October 23, 2025 • 37 mins
What if one of the most overlooked tools in recovery wasn’t a therapy or a stretch - but a specific protein that rebuilds what pain breaks down?
In this episode, integrative physiotherapist Matthew Craig takes us inside the evolving role of targeted collagen peptides in real-world rehabilitation - from fresh surgical scars and stubborn tendon pain to cancer-related cording, fascia restriction, and the creeping loss of bone strength in midlife.
Pain doesn’t follow a neat script, and neither does healing. That’s why Matthew unpacks where collagen makes the biggest impact: in poorly perfused tissues that heal slowly, in post-cancer recovery where cording tethers movement and amplifies pain, and in athletes who need to back up high training loads without joint flare-ups. He shares practical guidance on dose and timing - why 10 g daily supports ongoing repair, and why acute or “critical window” healing may call for 20 g split across the day.
We explore the nuances of collagen type and quality, from type I and III for tendon, skin, and fascia integrity to type II for cartilage and joint comfort. Matthew explains how hydrolysed, bioavailable peptides stimulate fibroblast activity, remodel scar tissue, and improve movement tolerance so that manual therapy and strength training deliver better results.
The conversation extends into bone health for peri- and post-menopausal women, where targeted collagen has shown measurable gains in bone density—small but powerful changes that shape long-term mobility and independence. Matthew also clears the air on athletic recovery, DOMS, and muscle support, debunking the myth that collagen is “just for beauty.”
It’s a clinical roadmap that bridges rehab, recovery, and resilience:
- Why and when to add collagen to a care plan
- Post-surgical healing for scars, fascia, and pain
- Selecting types I, II, and III for clinical goals
- Dosing for acute and ongoing recovery
- Cancer rehab, cording, and restoring movement
- Collagen’s emerging role in bone density support
- Pairing collagen with whole-protein and loading for results
Collagen isn’t a cosmetic extra - it’s protein with a purpose, especially when matched to the job. If you’re navigating surgery, tendon pain, cancer rehab, or simply want stronger bones and better training outcomes, this episode gives you the practical playbook every clinician should hear.
Connect with Matthew: https://www.bouncerehab.com.au/team/
Shownotes and references are available on the Designs for Health website
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DISCLAIMER: The Information provided in the Wellness by Designs podcast is for educational purposes only; the information presented is not intended to be used as medical advice; please seek the advice of a qualified healthcare professional if what you have heard here today raises questions or concerns relating to your health
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:21):
This is Wellness by Designs, and I'm your host,
Andrew Whitfield.
And joining us today is MatthewCraig, an integrative
physiotherapist who usescollagen to help his patients
overcome injuries, stave offdegenerative disorders, and also
to recover from surgicalinterventions faster.
Matthew, welcome so much toWellness by Designs.
(00:43):
How are you?
SPEAKER_00 (00:43):
I'm great.
Thanks, Andrew.
How are you?
Thank you so much for having me.
SPEAKER_01 (00:47):
Our pleasure.
And thank you so much for takingtime out of your busy day.
Matt, can I just first ask you alittle bit about your history?
I mean, you've been aphysiotherapist.
Most physiotherapists are prettysort of hunky-dory onto the
physical interventions.
What sparked your interest ingiving an oral supplementation
of coral, of collagen?
SPEAKER_00 (01:09):
It's a really interesting question in terms of
having to look back historicallyto the reasons why I do use
collagen quite frequently and alot.
It's part of the daily protocolin terms of like when a lot of
patients are coming in.
It's so easy to talk about forme.
(01:30):
But I remember it must have beenaround 10 years ago.
So I've been a physio for justover 20 years, let's call it 23,
24 years.
And you know, you're seeingpatients like chronic pain,
you're seeing acute pain, you'reseeing shoulders, you're seeing
toes, broken toes, you're seeingeverything.
(01:51):
Seeing people post-cancertreatments.
There's a lot, there's a lotinvolved in private practice
that we see.
And I just remember my sister,who's a geneticist over in
Switzerland, and she's a smartcookie.
She's a molecular biologist, andshe's got patents, and she was
in the cancer research field uhfor many years and big
(02:14):
researcher.
Like anything she says, I sortof just go, yes, it must be
true.
And then 10 years ago, sheactually made did a big backflip
and she created a collagenproduct.
And I was talking to her just onprobably very primitive uh
FaceTime 10 years ago.
(02:36):
I wonder what that was.
Was it FaceTime?
Who knows?
It could have been Skype orsomething exciting.
And I said, I remember saying toher, What what what making
collagen?
What's collagen?
Like call isn't that like isn'tthat tendons?
Isn't that bone broth?
Isn't that, you know, somethingthat you know the hippies sort
(02:56):
of stir up on the stove and youknow, like take and uh yeah, so
that's where I started learning.
She said she essentially said,Look, Matt, you're a physio,
you're dealing with people everysingle day that have orthopedic
issues, inflammatory problems,uh, yeah, like muscle
strengthening issues, etc.,etc., degenerative, etc.
(03:20):
And I thought, oh, like, so doesthat mean I could use that?
Like, I said I could talk to mypatients about this?
Like, is this like am I allowed?
I I immediately thought, maybeI'm not allowed as a physio.
Like, what's my governing bodythinking of this?
Is this a drug?
Like, what is it?
And yeah, like to my umpatient's benefit over the last
(03:45):
at least 10 years, it's beenamazing to use as an adjunct in
the background of what I can door what I've been able to
provide my patients.
So it's really, yeah, it's it'snice to be able to talk to to
you about it today, in terms ofhow I wouldn't utilize it on a
daily basis.
SPEAKER_01 (04:05):
So, Matt, can I then ask, when do you approach this
along the patient's umtherapeutic journey, if you
like?
When do you start to talk aboutcollagen?
Do you say, hey, listen, earlyon, let's get into it?
Or do you say, look, let's do myphysio, we'll see how that
works.
And if we're having somestruggles, we might then
(04:27):
instigate some collagen therapy.
Which where do you sort ofapproach it?
SPEAKER_00 (04:32):
It's I I probably have like thinking about it, I
probably have two approaches.
There's the approach wheresomeone's really busy.
I I work in the city in Sydney,so it's a very busy clinic.
So sometimes people aren't, Iguess they're they're just they
just want some really quickrelief, manual therapy, out they
(04:54):
go, back to their Pilatesclasses or their normal routine.
Yep.
I am pretty firm when someonecomes into the clinic with
certain conditions that I knowtake the human body quite a
long, a lengthy period of timeto improve, whether it's the
(05:17):
natural history of theparticular connective tissue
that's injured.
Uh, an example would be like ameniscal tear of the knee, uh uh
a disc related uh bulge, aprotrusion, an extrusion.
And when you put those twotogether, those particular um
(05:38):
issues, if you're looking at saya knee and a lower back or a
neck, you're that's that thatthat is a lot of what a
physiotherapist would see eachday in the clinic.
So I'm pretty tough on thosepeople in terms of outlining how
poor the perfusion of blood flowis to those tissues, and the
best thing they can do, becauseeveryone wants to get better
(06:00):
quicker, right?
They don't actually want to comeand see me in my clinic, pay my
rate, and and know that theycould or could not get better
quickly.
So it's in their best interestto know straight away about it.
So yeah, scenario two is oftenthe case, but there is also that
(06:21):
scenario one where someone justwants to get in, they've got a
headache, they just want theirneck manipulated, and they just
want to get back into a lot oftheir you know busy meetings.
But if it's if it's a journey, Italk about it straight away.
I don't wait three months andsay, look, we could be getting
better if we also take somesupplementation in your diet.
