Can drinking this beer make you look younger?

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck
Forget age-defying creams or botox injections – the key to becoming more beautiful and looking younger can apparently found in a new type of beer currently being marketed in Japan.
According to Discovery News, this alcoholic fountain of youth is known as Precious and is made by Suntory, an Osaka-based brewing and distilling company group originally founded in 1899. It is currently only available in Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido.

So how is beer supposed to make you look younger?
As the website explains, each can of Precious (which is being marketed primarily to women) contains two grams of collagen, a protein that is found in collective tissues. As a person grows older, his or her supply of the substance is reduced, which can cause wrinkles to appear.
Some believe that collagen can counter those effects and make an individual’s skin smoother and younger in appearance. This belief is especially popular in Japan, where women frequently use collagen-rich powders and supplements in order to appear more attractive, explained Discovery News. Suntory is obviously looking to capitalize on that market with Precious.
While these claims may be met with some skepticism, the website explained that a clinical study published last year in the journal Skin Pharmacology and Physiology found that women who had used 2.5 grams of a bioactive collagen peptide product (known by the brand name Verisol) once per day reported a decrease in skin wrinkles around the eyes after an eight-week period.
We asked experts: would something like this actually work?
Dr. Tory Hagen, a professor in the Oregon State University Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics as well as principal investigator as well as the Helen P. Rumbel Professor for Healthy Aging Research at the Linus Pauling Institute, said that he was unfamiliar with Precious and does not specialize in skin aging, but that it depended on the type of collagen being used.
“With age, collagen tends to break and aggregate, which has led to the concept of using collagen supplements, especially as a cosmetic for wrinkles,” he told redOrbit via email. However, since it is a protein that is usually broken down into its constituent amino acids inside the gastrointestinal tract, “the effectiveness of collagen supplements has been called into question.”
“Therefore, the bioavailability of collagen from the diet is a real concern,” Dr. Hagen added, noting that this is why dermatologists tend to use it in wrinkle creams. “Moreover, as collagen is normally synthesized where needed, even if collagen were to remain intact, it is… questionable whether collagen from supplements are effectively routed to target areas.”
In the Verisol trial, the collagen peptide was found to have improved bioavailability and slightly improved the appearance of wrinkling, he said. If those findings can be confirmed by larger and more definitive studies, they may prove that collagen has some benefits for skin elasticity. For now, however, he said it is “premature” to gauge “the long term efficacy” of the product.
As for Precious itself, since he lacked a working knowledge of the product itself, the professor explained that he was “not sure whether providing 2g of ‘collagen’ in beer will be any more than just a marketing gimmick at this point. It depends on the type of ‘collagen’ being supplied, and its effectiveness for being taken up into the body and routed to target areas.”
Judi Bonilla, a gerontologist affiliated with the group Advocates for Aging, told redOrbit that she believed the odds of collagen beer working were “a moonshot… With products like this, I want to see the research.” Instead, she recommends that people “drink plenty of water, walk 30 minutes a day, and surround [themselves] with friends who see [their] beauty.”
For more on beer and collagen, check out our recent article with Dr. Charles Price: “Drinking beer is good for your bones“.
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