Transdermal mechanism of Collagen Aktiv

Collagen is the most important protein, not only for humans, but for all the vertebrates. It makes up more than 30% of the protein mass in the human organism. It is the main component of the most important tissue in our bodies – the connective tissue. As organisms, we are literally swimming in collagen. The extracellular fluid, in which our tissues are submerged, is actually collagen. 
Collagen is not provided to us once and for all. It is constantly being used, discarded and replenished. It is constantly undergoing exchange. It gets broken down and remodeled, simultaneously created and constantly supported by chondrocytes, keratinocytes and fibroblasts – the cellular production and renewal factories for collagen. In a series of bio-synthetic processes at least 19 amino acids join in a cyclical pro-collagen sequence. The peptide sequence chains form a polypeptide chains which contain as many as 1000 amino acids. These cellular “factories” e.g. fibroblasts release pro-collagen α-chains which once in extracellular space, join into spirals, usually laevorotatory super-helices. 
These are the basic aspects of our knowledge on biochemistry of proteins. For decades the skin’s permeability for collagen has been questioned due to protein’s high molecular size and mass. All opinions stating collagen’s impermeability through the skin were formulated based on the observations of products containing shredded fibers of bovine collagen, not super-helices of fish collagen. Collagen Aktiv in its whole form does not penetrate, as it does not need to penetrate to the dermis. No one has largely claimed that high-molecular fish protein, upon being spread onto the skin, should reach the cells naturally producing collagen in the human skin. The transdermal mechanism of Collagen Aktiv relies on something much different. It is totally sufficient for the stimulation of reconstruction of the organism’s own collagen if peptide chains or amino acids remaining from the fish protein spirals that are taken apart due to penetration of the epidermis enrich the extracellular space of the layer connecting the epidermis and the dermis. Upon encountering the five-layer barrier of the epidermis, and higher human body temperature fish collagen spirals break down into amino acids, which are constructed the same way as those in human collagen. These are most notably: hydroxylysine, glycine, proline and hydroxyproline (the last one is worthy of special attention, as it is relatively easy to measure it in micrograms per cubic millimeters in all research materials, the same is true for comparative samples of the extracellular matrix). 
The extracellular matrix is a gelatin network of proteins and sugars which act as a framework for the three layers of skin: the epidermis and hypodermis which are connected by the dermis. The extracellular matrix is composed mainly of collagen, elastin, glycoprotein and carbohydrates. Its consistency and appearance would be reminiscent of Collagen Aktiv if we were to evaporate two thirds of its water. When we are striving to improve the condition of collagen in our skin through proper diet and the application of creams (with biologically active substances and vitamins with carriers) as well as caring for it with Collagen Aktiv – we are in fact striving to increase the amount of collagen in the extracellular matrix! A density of protein network formed in extracellular matrix, determines skin’s elasticity, firmness and degree of wrinkling. Fibroblasts, chondrocytes and keratinocytes – cellular collagen “factories” release the polipeptide amino acid chains into extracellular space. It is here, with the help of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) as an activator, the amino acid sequences twist into helices. We already know that this happens much more enthusiastically when the extracellular matrix is reinforced and supplied by a “shower” of exogenous peptides and amino acids which are absorbed from fish collagen spirals being dissolved on their way through the high density layers of the epidermis. 
Here, in the extracellular space, the pro-collagen formed in the fibroblasts is synthesized into helices. Thus Collagen Aktiv does not need to penetrate to the nucleus of the cell. The fish collagen applied to the skin does not adhere miraculously to our collagen fibrils. Nor does it penetrate the skin in whole form, nor reach the interior of the fibroblasts. It immediately enriches the extracellular matrix of all the layers of the skin with exogenous amino acids as a building material, which causes facilitating fibroblast activity, at the same time increasing the organism’s production of its own collagen. 
Today, the mechanism of the Collagen Aktiv’s trans-epidermality can be revealed in four ways: by a tissue biopsy measuring the level of hydroxyproline before and after application of fish protein hydrates onto the skin, by administering a radioisotope preparation and tracking its movement through the organism, by observing the decreased suppression activity of lymphocytes isolated with collagen in vitro, through the immunofluorescent marking method and finally by determining densitometrically the level of the so-called alpha chains in a peptide preparation. No one has questioned the transdermal nature of these peptides. Their penetration of the epidermis and connection to the epidermal-dermal extracellular matrix is, as of today, no longer in dispute. 
The fact is that what we are promoting and selling is actually living collagen. Despite being removed from living organism, sealed in a glass, it still retains the same spiral structure which it obtained in the metabolic process of the maternal organism. All due to a process involving the removal and freezing of the fish skin, (before the collagen molecules break down) followed by an extraordinarily delicate mechanical process, a slowly finessed chemical reaction, multiphase filtration and finally – something no laboratory in the world, has been able to achieve – collagen which doesn’t lose its helical structure, and which comes out clean (though brittle and defenseless) into water solution.