SPEAKER_01 (06:41):
And and I mean you you mentioned a few conditions
here, but what other conditionsdo you tend to employ collagen
in?
You said you're a cancerspecialist physio.
Take us through that.
That's really interesting.
SPEAKER_00 (06:54):
Yeah, it's really interesting, particularly
knowing your background too, andyour um, yeah, your career uh in
nursing and medicine.
So there is a pink for women anda steel uh rehab physiotherapy
accreditation uh that's outthere.
And it was essentially uh uh, Iguess the founder, you could say
(07:20):
the founder of the theparticular cancer rehab uh
foundation is a New Zealandphysiotherapist.
Uh and she works with a lot ofpain management specialists,
cancer, oncology, doctors, etc.
So I I guess just naturally,with my history of treating
(07:41):
chronic pain and also sportsinjuries, but you know, as
you're getting a bit older, yousort of you see you just want to
delve a bit more, a bit moreinto the complexity of uh
treatment and helping people inneed.
So therefore, yeah, I went downthat pathway and just learned a
lot more about, I guess, cancer,inflammation, mechanical issues
(08:03):
as a result of differenttreatment types, whether it's
like chemotherapy, radiotherapy,hormone therapy, yeah, physio
exercise.
It's a it's a it's a it's a bigworld.
And I think the best approach isa multidisciplinary approach,
yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (08:23):
So can can I ask you can I ask you about cording?
We we commonly refer to cordingas this sort of you know tight
muscles that mainly womenexperience when they've had
breast cancer radiotherapy, andso the you know, the muscles
under the armpit get reallytight and corded, bunched up.
But do you see cording anywhereelse in the body?
(08:45):
You know, let's say for um, youknow, men experiencing prostate
cancer and they're they'regetting, you know, they'd be
lucky enough to get the cyberknife, but if they had other
radiotherapy um in the genitalarea, do they get cording like
of the groin or anything likethat?
SPEAKER_00 (09:05):
They do.
Uh coming back to the I guessmore the the bust to breast
surgery at the cord, the cordingis amazing.
If you haven't seen cording, itwould be hard to try and
explain.
Well, it is I'm explaining itnow.
It's very hard to explain thatsomeone's armpit can look like
they've got guitar stringspoking outside the skin.
(09:28):
Yeah, yeah, it's reallyinteresting, right?
You've seen it.
And to think that I guess it'sgenerally pretty conservative in
medicine, in the oncologyclinics and and that world, like
everyone's just sort of gettinginformation and advice just to
(09:48):
be happy that you're alive, butthere's functional impacts on
things like cording, and cordingwill basically present like uh
particular female having um uhbreast surgery or a massectomy,
uh, their glands try and find anew pathway within their own
(10:11):
lymphatic system, and thensuddenly you do you get this
like guitar string effectthrough the armpit.
And now in the armpit, everysingle nerve that goes to your
fingertips from your neck downgoes through your armpit.
So it's an absolute nightmare ifyou were just to follow general
(10:32):
practice advice and just see howit goes.
So that I have seen definitelyum on the male side, like
through like different um likeareas of the adductors, probably
not as common in terms of thepresentation to a private
(10:53):
practice, because I I think alsomen tend to you know not seek
therapy, or they probably just Idon't know, they hide it away,
or I don't know, they just don'ttend to probably talk much about
it, or it's not reallypotentially painful or or you
know irritating their theirfunction, but I have definitely
(11:14):
seen it through that sort ofthat adductor area, but also
through the carbs.
Yep.
Oh, and it can, yep.
So if someone's actuallygenerally a male might tell me
their history after the factthat they've introduced
themselves to me or one of myphysios in the clinic as someone
with sardica or back pain.
(11:37):
So then we start looking at thebody, we start like testing, you
know, the length of muscles andyou know their range of motion
through the hips, the knees, thethe ankles.
And then suddenly you can justsee it's it's quite an
interesting twitching responsethat the the medial gastroc or
the the calf muscle can actuallyportray.
(11:58):
And straight away I know thatthis person has probably had
something else other than justback pain, like something's
hypersensitizing, you know, thethe neural connectivity, right?
Which is really yeah, it's it'sa bit of a pick a path, like how
much time do we have to find outwhat's actually going on?
(12:19):
And majority of the time, likebecause people come back very
frequently uh and finish offtheir treatment because they
want to, um, we can get to thebottom line of it.
SPEAKER_01 (12:30):
Yeah.
And and of course, you mentionedearly on your backs and your and
your knees and things like that.
Obviously, there's degenerativechanges that we get as we age.
Um, but there's also the sportsinjuries as well.
So, how do you pick and chooseuh well, which type of collagen,
(12:50):
if you like?
Or um now we can't mention brandnames here, can't mention
product names.
Um, I don't know how you feelabout um ingredient names, but
that's I don't have a problemwith that.
But um hang on.
Um yeah, how do you sort of wendyour way and and introduce that
topic to somebody say, hey,listen, we should apart from me,
(13:13):
you know, massaging you andworking on range of motion,
things like that, we should alsobe looking at collagen.
How do you approach thatconversation?
SPEAKER_00 (13:21):
Yeah, so I would I I see a lot of a lot of arthritis
and a lot of uh perimenopause,menopause, bone density issues
uh coming through.
There's so much excellentresearch.
Uh, I will definitely bechatting to most people that
(13:46):
enter the clinic um to like takethat pathway and understand more
about how they got to where theyare or potentially prevent where
they could be heading when itcomes to certain conditions like
that.
Um we often laugh like when youcome into our particular clinic,
(14:08):
um, where I guess we're rare inthe sense that we do have like
quite a big retail space as youenter.
So it's we we kind of laugh andcall it our physio open locker
room.
So you've got your bands, you'vegot your supplements, you've got
your uh products that we trust,right?
And we know we're going to usethem.
So they don't stay on the shelffor very long before we then
(14:30):
replenish them.
So there is very goodtrademarked brands of collagen
out there.
You've got some very badcollagen, and you've got some
very good collagen.
Okay, it's like it's likeanything out there that you've
probably been talking about foryears and years and years, like
(14:52):
a lot of years, right?
Like, and we're talking aboutwe're talking about trying to
supplement someone's or be anadjunct to a treatment, but then
also give someone the the bestoutcome.
So generally, you kind of do getwhat you pay for, in a sense,
when it comes to collagen.
(15:14):
It has to be a small enoughamino acid peptide to be able to
be absorbed.
So, therefore, when you'relooking at what you're treating,
let's say it's a tendon versus abone, there's a certain collagen
that's better for that tendon,but then there's also one that's
(15:34):
better for the bone.
It's been researched, so it'sit's there's a lot of really
cool microbiology andmacrobiology out there to to
allow us to know, okay, go downthat path.
But essentially, it's a lot ofit's patented from like Germany
and some of these like reallyforward-thinking countries,
yeah.
(15:55):
Yeah, in that gelatin.
SPEAKER_01 (15:57):
Oh, it's very and high-drive.
I know one of the productsyou're talking about, and uh,
yeah, and one of them I rememberlooking at the at the research,
I think it was a Z score um thatthey were looking at, and the
improvement was dramatic.
Like it was dramatic.
SPEAKER_00 (16:14):
Oh yeah, and look, honestly, like the the nice
thing is like I I guess a lot ofpeople have heard of collagen,
and it's been sort of a bitexciting in the beauty market.
Yep.
So a lot of the like a lot, alot of it, a lot of the hype and
(16:35):
the knowledge of collagen hascome from a good place in the
beauty market, but then it's invery low doses and sort of
poorly absorbed, and it's it'sled to a lot of uh big companies
wanting to achieve betteroutcomes for chronic conditions
(16:55):
that actually don't have goodtreatments for.
