Collagen is the most widely consumed beauty and joint supplement in the United States, generating more than $2.4 billion in annual sales and appearing in everything from morning coffee additives to gummy vitamins to hospital-grade orthopedic protocols. It is also one of the most debated, with decades of small, often industry-funded studies producing mixed signals that left clinicians unsure what to tell patients who asked whether their collagen powder was doing anything.
A new umbrella review published June 5, 2026, in the Aesthetic Surgery Journal Open Forum by researchers at Anglia Ruskin University has changed that. By pooling and systematically analyzing data from 113 clinical trials involving nearly 8,000 participants, this is now the most comprehensive evidence synthesis on collagen supplementation ever conducted, and its conclusions are more specific, more actionable, and more optimistic than the field's previous equivocal consensus.
