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If you’re on the fence about collagen (as well as how to build more of it), I’m excited to share that research now demonstrates the many collagen benefits that exist.
Collagen for skin health is crucial, along with the many ways it supports your gut and joint health too! I talked about collagen benefits as well as collagen peptides + collagen protein supplements, but I’ve never really shared about other factors to build collagen.
And it’s that piece about building collagen that’s such a big deal because we’re each faced with a collagen problem which is to some degree unavoidable as well as exposure-driven…
First, as you age, you will experience an accelerated loss of collagen in the skin and joints.
Second, prolonged exposure to medications like topical steroids also rapidly breaks down collagen in the skin.
This is why it’s so important to care about collagen benefits and how to build collagen now!
My guest has been on the show before and has a ton of experience in this area. His NEW book Younger For Life comes out soon to show you how to more naturally deal with aging and the loss of your body’s collagen.
Known as America's Holistic Plastic Surgeon®, Dr. Anthony Youn, MD, FACS is a nationally-recognized, board-certified plastic surgeon and hosts the popular podcast The Holistic Plastic Surgery Show. He is the author of the best-selling books The Age Fix, In Stitches, and Playing God. Dr. Youn is the most followed plastic surgeon on social media, with over 4.5 million subscribers on his YouTube Channel and 8 million followers on TikTok. His new book, Younger for Life is a complete holistic guide to turning back the clock using the process of Autojuvenation®.
So if you’re curious why and how to build more collagen, add collagen protein into your routine, and ultimately reap collagen benefits, this episode is for you!
My favorite tip to add collagen protein to my diet is to include a scoop in with my daily cappuccino or mocha!
Do you have a favorite meal or tip to increase collagen protein intake? Leave a comment below or on my Youtube Video!
Or, listen on your favorite app: iTunes (Apple Podcasts) | Spotify | Stitcher | TuneIn | Subscribe on Android
In This Episode:
- Aging – What’s actually driving this process?
- Chronic stress: How it impacts skin health
- How long should you fast to boost cell clean-up + rejuvenation?
- How blood sugar imbalances destroy collagen + increase collagen protein needs
- Do topical vitamin C + retinoids build collagen?
- Is alcohol BAD for your skin (and as toxic as many claim)?
- Diet strategies + collagen protein tips to boost your body stores of collagen
Quotes
“Sugar can bond to the collagen of your skin and create AGEs. Basically, these are advanced glycation end products where it causes that collagen that normally is in nice, kind of tight fibers to become kinked and to become misshapen. And that can cause premature aging.” [13:19]
“The way I look at vitamin C as far as a topical form is that it may not necessarily impact the collagen production so much in that way as I think it's more for antioxidants and fighting free radicals, which is one of the main sources of aging of our skin, but ingesting enough vitamin C is definitely important for your collagen production.” [18:24]
Links
Find Dr. Youn: online | Instagram | Tiktok | Youtube
Get Dr. Youn’s NEW BOOK – Younger For Life → HERE
Try these collagen-boosting products: Quell Protein Powders | PaleoValley meat sticks | Quell C+ Boost Powder
Dry Farm Wines – Get an extra bottle for a penny HERE with your first order!
Orion RLT – Use code HEALTHYSKINSHOW to get 10% off my favorite Red Light Units!
Healthy Skin Show 033: Tackling Scars And How To Support Sensitive Skin w/ Dr. Anthony Youn
Healthy Skin Show 112: How To Deal With Hyperpigmentation w/ Dr. Anthony Youn
Healthy Skin Show 147: Could Breast Implant Illness Be Your Rash Trigger? w/ Dr. Anthony Youn
Healthy Skin Show 184: Is Collagen Good For Eczema, Psoriasis + Other Skin Rashes?
Jennifer's appearance on Dr. Youn's podcast, The Holistic Plastic Surgery Show – Episode 136: The Healthy Skin Diet
322: Does Collagen Work? (Top Collagen Benefits For Skin) {FULL TRANSCRIPT}
Jennifer Fugo (00:08.857)
Dr. Youn, thank you so much for coming back to the Healthy Skin Show.
Anthony Youn (00:12.898)
Thank you so much, Jen. Appreciate it.