There's no cure for arthritis,like there's no cure.
There's symptomatic relief,there's different drugs you can
take.
Uh exercises, like obviouslyexcellent, as in to to try and
somewhat modify the disease.
But we're seeing right now, likewe're I reckon in the last five,
(17:16):
like in the next five years,there's going to be a lot of
really fine-tuned research, ifnot already, it's beginning, in
terms of how and which collagenwe can use for that particular
case or that individual.
And there's literally no sideeffects.
I've had a couple of patientssay, Oh, I don't want to take my
(17:38):
collagen now because it upsetsmy tummy.
I'm like, well, just get used toit.
It's you know, if that's theside effect of not having, you
know, less bone density.
SPEAKER_01 (17:49):
That's the big thing.
It's usually really welltolerated, isn't it?
Um, I I too have had a couple ofpatients and wind has been the
issue, but it's normally beenwith combination products.
As soon as I take the it's notthe combination, it's when
they're combining it withcollagen and other things.
As soon as I keep it tocollagen, it the side effects
(18:10):
tend to abate.
SPEAKER_00 (18:11):
It's really interesting too, because people
like when when I sort of I I ampretty forceful with my uh
treatment plans, like afterbeing a physio for many, many
years, you sort of think, well,you're you you you called me,
you made the effort to like bookin online or call me.
Like I didn't call you.
So you you want the best outcomepossible in the shortest amount
(18:34):
of time and to not have arecurrent issue.
So I'm I can be quite forcefuland just say, and now you're
taking this twice a day, whichwe'll talk about, no doubt, in
terms of the dose for differentconditions, but it's it's like
basically being the pharmacistor the doctor just going, this
(18:55):
is what you need to do.
That's what it is.
We understand, we understand alot in terms of like those in
the researchers know how to getthe molecule into the tissue to
best help your condition.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (19:10):
Take us through post-surgery, because that's
another area that you're expertsin.
This is huge.
I like this is a big area.
SPEAKER_00 (19:18):
So what do we should we start with the incision?
SPEAKER_01 (19:22):
Yeah, look, take us through like when do you start
to employ it, pre-surgery or inum, let's say a week or two
post-surgery?
SPEAKER_00 (19:30):
Look, it's really dependent on when the person's
booked in to come and see us.
Like, I I might have a patientwhere uh, for example, I'll I'll
say Wendy, and Wendy is a realpatient.
And if Wendy ever sees this,she'll laugh and go, yep, that
was actually, yeah, that's whatwe did.
So Wendy, known her for manyyears, so many years, and I
(19:53):
think we both just got sick oftreating her her knee.
We just got sick of it, justgoing, it's bone on bone.
You need a total kneereplacement.
We've got no, we've we've runout of jokes.
Our bedside, our bedsideconversation is like, you know,
getting boring.
So essentially, Wendy needed tohave surgery a long time ago, I
(20:15):
think.
So if someone is already apatient, we've tried a little
bit of collagen, a little bit ofthis, a little bit that, but
they were too far gone.
So a lot of patients come infreshly post-surgically.
I've got a lot of orthopedicsurgeons that refer directly to
us, neurosurgeons, oncologists,uh, where there's incisions in
(20:38):
the skin and a lot of theconnective tissue have been um
modified, you could you couldcall it.
So there's going to be scartissue involvement, there's
gonna be bleeding, inflammation.
Oh mate, it's like it's like acocktail of chemicals that your
body is pretty clever atreleasing, mediating, and trying
(21:01):
to somewhat turn those chemicalsinto a physical structure.
So I would definitely get mypost-surgical patients as soon
as possible onto takingcollagen.
We know there's a huge amount ofresearch that shows how great it
is at stimulating fibroblasts inthe skin, the dermis, uh, like
(21:25):
scar tissue itself lays down itsown like venous structures and
nerve structures essentially,hence why we feel it when it
gets tight.
Um, and the fascia, which wegenerally cut through.
So not only the bones that wemight be cutting into and you
know, putting metal into to makea new surface, we're also got to
(21:50):
be thinking about how much painis presenting within the skin
and the upper layers of thetissues that then allow us to
move, which is the muscle, theconnective tissue, the padding,
the burses, the fat pads, likeand and the like of those
structures are all innovative bynerves.
There's a lot of swellingpost-surgically.
(22:13):
I make my patients take it.
SPEAKER_01 (22:15):
How long after surgery?
Are we talking like five toseven days or a couple of weeks
once they can walk and make anappointment to see you?
SPEAKER_00 (22:23):
It's generally one to two weeks after.
SPEAKER_01 (22:25):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (22:26):
And that's only because they're yeah, they're
they're usually stuck in ainstitution, a hospital, or
they've like potentially chosento do rehab in an external
facility for yeah, two to two tothree weeks maximum.
So I guess the the largest delaywould be within a month of
having a surgical procedure.
SPEAKER_01 (22:47):
Yeah.
And can you give us an idea ofdose that you use in in those
instances?
SPEAKER_00 (22:53):
Yeah, I I would generally if if I know there's
inflammation uh or or it's veryacute in terms of like someone's
body's trying to really heal, asopposed to say just a uh like a
garden variety tennis elbow, forexample, someone's had it for
months, months, months, months,months.
They can stick to a standarddose, uh, which I would say
(23:17):
these days, the standard dose isabout 10 grams of collagen per
day.
Yep.
However, someone that's in that,I I call it like a critical
window, like that criticalwindow of the body's really
trying to heal.
So, you know, you need to powerthat factory and all the
(23:38):
mitochondria and everything inyour system to do its job at its
best in terms of the immunesystem.
So I'm I'm always telling peopleto take the daily dose twice a
day.
So up to 20 grams of collagen aday.
And a lot of the literature says15 is great.
So we just go a little bitextra, knowing that it's
(23:59):
actually quite a cost-effective,it's not expensive, it's not
that expensive when you thinkabout how much you're paying
otherwise for lyrica, for pain,uh, or MOBIC, or you know,
there's a lot of there's a lotof other more expensive things
(24:19):
that are just more symptomaticrelief as opposed to um, yeah,
good for you into the futurelong term.
SPEAKER_01 (24:27):
Um, we usually think you mentioned this quite early
on.
We usually think about collagenas you said, about tendons and
you know, soft tissue and fasciaand blah, blah, blah.
But but you you mentioned bones.
Have you got any case histories?
Can you can you pull out,obviously not mentioning names,
but but can you pull out anycase histories of especially
(24:50):
women, I'm gonna say here, thatmight be suffering from
osteoporosis or osteopenia, andyou've seen the results that
they can gather, that they canget when when taking collagen?
SPEAKER_00 (25:03):
Yeah, a lot.
Um, yeah, it's nice to say alot, like many, many.
We because we because we've beenin our uh community where we're
based for 20 years coming inJanuary.
We have seen a lot of people andthey're growing, we're all
(25:23):
growing old together.
We're all growing old together,Andrew.
It's great.
And they laugh going, yeah, butlike you're doing really well
out of this.
But yes, a lot of I tell youwhat, endocrinologists, I mean,
they're starting to like get it.
They're really starting to getit.
Like they don't just go, boom,you've got to take the HRT, or
(25:47):
um you there's only one way foryou to go.
They'll they'll talk about somesome that I know, they'll talk
about uh with my patientscollagen, they'll talk about
exercise, and how together theyare the best methods for you
moving forward.
So there's research forpre-menopause, there's research,
(26:12):
really good research for uhmenopause, postmenopause, and
it's amazing.
Like it's all in the last three,four years, this research, and a
lot of it's from Germany.
So it definitely indicates thatthe bone density improves.
