Do you need digestive support? Enzymes may be able to help!
Our digestive system was not designed to process the modern North American diet of cooked and processed foods, even if they are organic and healthy. Raw foods provide their own enzymes, essential for digestion and life. Most people eat cooked foods. We consume too few enzymes in our overcooked, pasteurized, irradiated, and overly processed foods.
The effects of an enzyme-poor diet
To compensate for these lost food enzymes, the body has to work harder and create more digestive enzymes. Drowsiness after a meal occurs because the body is working harder than it should to complete the digestion process. As a result, it does not have enough energy or nutrients to produce enzymes for other functions, including eliminating toxic cellular waste, protecting against foreign invaders (immune function), producing hormones, neurotransmitters, and creating new tissues and cells. The result: our health suffers, and our body ages faster.
Signs of enzyme deficiency
Many people don't realize that falling asleep after a meal or not being able to eat dairy products, spicy foods, or heavy foods in general can be a sign of enzyme deficiency. Poor or disturbed digestion, including excessive flatulence, bloating, indigestion, heartburn, and constipation and/or diarrhea, is one of the first obvious signs.
As we age, the enzymes produced by the body decrease in number and activity. A lack of enzymes can contribute to increased pain, inflammation, and lack of endurance, as well as impair the body's ability to resist infections or heal wounds.
What are enzymes?
Enzymes are large protein-based molecules that catalyze (i.e., increase the speed of) chemical reactions. Every action and reaction in the body depends on enzymes; all cells need enzymes to survive and function. In terms of digestion, enzymes play an essential role in breaking down proteins into amino acids, fats into fatty acids, complex carbohydrates into simple sugars, and complex fibers into smaller fiber units, thus allowing complete absorption of valuable nutrients. Digestive enzymes also remove toxins from the intestines, relieve constipation, and help condition the digestive tract.
How to increase your enzyme intake?
We get enzymes from outside our body through the food we eat (food enzymes) and from inside, through our digestive organs (digestive enzymes). However, when food is cooked or processed at temperatures above 118°F, the enzymes in those foods are destroyed. Due to aging, injuries, illnesses, and stress, we need to consume more enzyme-rich foods and take them as supplements; enzyme supplements to aid digestion appeared as early as the 1890s.
Taking a complete digestive enzyme supplement helps the body break down proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and fibers to get the most nutrients from food.
What to look for in good quality digestive enzymes?
Plant-based enzymes are the most common enzymes in natural food supplements. Their safety and effectiveness have been well documented over many decades of use worldwide. Within the enzyme category, the three main ones are amylases (starch breakdown), proteases (protein breakdown), lipases (fat digestion), as well as cellulase, hemicellulase, and phytase (fiber breakdown).
Of all the choices, plant-based enzymes are the most active or potent. Thus, they contain the most active units and can break down more fat, protein, and carbohydrates over a wider pH range than any other source. Make sure to choose patented, broad-spectrum, non-GMO enzymes containing Fibrazyme™. Fibrazyme is an enzyme blend that optimizes the digestion of fiber and grains as well as the absorption of essential minerals. This blend has been shown to be a necessary addition for proper nutrient absorption in fiber-rich foods or for people taking mineral supplements with meals.
What to expect when taking digestive enzymes?
Plant-based enzymes are useful for developing and maintaining a healthy digestive system and can be taken with meals to aid the digestion of all foods or between meals to nourish and fortify the body as a whole. If you have problems with indigestion, gas, bloating, constipation, or reflux, a digestive enzyme supplement can help. Digestive enzyme supplements help break down food more completely and reduce the number of digestive problems.
Given the relatively low cost per serving/dose of these enzyme formulas compared to the overall benefits obtained, consumers may choose to make enzyme supplementation a part of their daily meals.