Jennifer Fugo (00:15.633)
I'm excited to talk to you today because I feel like, well, as we get older, and depending on all the different exposures that we have in life, there is to some degree this desire to wanna not get older. I cringe at the term anti-aging because I feel like it's not an honest term. So I'm curious, for you, in terms of aging and whatnot, what's your take? What makes us age? Do you feel like anti-aging is maybe the right way to describe what we would like to reverse? Or maybe there's something else out there that we should consider.
Anthony Youn (00:58.142)
Yeah, you know, the way I look at aging as a plastic surgeon is, and somebody who just turned 50 not that long ago, is that it is a privilege to get older. But if you want to fight it every step of the way, then by all means, go ahead. Because it's no fun to look in the mirror and see the puffiness under our eyes, to see the corners of our mouth droop, to see roughness in the texture of our skin, and to be reminded that we don't look and necessarily feel like we did when we were in our 20s.
And so as a plastic surgeon, yes, I perform surgery to help people to kind of feel or look how they feel on the inside. But what I really want to do, and my main, I think, goal in my career is to try to help teach people how you can look and feel so great about yourself and not have to see a plastic surgeon or a dermatologist or go under the knife or the needle.
Jennifer Fugo (01:50.385)
And so with aging, like the concept of aging, is there a definition for that that you could share with all of us that's not like some sort of textbook, really nerdy answer that would make sense for all of us aside from like the experience of aging that many of us are very familiar with?
Anthony Youn (02:12.802)
Well, as a plastic surgeon and somebody who is mainly focused on kind of external appearance, although our internal health really can be reflected on our skin, the way that I look at aging as a physician and the type of physician I am is to see the different things that impact the aging of our skin. And so I'd argue that there are five main factors that cause our skin to age. The first is nutrient depletion. The second is collagen protein degradation or breakdown of collagen or thinning of the collagen of our skin.
The next is inflammation. The next is free radical oxidation. And the final one is the buildup of basically cellular waste. And so my goal really with what I'm doing now and with my new book is to teach people how you can target all five of those causes in a very natural fashion. And if you do, you can really see nice changes in your skin and you can see reversing of a lot of those age-related changes that you may have seen over the last 10 or even 20 years.
Jennifer Fugo (03:13.137)
Yeah, and the one thing I appreciated about your book, which is for all of the listeners out there called Younger for Life, was that it wasn't just physical changes that you talked about in terms of aging, there were other aspects of it as well that looked a little bit more like mental health and emotional mindset and whatnot. Can you talk a little bit about that for anybody who might not realize that these could be other signs of the quote-unquote aging process?
Anthony Youn (03:42.558)
Yeah, I think there's so much that we focus on that causes aging is, as a traditionally conventionally trained physician, what I look at, what I've been taught is to look at things like, okay, UV radiation, you get excessive sun exposure, that causes you to age prematurely. You smoke, that causes you to age prematurely. But there's so much more that does impact our aging process, stress. Stress is a huge factor in aging. And you can just, all you have to do is see the US presidents when they enter office and how they look four years later to know that they have aged, all of them age more than just those four chronological years.
And so one big thing that I encourage people to do is to then reduce your stress. Now sometimes acute stress or stress that you put your body through in a short period of time can actually be very good for you because it can help stimulate some of those processes that will actually stimulate longevity. And that's why people are doing like cold plunges and cold baths and things like that. But it's that chronic stress that can really cause you to age prematurely. And so really dealing with that, and in the book I talk about things like meditation, I talk about yoga, gratitude, getting sufficient sleep, and there's so many things that you can do that I think we kind of poo-poo in general, because it's not as sexy as having a laser done or having a facelift, but really focusing on a lot of those kind of internal things that will reduce your stress can really, really impact that aging process as well.
Jennifer Fugo (05:11.677)
And the process that you talk about in the book, so you mentioned a term autophagy, which I feel like most of my listeners might not know. It might've been mentioned maybe once on the show. And then there's the other term that you talk about, autojuvenation. What are these words and what do they mean?