Like who would have thought?
Like shock horror.
When I went through physioschool 20 years ago or more, um,
(26:33):
I was told the best you can dois lose one to two percent per
year bone density as a femalethat's hit menopause.
That's a lot, but now likepeople are seeing like the
extracellular matrix improving,like not like that, but they're
(26:54):
not continuing.
It's like a very shallow chain,yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (27:01):
And then it goes up a little bit, which is quite
nice, and that's that'simportant because where that's a
big difference when youconsider, as you said, their
trajectory, their normaltrajectory.
That little uptick is a massivedifference in a Z score.
You're talking long term.
If you think about nerveimpingement, you know, um,
(27:23):
collapsed vertebrae, all of theextremely painful conditions
that are disabling forespecially older women, but
they're men who suffer fromosteoporosis as well.
Um, it that slight uptick isdramatic.
SPEAKER_00 (27:41):
And I think one of the things we need to talk about
is to say you don't even knowyour bone density, particularly
like most of the time, youwouldn't even know what your
bone density is unless youactually had a fracture.
You fell over, you tripped overthe tree route, you're walking
down the main street, going to ameeting, suddenly you've gone
(28:01):
straight in an ambulance tohospital, you've had a pin and
plate put in your wrist, andthen your GP goes, Maybe we
should do a uh bone densityscan, and then suddenly, oh
Shiva's, you're like you're upthe top end of osteopenia, or
like you're on your way.
Who would have thought youotherwise exercise?
SPEAKER_01 (28:24):
Do you know?
I I was speaking with a uh anendocrinologist who specializes
in osteoporosis, and this wassome years ago now, but he was
mentioning this study he wasinvolved in where they were
looking at n-telepeptides.
And n telepeptides were back inmy day, they were a functional
(28:45):
pathology that was poo-pooed bythe orthodoxy, and yet here they
are.
Now, this is probably 10 yearsago, but it was 10 years after
the fact, um, using it as astandard sort of check to see,
um, to look at bone turnoverover time, if you like.
Wouldn't it be great if we wereallowed?
(29:05):
Um, I'm just thinking, I'mtrying to think about the public
purse.
I'm trying to think about publicexpenditure health expenditure.
And wouldn't it be great if wehad enough knowledge of the
trajectory, if we checkedsomething like n telepeptides of
women and men say age 40, 30,and then did another one at 50
(29:28):
and said, Oh, you're headed onthis trajectory?
I've I've got a my pen slantedat a 45 degree angle downwards.
Um, or you're at thistrajectory, don't worry about
it, go on and merrily on yourway.
Wouldn't that be a lovely thingfor the Australian healthcare
system to look at?
SPEAKER_00 (29:46):
Amazing.
Like, how many people die likewithin two years of having a hip
fracture?
Yeah.
Like it's just that like we knowthis.
There's so much informationthere.
It would be interesting though,with your concept to like really
fine-tune it, kind of like Iguess the uh the bowel cancer
(30:08):
kits that get sent out by thegovernment.
Like, is there a way you couldeasily or more easily have
access to checking your bonedensity?
Because with bone density, Iguess that's also not that not
that osteoporosis or osteopenia,you have to have arthritis, but
(30:29):
a lot of the time they go handin hand from a built bone health
point of view, and they'rehugely impacting our
socioeconomic like outcomes.
Hugely.
Oh, yeah.
Our hospitals are full of likeknee replacements.
Oh my gosh, it's number one.
It's the number one thing thatwe see longer term in our
(30:52):
clinic.
The rehab of an osteoporoticknee that sort of has had a
probably like a medicalpractitioner say, Don't do
anything until you actuallycan't walk anymore.
And by that stage, mate, you'vegot diabetes, you've put on so
much weight, like this just suchbig an anaesthetic risk.
(31:15):
Exactly.
SPEAKER_01 (31:16):
Like it's hard, it's harder to then rehab.
Oh my god.
And it's harder to recover foruh elderly people.
SPEAKER_00 (31:23):
So hence the college.
You and I should trademark that.
Whatever you come up with.
I was here.
SPEAKER_01 (31:32):
I'll work on it with you.
Let's go to the other end of thespectrum, um, Matt, and that is
uh the younger people.
I shouldn't I shouldn't be socareful to pigeonhole people.
So, but let's say the the themore younger set, the athletic
injuries.
So what do you treat?
(31:54):
What do you see in clinic?
Obviously, you've got yourcommon ones, your netballers,
but what else do you see?
And how do you treat it withcollagen?
And can we throw in maybe a fewother therapies you might use?
SPEAKER_00 (32:07):
Can I can I do this?
Can I just show you a veryrecent review?
SPEAKER_01 (32:14):
Yeah.
24 week study on the use ofcollagen hydrosylate.
What keep going, sorry?
Hold it up.
SPEAKER_00 (32:21):
Essentially for athletes with activity-related
joint pain.
So no arthritis, none of the youknow, comorbidities that we were
talking about before, not oldpeople, like young people in
their prime, but exercising hardand having to recover.
(32:41):
That particular study is onethat that one was back in 2008,
but that same set of researchershave just continued along that
pathway in terms of making surethat it has had very good
outcomes for people.
Um, from a joint pain point ofview, from a uh recovery point
(33:02):
of view, so they can actuallytrain more again the next day or
the day after that, they recoverwell, they don't get to that
point where they tear tissues orI guess live in too much
discomfort.
So their functional strength isdefinitely improved with
collagen.
There's a huge, huge oh, I loveit actually.
(33:25):
I I I I love Google YouTubecollagen, and you will see it's
a very interesting world becausecollagen is a protein, but it's
for a particular purpose, yeah.
It's not just the whole proteinthat you should be taking, and
(33:47):
the only people saying collagenisn't very effective is the ones
that are really brosciencebecause they want the best
outcome for their muscles.
So collagen is a good protein,it's sort of known as like a
lower growth protein when itcomes to muscle, but everything
(34:13):
else, connective tissue, thebest.
The little amino acids in it,the peptides in it is amazing.
Glycine, proline, all that sortof stuff is great.
But when it comes to muscle, thebelly of muscle, so you know the
bulk, the guns, yeah.
You can take whey protein or soyprotein, you can take something
(34:36):
else.
So a lot of my patients, I willsay take a higher dose.
If you're, for example, ifyou're a dragon boater, that we
see a lot of dragon boaters,we're in Piemont, so we're near
the Anzac Bridge.
Uh younger, older, like you'rein high school, you're competing
at um the Olympic Games, youshould be taking collagen,
(35:00):
essentially.
It helps that recovery phase.
It also helps to mediate a lotof the inflammatory cells that
you develop post-exercise.
So it actually helps to dampendown the lactic acid effect and
feeling.
And guess what?
Hey, it's really good for yourhair, skin, and nails.
unknown (35:24):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (35:25):
And that's what I tend, I tend to get a really
good laugh from my athletes whenI say that.
That's the side effect.
SPEAKER_01 (35:34):
So so can I ask um about delayed onset muscle
soreness?
Are you saying that because ofthat anti-inflammatory action,
it could dampen some of thatDOMS syndrome?
SPEAKER_00 (35:47):
Yeah, and that and that's coming back to that.
Uh, one of the first questionsyou asked about the types of
collagen, that is sort ofimportant to know, like why,
which one are we giving someonebased on why you are presenting
and and what's your lifestylelike?
What do you need to be able todo, compete with?
Um, yeah.
(36:08):
So if I if I know that someoneneeds to be able to back up and
they're very intense with theirtraining, I will actually think,
okay, you need a collagen thattargets type one or type two or
type three collagen.
