Over the last few years, collagen has taken the spotlight in the world of natural beauty — and for good reason! If you’re like me, you have a container of it in the cupboard and use it often. But what if I told you that one of collagen’s key building blocks, glycine, deserves just as much attention, particularly during pregnancy, postpartum and as you age?
It is a vital amino acid that plays a key role in collagen production, helping to support skin elasticity and reduce the appearance of wrinkles. It also aids the body’s detoxification processes, promotes healthy liver function and helps reduce inflammation. It is often overlooked and categorised as a “dispensable” nutrient, not essential to be obtained from food.
The trouble is, during certain life stages or times of increased physical stress, the body’s need for glycine can exceed its ability to synthesise it. In these cases, insufficient glycine can result in visible and structural changes to skin, hair, nails, joints and connective tissue.
Pregnancy is a time of rapid growth and transformation and glycine is critical for a mother’s stretching skin, expanding breasts and growing uterus. Adequate glycine levels can help reduce the risk of stretch marks by maintaining skin elasticity. A 2021 study in The Journal of Nutrition highlights that glycine should be considered a “conditional” amino acid, rather than “dispensable”, due to its increased demands in pregnancy. In postpartum, glycine is essential for tissue repair, skin healing and maintaining milk production, as well as restoring depleted collagen stores.
It is a key building block of collagen. Naturally, as you age, the body produces less collagen, causing changes to your skin’s structural integrity and appearance. This results in wrinkles, drier skin and slo