Anthony Youn (05:34.53)
So autophagy is a term that has been used for a long time and it basically literally means self-eating. Now this autophagy is a process that our body goes through, depending on I guess your lifestyle, can go through quite often. And essentially what it is, is your body as we get older, your cells will create debris, cellular basically debris, cellular, how would I describe it? Basically old and used cellular components. It's kind of like the stuff that's been used. And that can build up in our cells, basically as cellular junk or trash. Now our body has natural processes to get rid of that. And the way it's described, here's a good way to describe it, a scientist actually from the University of Southern California described it as this, is that your body is like a locomotive that let's say runs on a wood burning stove.
Okay, let's say it runs by burning wood. And let's say you are running just fine and you start running out of wood to power your engine, then what do you do? Well, you start taking those kind of old benches that have fallen apart, you know, you take those things you don't need and you throw them in the oven first. And that helps to get rid of maybe some of those items that you don't really need anymore on that train.
Our body's kind of like the same way. We have intracellular debris, intracellular basically garbage that our body will actually use when we are in that process of autophagy. But to get to that process, what do you have to do? You have to run out of essentially energy. You have to stop eating for a while, okay? And so right now what's going on is with this kind of Western idea of you need to be constantly eating, constantly snacking, that's actually stopping that process of autophagy and it is building up that cellular waste, one of those main factors of overall aging. And so one of the things I recommend in my book, Younger for Life, is intermittent fasting and taking that time where your body basically does not have that added energy in the form of food that you're eating, and instead then is using its own intracellular components, recycling them for energy and essentially cleaning you out. And then the idea is that your cells will actually function much more efficiently afterwards.
Jennifer Fugo (07:53.445)
So in terms of fasting, what does that look like? Where do you start if you are a person who maybe has grown up with the six meals a day, like eat six little meals. I remember when I was in the 90s and the first decade of the 2000s, it was like, eat six meals to balance your blood sugar. And now we're like, that's not a good idea. We know better now. So what would that actually look like from like just the most basic standpoint or first step?
Anthony Youn (08:27.478)
So the simplest thing is, you know, another name for basically intermittent fasting is time-restricted eating. And so it's limiting the amount of time that you spend actually eating food during the day. Now, some people literally will eat from, you know, 8 AM to 11 PM, 8 AM. in the morning to 11 PM at night. And they literally will only stop eating from 11 to 8 the next day. And that just is not enough time for our bodies to really harness that power of autophagy and that intracellular renewal. So it's a very simple thing is just to start slow. Go 12 hours and do just a 12-hour fast every day. So if let's say you stop eating at 8 PM, don't eat until 8 AM the next morning. That's not that difficult for most people. Ideally, you want to reduce that time that you're eating, though, from that 12 hours to try to get it down to 8. And so essentially, a very simple time frame for that would be stopping eating at 8 PM and then don't eat anything until noon the next day. Essentially skip breakfast. Now that doesn't mean you shouldn't have anything by mouth. You do wanna hydrate. So water, coffee without all the creamer and stuff, and tea, that's great. You just want to avoid anything that has calories in it, specifically anything with carbs or protein.
Jennifer Fugo (09:44.969)
And in terms of fasting, so that's like the simple version, have you ever done one of those programs where maybe you do like a whole weekend where you fast or is that sort of more an advanced step in this process?
Anthony Youn (10:01.898)
It is, and so, you know, I've done other fasts. I did the fasting-mimicking diet. I've done that a couple of times and that's been great. It's fascinating because so the fasting-mimicking diet is a low-calorie fast where the foods are very carefully chosen to trick your body into thinking that you're fasting. And so you may be eating food, but your body is reacting as if you're fasting. And with, let's say the fasting-mimicking diet, you start out at 1200 calories your first day, which isn't so bad for most of us, but then the second and third day, you're down to seven to 800 calories and you stay on that for five full days. And the interesting thing for me and for a lot of people who are on it, once you hit day four or five, you think, because you're not eating much, that you're gonna feel terrible. You're gonna have no energy, but that autophagy process kicks in and now your body is using that intracellular debris, that basically intracellular garbage, it's cleaning it out and you start feeling really good, and your skin starts looking brighter. And it was, I mean, it was incredible. The morning of day five for me, the first time I did this, I felt amazing. I had so much energy and it was weird because I wasn't eating hardly anything. So that's kind of the power of autophagy.