In that sort of particularinstance, it's more like type
(36:29):
two.
There's so many differentcollagens.
Yeah.
So we need to try and targetthat because that mediates the
inflammatory phase.
Whereas the other one might begood at really rebuilding your
tendon length or your tendon,your skin, etc.
So yeah, it's a little bitcomplicated, and they're just
(36:50):
fine-tuning it.
They're going to keepfine-tuning it every year, you
know, for the next five years ormore.
SPEAKER_01 (36:56):
Matt, it absolutely so interesting talking to you
and your history.
You know, sort of I I can seethat you've got like files
floating around your head of somany patients that you've used
collagen on and gained so manybenefits.
But thank you so much for takingus through just some of the ways
in which you use collagen for atherapeutic benefit today.
(37:19):
I've really enjoyed it.
Really interesting to talk toyou today.
Thanks so much.
SPEAKER_00 (37:23):
Yeah, no problem.
Thanks for having me.
I've had a great time.
SPEAKER_01 (37:27):
And we'll put up in the show notes as much
information as we can so thatyou can explore the different
actions and usages of collagen.
And of course, there's the otherpodcast that you can listen to
on the Designs for Healthwebsite.
I'm Andrew with Phil Cook.
This is Wellness by Designs.
This is Wellness by Designs, and I'm your host,
Andrew Whitfield.
And joining us today is MatthewCraig, an integrative
physiotherapist who usescollagen to help his patients
overcome injuries, stave offdegenerative disorders, and also
to recover from surgicalinterventions faster.
Matthew, welcome so much toWellness by Designs.
(00:43):
How are you?
SPEAKER_00 (00:43):
I'm great.
Thanks, Andrew.
How are you?
Thank you so much for having me.
SPEAKER_01 (00:47):
Our pleasure.
And thank you so much for takingtime out of your busy day.
Matt, can I just first ask you alittle bit about your history?
I mean, you've been aphysiotherapist.
Most physiotherapists are prettysort of hunky-dory onto the
physical interventions.
What sparked your interest ingiving an oral supplementation
of coral, of collagen?
SPEAKER_00 (01:09):
It's a really interesting question in terms of
having to look back historicallyto the reasons why I do use
collagen quite frequently and alot.
It's part of the daily protocolin terms of like when a lot of
patients are coming in.
It's so easy to talk about forme.
(01:30):
But I remember it must have beenaround 10 years ago.
So I've been a physio for justover 20 years, let's call it 23,
24 years.
And you know, you're seeingpatients like chronic pain,
you're seeing acute pain, you'reseeing shoulders, you're seeing
toes, broken toes, you're seeingeverything.
(01:51):
Seeing people post-cancertreatments.
There's a lot, there's a lotinvolved in private practice
that we see.
And I just remember my sister,who's a geneticist over in
Switzerland, and she's a smartcookie.
She's a molecular biologist, andshe's got patents, and she was
in the cancer research field uhfor many years and big
(02:14):
researcher.
Like anything she says, I sortof just go, yes, it must be
true.
And then 10 years ago, sheactually made did a big backflip
and she created a collagenproduct.
And I was talking to her just onprobably very primitive uh
FaceTime 10 years ago.
(02:36):
I wonder what that was.
Was it FaceTime?
Who knows?
It could have been Skype orsomething exciting.
And I said, I remember saying toher, What what what making
collagen?
What's collagen?
Like call isn't that like isn'tthat tendons?
Isn't that bone broth?
Isn't that, you know, somethingthat you know the hippies sort
(02:56):
of stir up on the stove and youknow, like take and uh yeah, so
that's where I started learning.
She said she essentially said,Look, Matt, you're a physio,
you're dealing with people everysingle day that have orthopedic
issues, inflammatory problems,uh, yeah, like muscle
strengthening issues, etc.,etc., degenerative, etc.
(03:20):
And I thought, oh, like, so doesthat mean I could use that?
Like, I said I could talk to mypatients about this?
Like, is this like am I allowed?
I I immediately thought, maybeI'm not allowed as a physio.
Like, what's my governing bodythinking of this?
Is this a drug?
Like, what is it?
And yeah, like to my umpatient's benefit over the last
(03:45):
at least 10 years, it's beenamazing to use as an adjunct in
the background of what I can door what I've been able to
provide my patients.
So it's really, yeah, it's it'snice to be able to talk to to
you about it today, in terms ofhow I wouldn't utilize it on a
daily basis.
SPEAKER_01 (04:05):
So, Matt, can I then ask, when do you approach this
along the patient's umtherapeutic journey, if you
like?
When do you start to talk aboutcollagen?
Do you say, hey, listen, earlyon, let's get into it?
Or do you say, look, let's do myphysio, we'll see how that
works.
And if we're having somestruggles, we might then
(04:27):
instigate some collagen therapy.
Which where do you sort ofapproach it?
SPEAKER_00 (04:32):
It's I I probably have like thinking about it, I
probably have two approaches.
There's the approach wheresomeone's really busy.
I I work in the city in Sydney,so it's a very busy clinic.
So sometimes people aren't, Iguess they're they're just they
just want some really quickrelief, manual therapy, out they
(04:54):
go, back to their Pilatesclasses or their normal routine.
Yep.
I am pretty firm when someonecomes into the clinic with
certain conditions that I knowtake the human body quite a
long, a lengthy period of timeto improve, whether it's the
(05:17):
natural history of theparticular connective tissue
that's injured.
Uh, an example would be like ameniscal tear of the knee, uh uh
a disc related uh bulge, aprotrusion, an extrusion.
And when you put those twotogether, those particular um
(05:38):
issues, if you're looking at saya knee and a lower back or a
neck, you're that's that thatthat is a lot of what a
physiotherapist would see eachday in the clinic.
So I'm pretty tough on thosepeople in terms of outlining how
poor the perfusion of blood flowis to those tissues, and the
best thing they can do, becauseeveryone wants to get better
(06:00):
quicker, right?
They don't actually want to comeand see me in my clinic, pay my
rate, and and know that theycould or could not get better
quickly.
So it's in their best interestto know straight away about it.
So yeah, scenario two is oftenthe case, but there is also that
(06:21):
scenario one where someone justwants to get in, they've got a
headache, they just want theirneck manipulated, and they just
want to get back into a lot oftheir you know busy meetings.
But if it's if it's a journey, Italk about it straight away.
I don't wait three months andsay, look, we could be getting
better if we also take somesupplementation in your diet.
SPEAKER_01 (06:41):
And and I mean you you mentioned a few conditions
here, but what other conditionsdo you tend to employ collagen
in?
You said you're a cancerspecialist physio.
Take us through that.
That's really interesting.
SPEAKER_00 (06:54):
Yeah, it's really interesting, particularly
knowing your background too, andyour um, yeah, your career uh in
nursing and medicine.
So there is a pink for women anda steel uh rehab physiotherapy
accreditation uh that's outthere.
And it was essentially uh uh, Iguess the founder, you could say
(07:20):
the founder of the theparticular cancer rehab uh
foundation is a New Zealandphysiotherapist.
Uh and she works with a lot ofpain management specialists,
cancer, oncology, doctors, etc.
So I I guess just naturally,with my history of treating
(07:41):
chronic pain and also sportsinjuries, but you know, as
you're getting a bit older, yousort of you see you just want to
delve a bit more, a bit moreinto the complexity of uh
treatment and helping people inneed.
So therefore, yeah, I went downthat pathway and just learned a
lot more about, I guess, cancer,inflammation, mechanical issues
(08:03):
as a result of differenttreatment types, whether it's
like chemotherapy, radiotherapy,hormone therapy, yeah, physio
exercise.
It's a it's a it's a it's a bigworld.
