. When choosing a silica supplement, it is therefore important to select a pure supplement with high bioavailability. Absorption can range from a low 1% to an extraordinary 64%. Horsetail and bamboo are popular, but even though the silica content in horsetail and bamboo is high, the bioavailability is incredibly low, around 3%. Additionally, horsetail contains an enzyme called thiaminase that can deactivate thiamine (vitamin B1) and worsen symptoms in individuals with thiamine deficiency.

There are several reasons why Dr. Mercola does not recommend long-term use of horsetail as a source of silica:

• It can cause digestive discomfort.
• It acts as a diuretic, and over time, important electrolytes such as potassium can decrease in the body.
• It can cause allergic reactions in sensitive individuals, resulting in rashes and swelling in the face.
• It can cause hypoglycemia in diabetics.

Four other popular silica supplements – colloidal silica, ionic silica, choline OSA, and silica OSA – have bioavailability of only 7%, 7%, 17%, and 30% respectively.

Silica with the Highest Bioavailability

The main ingredient in Living Silica is monomethylsilanetriol (MMST). With a bioavailability of 64%, Living Silica is the most bioavailable and best silica supplement available. Living Silica is not in the form of nanoparticles, which can be harmful to the lungs. After MMST is absorbed in the gut, it is metabolised into biologically active orthosilicic acid, which is the form of silica the body can easily use.

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