Autojuvenation, you asked earlier, that's a term that I've come up with that I describe basically as a revolutionary way to look at turning back the clock, using basically your body's own ability to rejuvenate itself. And so it's combining the right types of diet and you've talked a lot about diet on your podcast, and really there's not a lot different between the diet that I recommend and what you've talked about in the show to get healthy skin. Combining that with intermittent fasting and then adding certain nutritional supplements, adding good, clean skincare, and then if you want some non-invasive treatments. And by doing all those things, I strongly believe that you can autojuvenate your skin to turn back the clock five, 10 years, sometimes even more, all basically naturally, without going under the needle or the knife or anything like that.
Jennifer Fugo (12:07.117)
And can I ask, because the one thing I really loved about the book actually, was the focus so much on making the appropriate and best choices around blood sugar balance, which I think is so important and crucial, especially coming from a family that has had tons of diabetics. And I've seen even in my dad's medical practice, he worked with a lot of diabetics. So I have seen it both just personally and on, you know, on the healthcare side of things. How does blood sugar balance play a role here in terms of increasing your need for collagen peptides for skin and body, or just aging in general?
Anthony Youn (12:46.838)
Yeah, that's a great question because really what we have found is that traditionally media and even our governmental entities have focused on fat as being the big, you know, the big thing that's bad for us and in reality, it's sugar that's the problem and it is in so many ways So, you know for me I'd look at it first with the skin and there are two things that sugar does when you when you ingest a lot of sugar, there are two main things they can do to prematurely age your skin.
The first thing is a process of glycation, where essentially sugar can bond to the collagen of your skin and create AGEs. And basically these are advanced glycation end products where it causes the collagen, which is basically this protein in your skin, and it can cause that collagen peptides that normally are in nice kind of tight fibers to become kinked and to become misshapen. And that can cause premature aging. AGEs, you know, what else would you want to call that?
But then the second process that sugar can contribute to is chronic inflammation. Every time you get these sugar spikes, you get insulin spikes because your body responds to sugar in your bloodstream by kicking out that insulin and chronic insulin spikes can then lead to chronic inflammation. And I mentioned earlier that acute inflammation can sometimes be a good thing, you know? Like, you know, if you get, let's say a chemical peel, if you get microneedling, there are a lot of things that you can do that can cause acute inflammation of your body that is actually beneficial. But it's when that acute inflammation becomes chronic that it can become a major problem. And so sugar really from a skin perspective is the worst thing. Ingesting too much sugar is the worst thing that you can do for your skin. We're finding that obviously there's a lot more to it. So many doctors were finding that issues with type 2 diabetes can lead to so many other medical conditions. And so really controlling the sugar that you eat is so, so important.
Jennifer Fugo (14:42.989)
And so in terms of collagen benefits, because I love the description that you gave, I think that's extremely clear. So if I'm hearing you correctly, the collagen protein is also part of what helps us have that plumpness, right, to our skin. Like when I think of what my grandmother, when she was like 86 years old, her skin was like very, it looks thin, I don't know how to describe it other than that. So is that ultimately the journey of what happens to our skin, that it's the loss of collagen that results in that process when we get to our 70s or 80s or 90s or whatever age we end up at?
Anthony Youn (15:25.398)
Yes, but the fact is you don't have to accept that that's the future, and that's the whole idea of autojuvenation. So yes, it is true. So collagen peptides make up about 70 to 80% of what our skin is made out of. And it's that part of our skin that creates the strength of it. It's the stability, it's the firmness of the skin, that's all basically due to collagen. But once you hit your early to mid-20s, you start losing about 1% of the thickness of your collagen every year. And that ends up actually increasing to about 2% a year after menopause.
And that's why you see, especially older women, less than older men, where their skin sometimes is so thin you can almost see through it. And it's like tissue paper. And they, let's say, get scratched on a desk surface or something, and that skin tears. So one of the big things that I encourage in my book, with Younger For Life, is how do you then get your skin to not break down so quickly? How do you keep the thickness of your skin?