And I think the best approach isa multidisciplinary approach,
yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (08:23):
So can can I ask you can I ask you about cording?
We we commonly refer to cordingas this sort of you know tight
muscles that mainly womenexperience when they've had
breast cancer radiotherapy, andso the you know, the muscles
under the armpit get reallytight and corded, bunched up.
But do you see cording anywhereelse in the body?
(08:45):
You know, let's say for um, youknow, men experiencing prostate
cancer and they're they'regetting, you know, they'd be
lucky enough to get the cyberknife, but if they had other
radiotherapy um in the genitalarea, do they get cording like
of the groin or anything likethat?
SPEAKER_00 (09:05):
They do.
Uh coming back to the I guessmore the the bust to breast
surgery at the cord, the cordingis amazing.
If you haven't seen cording, itwould be hard to try and
explain.
Well, it is I'm explaining itnow.
It's very hard to explain thatsomeone's armpit can look like
they've got guitar stringspoking outside the skin.
(09:28):
Yeah, yeah, it's reallyinteresting, right?
You've seen it.
And to think that I guess it'sgenerally pretty conservative in
medicine, in the oncologyclinics and and that world, like
everyone's just sort of gettinginformation and advice just to
(09:48):
be happy that you're alive, butthere's functional impacts on
things like cording, and cordingwill basically present like uh
particular female having um uhbreast surgery or a massectomy,
uh, their glands try and find anew pathway within their own
(10:11):
lymphatic system, and thensuddenly you do you get this
like guitar string effectthrough the armpit.
And now in the armpit, everysingle nerve that goes to your
fingertips from your neck downgoes through your armpit.
So it's an absolute nightmare ifyou were just to follow general
(10:32):
practice advice and just see howit goes.
So that I have seen definitelyum on the male side, like
through like different um likeareas of the adductors, probably
not as common in terms of thepresentation to a private
(10:53):
practice, because I I think alsomen tend to you know not seek
therapy, or they probably just Idon't know, they hide it away,
or I don't know, they just don'ttend to probably talk much about
it, or it's not reallypotentially painful or or you
know irritating their theirfunction, but I have definitely
(11:14):
seen it through that sort ofthat adductor area, but also
through the carbs.
Yep.
Oh, and it can, yep.
So if someone's actuallygenerally a male might tell me
their history after the factthat they've introduced
themselves to me or one of myphysios in the clinic as someone
with sardica or back pain.
(11:37):
So then we start looking at thebody, we start like testing, you
know, the length of muscles andyou know their range of motion
through the hips, the knees, thethe ankles.
And then suddenly you can justsee it's it's quite an
interesting twitching responsethat the the medial gastroc or
the the calf muscle can actuallyportray.
(11:58):
And straight away I know thatthis person has probably had
something else other than justback pain, like something's
hypersensitizing, you know, thethe neural connectivity, right?
Which is really yeah, it's it'sa bit of a pick a path, like how
much time do we have to find outwhat's actually going on?
(12:19):
And majority of the time, likebecause people come back very
frequently uh and finish offtheir treatment because they
want to, um, we can get to thebottom line of it.
SPEAKER_01 (12:30):
Yeah.
And and of course, you mentionedearly on your backs and your and
your knees and things like that.
Obviously, there's degenerativechanges that we get as we age.
Um, but there's also the sportsinjuries as well.
So, how do you pick and chooseuh well, which type of collagen,
(12:50):
if you like?
Or um now we can't mention brandnames here, can't mention
product names.
Um, I don't know how you feelabout um ingredient names, but
that's I don't have a problemwith that.
But um hang on.
Um yeah, how do you sort of wendyour way and and introduce that
topic to somebody say, hey,listen, we should apart from me,
(13:13):
you know, massaging you andworking on range of motion,
things like that, we should alsobe looking at collagen.
How do you approach thatconversation?
SPEAKER_00 (13:21):
Yeah, so I would I I see a lot of a lot of arthritis
and a lot of uh perimenopause,menopause, bone density issues
uh coming through.
There's so much excellentresearch.
Uh, I will definitely bechatting to most people that
(13:46):
enter the clinic um to like takethat pathway and understand more
about how they got to where theyare or potentially prevent where
they could be heading when itcomes to certain conditions like
that.
Um we often laugh like when youcome into our particular clinic,
(14:08):
um, where I guess we're rare inthe sense that we do have like
quite a big retail space as youenter.
So it's we we kind of laugh andcall it our physio open locker
room.
So you've got your bands, you'vegot your supplements, you've got
your uh products that we trust,right?
And we know we're going to usethem.
So they don't stay on the shelffor very long before we then
(14:30):
replenish them.
So there is very goodtrademarked brands of collagen
out there.
You've got some very badcollagen, and you've got some
very good collagen.
Okay, it's like it's likeanything out there that you've
probably been talking about foryears and years and years, like
(14:52):
a lot of years, right?
Like, and we're talking aboutwe're talking about trying to
supplement someone's or be anadjunct to a treatment, but then
also give someone the the bestoutcome.
So generally, you kind of do getwhat you pay for, in a sense,
when it comes to collagen.
(15:14):
It has to be a small enoughamino acid peptide to be able to
be absorbed.
So, therefore, when you'relooking at what you're treating,
let's say it's a tendon versus abone, there's a certain collagen
that's better for that tendon,but then there's also one that's
(15:34):
better for the bone.
It's been researched, so it'sit's there's a lot of really
cool microbiology andmacrobiology out there to to
allow us to know, okay, go downthat path.
But essentially, it's a lot ofit's patented from like Germany
and some of these like reallyforward-thinking countries,
yeah.
(15:55):
Yeah, in that gelatin.
SPEAKER_01 (15:57):
Oh, it's very and high-drive.
I know one of the productsyou're talking about, and uh,
yeah, and one of them I rememberlooking at the at the research,
I think it was a Z score um thatthey were looking at, and the
improvement was dramatic.
Like it was dramatic.
SPEAKER_00 (16:14):
Oh yeah, and look, honestly, like the the nice
thing is like I I guess a lot ofpeople have heard of collagen,
and it's been sort of a bitexciting in the beauty market.
Yep.
So a lot of the like a lot, alot of it, a lot of the hype and
(16:35):
the knowledge of collagen hascome from a good place in the
beauty market, but then it's invery low doses and sort of
poorly absorbed, and it's it'sled to a lot of uh big companies
wanting to achieve betteroutcomes for chronic conditions
(16:55):
that actually don't have goodtreatments for.
There's no cure for arthritis,like there's no cure.
There's symptomatic relief,there's different drugs you can
take.
Uh exercises, like obviouslyexcellent, as in to to try and
somewhat modify the disease.
But we're seeing right now, likewe're I reckon in the last five,
(17:16):
like in the next five years,there's going to be a lot of
really fine-tuned research, ifnot already, it's beginning, in
terms of how and which collagenwe can use for that particular
case or that individual.
And there's literally no sideeffects.
I've had a couple of patientssay, Oh, I don't want to take my
(17:38):
collagen now because it upsetsmy tummy.
I'm like, well, just get used toit.
It's you know, if that's theside effect of not having, you
know, less bone density.
SPEAKER_01 (17:49):
That's the big thing.
It's usually really welltolerated, isn't it?
Um, I I too have had a couple ofpatients and wind has been the
issue, but it's normally beenwith combination products.
As soon as I take the it's notthe combination, it's when
they're combining it withcollagen and other things.
As soon as I keep it tocollagen, it the side effects
(18:10):
tend to abate.
