Do Collagen Supplements Play A Role In Oral Care? Here's What We Know

Relative to other buzzy categories in the beauty zeitgeist, oral care does not receive a ton of attention. (When it comes to the mouth area, the lips steal most of the spotlight, wouldn't you say?) The "oral beauty" bracket is up and coming, don't get me wrong, but most dental routines stick within the confines of brush, floss, and repeat. Other than a few rounds of whitening strips and regular trips to the dentist, how else can you secure a dazzling smile?

We know collagen has benefits for bone health, but, contrary to popular belief, teeth are not actually made up of bones (please tell me I'm not the only one floored by this).* Rather, the outermost layer of your teeth is called the enamel, which is made of calcium and phosphate, not bone (although bone is made up of hydroxyapatite crystals, involving calcium and phosphate, nestled in a collagen matrix—like we said, it's technical). Alas, the enamel does not have any collagen composition. 

However! "As we dive deeper inside the tooth and to the surrounding structures, collagen begins to play a key role," notes board-certified holistic dentist Staci Whitman, DMD. "Type I, type II, and type III collagens are all found within the pulpal nerve tissues of teeth, likely being secreted by odontoblasts and fibroblasts from within the dentinal tubules and pulpal layers of our teeth." The pulp is essentially connective tissue that makes up the center of the tooth1, and that's where your collagen resides.

Plus, collagen is crucial for the health of your periodontium, or the structure of gums and bone that support and surround your teeth (so bones do make an appearance!).* Without collagen, in fact, this structure would not even exist. "Our periodontal tissues are composed of primarily collagen, with 60% collagen making up our gingival tissues, 70 to 80% making up our periodontal ligaments (or structures that connect our teeth into the surrounding jawbones), and 90% of the alveolar bone in the jaws," says Whitman. 

Here, the science gets a little murky. "Unfortunately, to date, we cannot take collagen supplements and expect that they will help us to regrow receding gums or restore lost bone around our teeth," says Whitman. "But providing your body and mouths with adequate amounts of collagen may very likely help us keep our smiles and jaws healthy for longer.*" 

But collagen peptides have been shown to promote gum health: "There has been research demonstrating that a novel method using bovine collagen is able to enhance gum integrity3, resulting in thicker gums around the teeth and, in over half the cases, complete coverage of exposed roots,"* recounts Whitman. Of course, we need way more research on how this works, exactly, but the potential is certainly there. "Being able to regrow and regenerate gum and bone tissues around teeth would be revolutionary," says Whitman.*