Well, dermatologists will tell you, oh, you just inject filler, you know, filler that has hyaluronic acid or that has like Sculptra, that's poly-L-lactic acid. These types of fillers can stimulate collagen, but these are invasive procedures and you're only stimulating collagen protein where that's injected. So what are some things you can do naturally? And the first thing you have to keep in mind is that collagen is a protein, and if you're not getting sufficient protein in your diet, then that's gonna impact the thickness of the collagen of your skin.
So eating healthy sources of protein, super, super important. One thing that you can do, however, to take that even to the next level is to take a collagen supplement. And there are people who will poo-poo collagen peptide supplements up and down saying that they get digested, that they're not gonna improve the collagen of your skin. There are so many studies, however, that refute this. There's a meta-analysis in 2022 of over 1,200 people that looked at people who took, these 1,200 people took a collagen supplement, and they found an increase in the thickness of the collagen of their skin afterwards. So many studies that very directly correlate taking a daily hydrolyzed collagen peptide supplement and three, four months later, you actually biopsy the skin and you see the actual collagen content of the skin increased. So that's another thing that you can definitely do. There are creams that I recommend as well, retinoids, bakuchiol, both of those are great for increasing the collagen of your skin too.
Jennifer Fugo (17:47.697)
And does the topical vitamin C offer any collagen benefits or help with build collagen at all, or not really?
Anthony Youn (17:53.858)
Well, vitamin C is super important to boost collagen production, and we know back, way back when we were in high school, we learned about scurvy and how the sailors would go out and they run out of fresh fruits and vegetables and because they don't have vitamin C, they start getting these skin lesions. And so all that is real. We do know that vitamin C is absolutely essential to the production of collagen, but also it's a very powerful antioxidant and it's the most popular topical antioxidant that's being used.
So the way I look at vitamin C as far as a topical form is that it may not necessarily impact nor have the same collagen benefits to increase collagen production in the skin so much in that way as I think it's more for antioxidants and fighting free radicals, which is one of the main sources of aging of our skin, but ingesting enough vitamin C is definitely important for your collagen protein production.
Jennifer Fugo (18:44.213)
Yeah, and I think it's worthwhile to also mention, and I'm happy to link this study up as well, there was something that showed collagen benefits where the researchers gave collagen peptide supplements to a group of older adults. I think they were 55 years old and older, and they looked at joint comfort and their ability to be physically active, and they actually found that they had significant improvements after supplementing with collagen.
And I was like, at least they did it in the right age population instead of like a 20-something-year-old. You did this in an older population where we tend to just assume that there's just gonna be a decline and they actually saw improvements in it. So I think that it's worthwhile that it's not even just your skin. I mean, I know even in my 40s, my joints don't feel the same way as in my 20s and anything that I could do to help maintain that is really, I think again, goes back to that idea of like wanting to hold on to that sense of youthfulness that we all seek.
Anthony Youn (19:46.198)
Yeah, yeah. I tell you, you know, I have my own, in full disclosure, I have my own collagen, Youn Beauty Supplemental Collagen. It's our number-one selling supplement at my online store. And the stories that I hear from people who take it, I mean, it just astounds me. People who say, geez, I was having joint pain and I started taking your collagen and my joint pain's so much better. People saying, oh, my hair is thicker. My nails are growing so quickly and they're so much stronger. And these stories are endless that we hear from people.
And that's why I think for me, I get so frustrated when I see physicians who are online saying, you know, don't take a collagen supplement, it doesn't help. Like, I mean, they don't hear these hundreds of stories that we hear from people who buy this. And it just really, really helps them. I mean, even my mom the other day, I said, you know, mom, I'm going to send this to you, I'm going to send it to you for free. Just have it every morning. My mom's 80 years old. And just put it in your in your tea every morning and just have it. And last time I saw her just a couple weeks ago, she's like, Tony, my hair is getting so much thicker from this. And it's like I know, it does help. And it doesn't help everybody the same way. I think, you know, in medicine, we wanna have like very defined results with everybody. You know, well, if you take this, then 80% of you will grow your thickness of your hair by 20%. No, like we don't have that because there's no real studies that really are being done that way. But man, it really does help so many people. And there are studies that are showing it does really improve the skin.
