I put two scoops of Vital Proteins collagen, plus TriMethylGlycine, plus NMN (I am almost out of the NMN and probably will not continue using), plus some Allulose and a tiny bit of Turmeric powder, into black tea, plus a little whole fat cream. Have gotten used to the taste – it’s fine. Prefer the supplements in tea rather than coffee. I also have been using Tretinoin since I was a teenager, for acne (I am 74 now)and still using. Also have been taking Chondroitin and Glucosamine for many years, and added UCII collagen a few years ago. Careful about sun, sunscreen. Skin is good. No wrinkles.
8 Likes
I am currently using Adapalene 0.1%. Would be 0.3% be even more effective?
I would switch to 0.05% tretinoin.
2 Likes
Possibly, but I haven’t seen any direct comparisons between the two for photoprotection. In dermatology, we generally tell patients that stronger retinoids work better for acne but don’t necessarily work better for photo damage, and of course stronger retinoids are significantly more irritating to skin. It’s still a bit unclear because there are contradictory studies out there, but we know lower potency retinoids still work well, and because they are more tolerable, people are more likely to stick with them.
why should I switch? Do I have to use either or?
I was taking 40g collagen daily for about a month with the goal of increasing intake of most amino acids, while also restricting further isoleucine, methionine, and cysteine intake.
Sadly I had to stop because it was seriously disrupting my sleep. I normally get great sleep and when I started waking up every night, wide awake, in the middle of the night, it was very noticeable. Twice I stopped taking collagen for a few days and my sleep returned to normal.
I may try supplementing glycine alone, which hopefully won’t give me the same issue. If it doesn’t, then maybe this was a more non-specific effect due to altered amino acid ratios or perhaps due to bioactive peptides.
It seems the consensus is that collagen and glycine are beneficial for sleep, so maybe I’m just an outlier and/or my relatively high dose of collagen was to blame, but I found some reports on Reddit claiming glycine and/or collagen led to similar issues.
4 Likes
When did you take your collagen? You may want to take it early in the morning as glycine is usually metabolized in 4 hours. I would assume collagen is similar?
1 Like
I was mostly taking it at night, but the few times I tried earlier in the day it didn’t seem to make a difference. In the future I might try it exclusively in the morning.
1 Like
I’ve now been taking 3g glycine when I wake up, and most nights taking a second dose of 3g. Additionally, I’ve been taking 25g of collagen most days (usually in the middle of the day).
Absolutely no sleep issues like I was getting with 40g/day collagen.
2 Likes
why should I switch? Do I have to use either or?
Because tretinoin has been used and studied for decades, so it has way more evidence of efficacy (and safety) than newer adapalene.
5 Likes
I am 23 F new here. can someone just tell me what will build collagen long-term? There is so much complicated information here.
Collagen Peptides will help you build collagen. I use either Sports Research or Vital Proteins brands. Ingested hyaluronic acid is also supposed to help with skin maintenance.
2 Likes
Thanks, I’ve been taking collagen peptides but I didn’t know if there were treatments more effective at building collagen overtime. For example, I did a CO2 laser about a year ago. I also read a study that rapamycin inhibits collagen production and I have some reservations about that. Tbf my media literacy isn’t the greatest.
1 Like
Rapamycin modulated downward cell growth when it is inhibiting mTORC1, so yes, I would expect some reduction in collagen growth during peak rapamycin dosing period, just as you would see less muscle growth (and wound healing) when you are at maximum doses of rapamycin and especially immediately after (the 24 hours afterwards) doing rapamycin.
But, the researchers like Brian Kennedy talk about rapamycin being like a dial that helps turn down mTORC during periods of time, because as people age mTOR becomes more disregulated and the basal (base) level of TOR (the nutrient sensing pathway) trends higher and doesn’t turn down after “nutrition is sensed”. People who are eating excess nutrition (and thus who are gaining excess levels of weight) have TOR turned on a higher percent of the time, and this is why overweight (especially diabetic) people tend to age much faster than people who are calorically restricted. Having mTOR turned on all the time might help with collagen growth, but it also helps with all types of cellular growth including cancers, etc.
I recommend you listen to this video segment: https://youtu.be/dvroImU-1zs?si=bcudZ00-nMEBNmrc&t=402
I’ve not dove deep into the collagen boosting research but I think you are right about lasers (some types of laser resurfacing) helping collagen growth.
Other things (though probably to a much lesser degree) include: 9 ways to stimulate collagen production in skin
Perhaps also of interest: So, what's the deal with collagen?
7 Likes
FWIW
1 Like
it also inhibits muscle synthesis, and here we are 
there is organized collagen synthesis and there is disorganized… as we get older everything becomes more chaotic, e.g. monoclonal spikes on SPEP become more common due to plasma cells turning out non-functional antibodies and so on. OLD=CHAOS, rapamycin puts breaks on chaos so order can be restored - sort of as I understand at least
7 Likes
I guess I don’t understand how it can make people look younger then
This is your aging body without rapamycin.
3 Likes
Actually a pretty good visualization! 
1 Like
1 Like