SPEAKER_00 (18:11):
It's really interesting too, because people
like when when I sort of I I ampretty forceful with my uh
treatment plans, like afterbeing a physio for many, many
years, you sort of think, well,you're you you you called me,
you made the effort to like bookin online or call me.
Like I didn't call you.
So you you want the best outcomepossible in the shortest amount
(18:34):
of time and to not have arecurrent issue.
So I'm I can be quite forcefuland just say, and now you're
taking this twice a day, whichwe'll talk about, no doubt, in
terms of the dose for differentconditions, but it's it's like
basically being the pharmacistor the doctor just going, this
(18:55):
is what you need to do.
That's what it is.
We understand, we understand alot in terms of like those in
the researchers know how to getthe molecule into the tissue to
best help your condition.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (19:10):
Take us through post-surgery, because that's
another area that you're expertsin.
This is huge.
I like this is a big area.
SPEAKER_00 (19:18):
So what do we should we start with the incision?
SPEAKER_01 (19:22):
Yeah, look, take us through like when do you start
to employ it, pre-surgery or inum, let's say a week or two
post-surgery?
SPEAKER_00 (19:30):
Look, it's really dependent on when the person's
booked in to come and see us.
Like, I I might have a patientwhere uh, for example, I'll I'll
say Wendy, and Wendy is a realpatient.
And if Wendy ever sees this,she'll laugh and go, yep, that
was actually, yeah, that's whatwe did.
So Wendy, known her for manyyears, so many years, and I
(19:53):
think we both just got sick oftreating her her knee.
We just got sick of it, justgoing, it's bone on bone.
You need a total kneereplacement.
We've got no, we've we've runout of jokes.
Our bedside, our bedsideconversation is like, you know,
getting boring.
So essentially, Wendy needed tohave surgery a long time ago, I
(20:15):
think.
So if someone is already apatient, we've tried a little
bit of collagen, a little bit ofthis, a little bit that, but
they were too far gone.
So a lot of patients come infreshly post-surgically.
I've got a lot of orthopedicsurgeons that refer directly to
us, neurosurgeons, oncologists,uh, where there's incisions in
(20:38):
the skin and a lot of theconnective tissue have been um
modified, you could you couldcall it.
So there's going to be scartissue involvement, there's
gonna be bleeding, inflammation.
Oh mate, it's like it's like acocktail of chemicals that your
body is pretty clever atreleasing, mediating, and trying
(21:01):
to somewhat turn those chemicalsinto a physical structure.
So I would definitely get mypost-surgical patients as soon
as possible onto takingcollagen.
We know there's a huge amount ofresearch that shows how great it
is at stimulating fibroblasts inthe skin, the dermis, uh, like
(21:25):
scar tissue itself lays down itsown like venous structures and
nerve structures essentially,hence why we feel it when it
gets tight.
Um, and the fascia, which wegenerally cut through.
So not only the bones that wemight be cutting into and you
know, putting metal into to makea new surface, we're also got to
(21:50):
be thinking about how much painis presenting within the skin
and the upper layers of thetissues that then allow us to
move, which is the muscle, theconnective tissue, the padding,
the burses, the fat pads, likeand and the like of those
structures are all innovative bynerves.
There's a lot of swellingpost-surgically.
(22:13):
I make my patients take it.
SPEAKER_01 (22:15):
How long after surgery?
Are we talking like five toseven days or a couple of weeks
once they can walk and make anappointment to see you?
SPEAKER_00 (22:23):
It's generally one to two weeks after.
SPEAKER_01 (22:25):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (22:26):
And that's only because they're yeah, they're
they're usually stuck in ainstitution, a hospital, or
they've like potentially chosento do rehab in an external
facility for yeah, two to two tothree weeks maximum.
So I guess the the largest delaywould be within a month of
having a surgical procedure.
SPEAKER_01 (22:47):
Yeah.
And can you give us an idea ofdose that you use in in those
instances?
SPEAKER_00 (22:53):
Yeah, I I would generally if if I know there's
inflammation uh or or it's veryacute in terms of like someone's
body's trying to really heal, asopposed to say just a uh like a
garden variety tennis elbow, forexample, someone's had it for
months, months, months, months,months.
They can stick to a standarddose, uh, which I would say
(23:17):
these days, the standard dose isabout 10 grams of collagen per
day.
Yep.
However, someone that's in that,I I call it like a critical
window, like that criticalwindow of the body's really
trying to heal.
So, you know, you need to powerthat factory and all the
(23:38):
mitochondria and everything inyour system to do its job at its
best in terms of the immunesystem.
So I'm I'm always telling peopleto take the daily dose twice a
day.
So up to 20 grams of collagen aday.
And a lot of the literature says15 is great.
So we just go a little bitextra, knowing that it's
(23:59):
actually quite a cost-effective,it's not expensive, it's not
that expensive when you thinkabout how much you're paying
otherwise for lyrica, for pain,uh, or MOBIC, or you know,
there's a lot of there's a lotof other more expensive things
(24:19):
that are just more symptomaticrelief as opposed to um, yeah,
good for you into the futurelong term.
SPEAKER_01 (24:27):
Um, we usually think you mentioned this quite early
on.
We usually think about collagenas you said, about tendons and
you know, soft tissue and fasciaand blah, blah, blah.
But but you you mentioned bones.
Have you got any case histories?
Can you can you pull out,obviously not mentioning names,
but but can you pull out anycase histories of especially
(24:50):
women, I'm gonna say here, thatmight be suffering from
osteoporosis or osteopenia, andyou've seen the results that
they can gather, that they canget when when taking collagen?
SPEAKER_00 (25:03):
Yeah, a lot.
Um, yeah, it's nice to say alot, like many, many.
We because we because we've beenin our uh community where we're
based for 20 years coming inJanuary.
We have seen a lot of people andthey're growing, we're all
(25:23):
growing old together.
We're all growing old together,Andrew.
It's great.
And they laugh going, yeah, butlike you're doing really well
out of this.
But yes, a lot of I tell youwhat, endocrinologists, I mean,
they're starting to like get it.
They're really starting to getit.
Like they don't just go, boom,you've got to take the HRT, or
(25:47):
um you there's only one way foryou to go.
They'll they'll talk about somesome that I know, they'll talk
about uh with my patientscollagen, they'll talk about
exercise, and how together theyare the best methods for you
moving forward.
So there's research forpre-menopause, there's research,
(26:12):
really good research for uhmenopause, postmenopause, and
it's amazing.
Like it's all in the last three,four years, this research, and a
lot of it's from Germany.
So it definitely indicates thatthe bone density improves.
Like who would have thought?
Like shock horror.
When I went through physioschool 20 years ago or more, um,
(26:33):
I was told the best you can dois lose one to two percent per
year bone density as a femalethat's hit menopause.
That's a lot, but now likepeople are seeing like the
extracellular matrix improving,like not like that, but they're
(26:54):
not continuing.
It's like a very shallow chain,yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (27:01):
And then it goes up a little bit, which is quite
nice, and that's that'simportant because where that's a
big difference when youconsider, as you said, their
trajectory, their normaltrajectory.
That little uptick is a massivedifference in a Z score.
You're talking long term.
If you think about nerveimpingement, you know, um,
(27:23):
collapsed vertebrae, all of theextremely painful conditions
that are disabling forespecially older women, but
they're men who suffer fromosteoporosis as well.
Um, it that slight uptick isdramatic.
SPEAKER_00 (27:41):
And I think one of the things we need to talk about
is to say you don't even knowyour bone density, particularly
like most of the time, youwouldn't even know what your
bone density is unless youactually had a fracture.