Jennifer Fugo (21:09.717)
Yeah, and I did want to ask you about red wine. And I specifically want to ask because like, I feel like the last three to six months, everybody's online, all the experts are like, don't drink alcohol, no alcohol, you have to be alcohol-free. But like, I come from a Mediterranean background. My aunts, my great aunts, whose house I live in, they lived into their 90s and they were drinking not a whole glass, like a little bit of red wine every day with dinner or with their lunch. And they lived into their 90s. So what's your take on this? Do you feel like it's okay or could at least be a part of, I'm not saying you have to have alcohol or wine, red wine specifically, daily, but do you think it's an all-or-nothing thing or could there be some benefit?
Anthony Youn (22:00.898)
Yeah, I think that red wine in very limited amounts can be very, very good for you. And it comes down to a couple of things, but the main thing that we know about, and I think there are parts of red wine that we don't quite understand with some of the flavinoids and all that, but it really mainly comes down to resveratrol. And resveratrol is an antioxidant. It's in the skin of the grapes. And so red wine definitely is better than white wine because white wine, they remove the skin of the grapes early on and that's why the color is the way it is.
But resveratrol is really being studied a lot now with anti-aging scientists. And we had a talk before this started that you and I are not anti-aging scientists. I am a doctor, but that's not what I necessarily study. But a lot of the anti-aging scientists are looking at resveratrol as being more than just the powerful antioxidant that we know that it is, but it does appear to have effects on longevity.
And I think we're just kind of touching the surface. We don't quite understand what exactly is it in red wine. We do know that resveratrol is a big part of it, but what I tell people and what I say in my book really is limit it to one glass a day because yes, the alcohol in the red wine is a toxic substance for the body. And I'm not a fan of drinking too much alcohol, but if you limit it to half a glass to one glass a day, then that's probably a good amount of those antioxidants, that resveratrol, that you're going to get. Anything more than that than the toxic effects of the alcohol probably will negate the beneficial effects of those antioxidants.
Jennifer Fugo (23:29.249)
And I also will add to this just for anybody who's like, Oh, I have a glass but you fill the wine glass like all the way to the top. Yeah, that's not a glass. That's not a serving of wine. So what my great aunts did is they had like those little you know, the little orange juice glasses, they would drink that but like fill it like a halfway up that was their serving. So if anyone is curious, that's what they drank.
They never drank out of wine glasses. They just did a little bit. And a lot of, and maybe too, and I saw in your book, you also touched on like organic, looking for organic wine. They made their own wine. So obviously they were using organic grapes that they grew in their backyard. But is there a benefit to organic versus just like something you go and pick up on the grocery store shelf?
Anthony Youn (24:19.606)
I think there is and you and I have both had a lot of Dry Farm Wines before and that's a brand that I recommend. It is organic, it's lower in sugar and interestingly enough, you know, what I learned from them is a lot of the additives that are put into wine. You know, I go to a restaurant and I'll have a glass of wine and sometimes I feel terrible after drinking it and I'll get, even like sometimes half a glass to one glass of wine, I have a hangover the next morning.
Whereas with Dry Farm Wines, it's very different. Like I drink and actually feel good afterwards. And I do think, you know, I don't know exactly what it is in it because I'm not a wine connoisseur, but I do know that there are different substances that they put, they even say that some places can put like sawdust in wine. And it's just, there's a lot of additives, I think, that are put into conventionally grown wine that could be problematic. And so sticking with something that's organic, you know, if you're not sure, I'd say just try it and see what you think and see how you feel afterwards.
Jennifer Fugo (25:40.921)
So I think another good question, and I love your approach to things and whatnot. I mean, look, you're a surgeon. And I had even asked you like several years ago, I think the last time we saw one another was like right before COVID happened, I was like, what do you think? My eyelids droop and it runs in my family, do you think I should think about this down the road? Yes, everyone listening to this, we all have these thoughts of sometimes, man, it is what it is, it's a human experience. And you said to me, you're like, Jen, you don't need to do that. You look beautiful the way you are. And I really appreciated that coming from you because you weren't, you could have been like, sure, come to my office, I'll do it for you. There's something about the way you approach beauty, and I think that's one reason why so many people love following you on social media, because you are a genuinely kind, loving person, and you really genuinely care about people's health and happiness. So for those of us who are getting older, we're starting to watch things drop and sag in places that it wasn't like that 20 years ago, or maybe more, but we don't necessarily want to go under the knife or we're just not ready for that or that's just not our thing. Are there some things that we could do or consider that might be helpful?
