(upbeat music)

- Well collagen has been called the glue

that holds us together.

It's found throughout our bodies.

But as we age we create less of it.

So how can we kickstartour collagen production?

Dr. Josh Axe has the answers.

- The collagen diet'sreally there to help you

transform your digestive health.

It's really the ideal dietto help you age slower.

- [Man] Dr. Josh Axe is a certified doctor

of both natural medicine and chiropractic,

and a clinical nutritionist.

He's on a mission to solvepeople's health problems

with his books, conference speaking,

and hugely popular website, DrAxe.com.

In "The Collagen Diet," his latest book,

Dr. Axe says that collagen is key

for weight loss, gut health

and a younger you.

- Dr. Josh Axe is here with us now.

And welcome back to "The 700 Club."

You've been here before right?

- I have.

I've been on a few times.

Thanks for having me.

- Nice to see you.

Well what is collagen exactly?

- Yeah so collagen makes up 30%

of all the protein in your body.

So your skin, your hair, your nails,

your bones, your discs, your ligaments,

tendons, your joints, your gut lining

are all made up of collagen.

So really it's essential for our health.

Just imagine this, if youwere trying to put on muscle,

you'd wanna get muscle building proteins.

Well if you wanna heal your skin,

if you wanna heal your immune system,

heal your gut, heal your joints,

you've gotta be gettingcollagen in your diet.

And the truth is most people

are not getting enough collagen.

And it's amazing,

when people started consuming a diet

that supports collagen

they'll notice theirskin looks more beautiful

than it's ever looked.

Their joints, if people have joint pain

or joint aches, thatwill start to get better.

They'll start to lose more weight.

And overall it improves gut health,

immune system health.

Probably of all the supplements out there

people notice the biggest difference

if they do a collagen supplement,

or in general follow acollagen boosting diet.

- Yeah, well I toldyou this morning I had,

I take this every morning,

this is your collagen protein powder.

One scoop.

I put a little bit more than one scoop

because I think more is better.

- [Dr. Axe] You're right.

- In my green drink.

So we're gonna talkabout this in a minute,

but first I wanna talk about your mom.

Your mother had a second bout with cancer.

How did you help your mom?

- Yeah so my mom, we reallyfollowed that principle

food is medicine,

but also number onethat God is our healer.

So the first thing wedid when my mom was sick

is we spent time prayingfor her, going to church.

We started work really focusing on praise

and worship music.

So we prayed for healing.

And along with that we really believe

that God put certain foods around us

that we can use as anatural form of medicine.

So my mom started juicingvegetables every single day.

She started drinking bone broth.

She started consuming wildberries like blue berries,

started using certain herbs like turmeric.

She started using essentialoils like frankincense,

and she followed myprogram for several months,

and then she was diagnosed asbeing cancer free and healthy.

So now my mom is 67 years old.

Her and my dad retired to Florida.

She water skis.

She runs still at 67.

- Water skis.

- Oh yeah.

- She's taking her collagen then.

- She is.

And she does her collagen,her multi-collagen protein

every single day.

- And you know what I lovetoo about your collagen,

collagen protein is you can't taste it

at all in the green drink.

- That's right.

- I wanna sell this.

Well what are ways we can get more

collagen into our diets naturally?

'Cause it's great tohave a protein powder.

You know some people saywell I wanna do it naturally,

how do we do that?

- So yeah a few ways.

Number one you consume foods

that support your body inproducing its own collagen.

You do that along with taking

something like collagen protein.

So for example we gotsome turmeric root here,

turmeric is amazing for really helping

the body reduce inflammation.

And also it contains a compound

that helps your bodycreate more stem cells,

which then helps yourbody create more collagen.

- Now I have the turmericin the powder form

that I add to my smoothie, is that okay?

You don't have to buy the root?

- That's right.

You can do it as the root

or you can do it as a powder,

or do it as a tea or a supplement.

But any way you wanna getyour turmeric is fine.

The other thing I heard you mention,

which by the way you're just on top of it.

You're doing some good things right now.

You mentioned your tea.