You fell over, you tripped overthe tree route, you're walking
down the main street, going to ameeting, suddenly you've gone
(28:01):
straight in an ambulance tohospital, you've had a pin and
plate put in your wrist, andthen your GP goes, Maybe we
should do a uh bone densityscan, and then suddenly, oh
Shiva's, you're like you're upthe top end of osteopenia, or
like you're on your way.
Who would have thought youotherwise exercise?
SPEAKER_01 (28:24):
Do you know?
I I was speaking with a uh anendocrinologist who specializes
in osteoporosis, and this wassome years ago now, but he was
mentioning this study he wasinvolved in where they were
looking at n-telepeptides.
And n telepeptides were back inmy day, they were a functional
(28:45):
pathology that was poo-pooed bythe orthodoxy, and yet here they
are.
Now, this is probably 10 yearsago, but it was 10 years after
the fact, um, using it as astandard sort of check to see,
um, to look at bone turnoverover time, if you like.
Wouldn't it be great if we wereallowed?
(29:05):
Um, I'm just thinking, I'mtrying to think about the public
purse.
I'm trying to think about publicexpenditure health expenditure.
And wouldn't it be great if wehad enough knowledge of the
trajectory, if we checkedsomething like n telepeptides of
women and men say age 40, 30,and then did another one at 50
(29:28):
and said, Oh, you're headed onthis trajectory?
I've I've got a my pen slantedat a 45 degree angle downwards.
Um, or you're at thistrajectory, don't worry about
it, go on and merrily on yourway.
Wouldn't that be a lovely thingfor the Australian healthcare
system to look at?
SPEAKER_00 (29:46):
Amazing.
Like, how many people die likewithin two years of having a hip
fracture?
Yeah.
Like it's just that like we knowthis.
There's so much informationthere.
It would be interesting though,with your concept to like really
fine-tune it, kind of like Iguess the uh the bowel cancer
(30:08):
kits that get sent out by thegovernment.
Like, is there a way you couldeasily or more easily have
access to checking your bonedensity?
Because with bone density, Iguess that's also not that not
that osteoporosis or osteopenia,you have to have arthritis, but
(30:29):
a lot of the time they go handin hand from a built bone health
point of view, and they'rehugely impacting our
socioeconomic like outcomes.
Hugely.
Oh, yeah.
Our hospitals are full of likeknee replacements.
Oh my gosh, it's number one.
It's the number one thing thatwe see longer term in our
(30:52):
clinic.
The rehab of an osteoporoticknee that sort of has had a
probably like a medicalpractitioner say, Don't do
anything until you actuallycan't walk anymore.
And by that stage, mate, you'vegot diabetes, you've put on so
much weight, like this just suchbig an anaesthetic risk.
(31:15):
Exactly.
SPEAKER_01 (31:16):
Like it's hard, it's harder to then rehab.
Oh my god.
And it's harder to recover foruh elderly people.
SPEAKER_00 (31:23):
So hence the college.
You and I should trademark that.
Whatever you come up with.
I was here.
SPEAKER_01 (31:32):
I'll work on it with you.
Let's go to the other end of thespectrum, um, Matt, and that is
uh the younger people.
I shouldn't I shouldn't be socareful to pigeonhole people.
So, but let's say the the themore younger set, the athletic
injuries.
So what do you treat?
(31:54):
What do you see in clinic?
Obviously, you've got yourcommon ones, your netballers,
but what else do you see?
And how do you treat it withcollagen?
And can we throw in maybe a fewother therapies you might use?
SPEAKER_00 (32:07):
Can I can I do this?
Can I just show you a veryrecent review?
SPEAKER_01 (32:14):
Yeah.
24 week study on the use ofcollagen hydrosylate.
What keep going, sorry?
Hold it up.
SPEAKER_00 (32:21):
Essentially for athletes with activity-related
joint pain.
So no arthritis, none of the youknow, comorbidities that we were
talking about before, not oldpeople, like young people in
their prime, but exercising hardand having to recover.
(32:41):
That particular study is onethat that one was back in 2008,
but that same set of researchershave just continued along that
pathway in terms of making surethat it has had very good
outcomes for people.
Um, from a joint pain point ofview, from a uh recovery point
(33:02):
of view, so they can actuallytrain more again the next day or
the day after that, they recoverwell, they don't get to that
point where they tear tissues orI guess live in too much
discomfort.
So their functional strength isdefinitely improved with
collagen.
There's a huge, huge oh, I loveit actually.
(33:25):
I I I I love Google YouTubecollagen, and you will see it's
a very interesting world becausecollagen is a protein, but it's
for a particular purpose, yeah.
It's not just the whole proteinthat you should be taking, and
(33:47):
the only people saying collagenisn't very effective is the ones
that are really brosciencebecause they want the best
outcome for their muscles.
So collagen is a good protein,it's sort of known as like a
lower growth protein when itcomes to muscle, but everything
(34:13):
else, connective tissue, thebest.
The little amino acids in it,the peptides in it is amazing.
Glycine, proline, all that sortof stuff is great.
But when it comes to muscle, thebelly of muscle, so you know the
bulk, the guns, yeah.
You can take whey protein or soyprotein, you can take something
(34:36):
else.
So a lot of my patients, I willsay take a higher dose.
If you're, for example, ifyou're a dragon boater, that we
see a lot of dragon boaters,we're in Piemont, so we're near
the Anzac Bridge.
Uh younger, older, like you'rein high school, you're competing
at um the Olympic Games, youshould be taking collagen,
(35:00):
essentially.
It helps that recovery phase.
It also helps to mediate a lotof the inflammatory cells that
you develop post-exercise.
So it actually helps to dampendown the lactic acid effect and
feeling.
And guess what?
Hey, it's really good for yourhair, skin, and nails.
unknown (35:24):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (35:25):
And that's what I tend, I tend to get a really
good laugh from my athletes whenI say that.
That's the side effect.
SPEAKER_01 (35:34):
So so can I ask um about delayed onset muscle
soreness?
Are you saying that because ofthat anti-inflammatory action,
it could dampen some of thatDOMS syndrome?
SPEAKER_00 (35:47):
Yeah, and that and that's coming back to that.
Uh, one of the first questionsyou asked about the types of
collagen, that is sort ofimportant to know, like why,
which one are we giving someonebased on why you are presenting
and and what's your lifestylelike?
What do you need to be able todo, compete with?
Um, yeah.
(36:08):
So if I if I know that someoneneeds to be able to back up and
they're very intense with theirtraining, I will actually think,
okay, you need a collagen thattargets type one or type two or
type three collagen.
In that sort of particularinstance, it's more like type
(36:29):
two.
There's so many differentcollagens.
Yeah.
So we need to try and targetthat because that mediates the
inflammatory phase.
Whereas the other one might begood at really rebuilding your
tendon length or your tendon,your skin, etc.
So yeah, it's a little bitcomplicated, and they're just
(36:50):
fine-tuning it.
They're going to keepfine-tuning it every year, you
know, for the next five years ormore.
SPEAKER_01 (36:56):
Matt, it absolutely so interesting talking to you
and your history.
You know, sort of I I can seethat you've got like files
floating around your head of somany patients that you've used
collagen on and gained so manybenefits.
But thank you so much for takingus through just some of the ways
in which you use collagen for atherapeutic benefit today.
(37:19):
I've really enjoyed it.
Really interesting to talk toyou today.
Thanks so much.
SPEAKER_00 (37:23):
Yeah, no problem.
Thanks for having me.
I've had a great time.
SPEAKER_01 (37:27):
And we'll put up in the show notes as much
information as we can so thatyou can explore the different
actions and usages of collagen.
And of course, there's the otherpodcast that you can listen to
on the Designs for Healthwebsite.
I'm Andrew with Phil Cook.
This is Wellness by Designs.
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