Anthony Youn (27:03.99)
Yes, and that's a lot of what I call with the whole autojuvenation process. So you talk a lot about skin on this podcast. I mean, there are certain creams, and I do recommend in my book a very simple skincare routine, there are certain products I recommend to turn back the clock. I'm a fan of retinoids for most people, but for those people who are too sensitive for retinoids I typically recommend bakuchiol. Bakuchiol is a great plant-based alternative to retinoids that one study showed actually very similar results in anti-aging effects of the skin, comparing bakuchiol to retinol. But the difference is bakuchiol does not have the skin-irritating effects that the retinoids do. And so looking at bakuchiol and peptides, I think, are great ways to kind of turn back the clock with your skin. If you're looking for also other ways to do that, and you don't wanna go to a doctor's office, red light therapy I think is fantastic for people. Very simple, not that expensive. There are devices for red light therapy that are handheld, there are masks that you put on your face that look kinda creepy, other ones that are tabletop devices. And there are studies that show that can definitely impact the aging process to reduce wrinkles, improve the health of the skin, the quality of the skin as well. And then the other thing I mentioned earlier, I think taking a daily hydrolyzed collagen supplement is so helpful for people with their skin and with aging skin.
I'm also a big fan of sunscreen. I think wearing sunscreen because we do know, I mean, all you have to do, honestly, is compare the skin of your face to your neck, to your chest, to your butt. And man, if all of our skin looked like the skin of our butt, that'd be so great because unless you're a nudist, your butt's not getting much sun and that's why it looks so smooth and wrinkle-free and perfect. So yes, I’d love the skin of my face to look like the skin of my butt, but that's just life for us. So there is so much you can do.
Other things you can do at home, dermaplaning. There are all these, you can take a very simple dermaplaning blade or you can get, there's something called Sonicsmooth, Dermaflash, dermaplaning basically is removing kind of that upper layer of dead skin cells, very simple thing and your skin will feel silky smooth afterwards. And then doing let's say, AHA peels at home I think are great too. So much that you can do that really helps and you don't even have to go to the doctor's office.
Jennifer Fugo (29:25.549)
And it's helpful. I think some people are just not, whether you're not ready to do that and anything more invasive, or you can't afford it. Some of these procedures can be very, very expensive or it's just not right for you and you wanna dip your toes in slowly. I very much understand.
Anthony Youn (29:41.234)
Yeah, I always recommend plastic surgery should always be used as a last resort. And there are certain things that you just can't do without plastic surgery. If you've lost a bunch of weight, you've got skin hanging from your tummy, no amounts of exercise or cream you just slather on is gonna make that go away. And yeah, there are those times where surgery can be indicated. But geez, if we can get you happy, if I can get you happy with how you look and how you're aging without doing any of that stuff, then that's what I really wanna do and that's what I'm trying to do in the book.
Jennifer Fugo (30:11.289)
Yeah, that's why I'm so glad that you were interested in coming back to talk about your book, Younger for Life + how we can reap collagen benefits from not only our diet, but also a collagen protein supplement. And I'm gonna put the link in all the show notes. That way everybody can head over there and find, because it's available everywhere for the most part, right?
Anthony Youn (30:16.126)
Thank you.
Anthony Youn (30:27.766)
Yeah, so we've got a website, autojuvenation.com, just spelled that way, I'm sure you'll leave a link there. And basically, it's sold all across the country. I always encourage people, if you're gonna get a book, to try to support your local bookstore. We have a link to that on bookshop.org, where if you pre-order it from there, or you order it from there, then your actual local bookstore, you can choose, they will get the profit off of that, instead of sending it to some massive company. Otherwise, if you like Amazon, or Walmart, or Target, we've got it all there as well. And a ton of special free gifts if you do order it or pre-order it too.
Jennifer Fugo (31:03.121)
Well, thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Youn. I'm so grateful you came back and I wish you the best of luck and hopefully you will be back on the show the next time because you've got some great books and you're just a wealth of knowledge.
Anthony Youn (31:16.45)
Thank you so much, Jen. Appreciate it.