So Matcha green tea.

Matcha's a really unique form of green tea

that has three times the antioxidants

that other green tea has.

So it's a natural energy booster.

But Matcha is from Japan,

and amazing for so many things

for anti-aging boosting energy,

but also can support really more,

it doesn't really boost collagen,

it protects your body from losing collagen

because this is kind of a crazy statistic,

but once somebody is in their 50's,

your body produces 75% less collagen

than it did when you were 25.

So your body, once you hit the age of 25

your body produces more than1-2% less collagen every year.

So as we age it's even more important

that we start supplementing with collagen.

A few other things,vitamin C rich super foods

support your body in making collagen,

lemon, lime, grapefruit, oranges.

- [Wendy] I love grapefruit.

- And then wild berries like Goji berries.

And blue berries andraspberries are also good

for--

- And ginger.

I love ginger.

- Yes.

- I just put a big raw chunk of ginger

into my green smoothie every morning,

and the more the better.

Because you can't reallyhave too much of it I guess.

- That's right.

Yeah, ginger is a really unique herb

that supports two things,

reducing inflammation and gut health.

And along with that canreally reduce things

that break down collagen in our gut.

So it's great forreducing inflammation too.

- All right great stuff on the food.

But outisde of foods,

what are some activities

that we can do to boost collagenproduction in our bodies?

- Yeah I would say the bigthing is your mental attitude.

Now people don't think about this

when they think about health enough,

but 80% of doctorsvisits are due to stress.

So I would say, the firstthing I do every morning

is I do my spiritual triathlon.

I wake up and I praise God

and tell him everything I'm grateful for.

That's how I start the day every day.

Number two I read my Bible.

Number three I spend time in prayer

and just building my faith,

and knowing you know what

God is for me, he's not against me,

and just meditating onthose principles of God.

And so I think.

And we know that God is for us

and he's got things under control

that reduces stress,

but I would say that'sreally the biggest thing

in terms of lifestyle.

And I'm getting out walking,

exercise, those are great too.

But the biggest thingsare that time with God

and then using food as medicine,

which we're obviously talking about here.

- Yeah that's so good.

I thought for sure you weregonna go first with exercise,

but thank you for saying,

because really that is the foundation.

And like you said ifwe know God is for us,

then that just takes the stress away.

What are some foods andactivities we should avoid

if we want our collagen to be better?

- Yeah so what we haveto stay away from is

hydrogenated oils, sugar, refined grains,

like a lot of white and wheat products

like white flour, whitebread, those sort of things.

But I would say sugarand hydrogenated oils,

like french fries, they'rein hydrogenated oil,

those are the biggest culprits

that cause inflammation.

Inflammation is what breaks down collagen.

So this diet, you wanna do two things.

You wanna reduce inflammation

and then you wanna supportyour body in getting

and regenerating andcreating more collagen

within your own body.

- You talk a lot about bone broth in here.

- Yes.

- And you said that during medical school

you actually yourself got so exhausted.

And you stumbled upon

this wonderful thing called bone broth.

- I did.

You know I spent years researching.

Number one for my mom.

When she was battling cancer,

I said you know what Iwanna find a natural way

for her to get healthy.

And I started doing research for myself.

I was working out a lot

and I found that whenI consumed bone broth

my joints felt so much better,

I had more energy.

I could not bebleed how great I felt.

And there are so manypeople out there today,

Wendy, who they lookolder than they should,

they feel older than they should.

They just don't feel well.

And I found that when theyconsume the collagen diet,

which is about the book I wrote,

it's just amazing how theystart to losing more weight,

they start to look younger,

they feel younger.

And I really believe it'sthe breakthrough diet

that will help people finally feel

the best they've ever felt.

- Well if it will let mewater ski at 67 like your mom,

I am all for it.

Dr. Josh Axe's new book iscalled "The Collagen Diet."

And for more tips, please get this.

It's available nationwide.

And it will change your life.

Dr. Josh Axe, thank you so much.

- Awesome, hey, thanksfor having me, Wendy,

I appreciate it.