The Magic of Digestive Enzymes
Saturday, February 17th, 2007More than 70 million people today suffer from digestive upsets at least once a week. Indigestion, bloating and heartburn are common complaints. Almost all digestive upsets have a common cause: inability to properly digest food. The solution? Digestive enzymes.
What digestive enzymes do
The digestive enzymes that we are born with occur naturally in the body. Their purpose is to aid the food enzymes in digestion. What are digestive enzymes? Digestive enzymes are secreted from the pancreas into the stomach and small intestine. They are protease, which breaks down proteins, amylase for breaking down carbohydrates, lipase for the breakdown of fats, and cellulase for iber. Digestive enzymes are responsible for breaking down the foods we eat and delivering the resulting nutrients to every cell of the body. They also lush out toxins.
The heat is on
Unfortunately, cooking destroys enzymes. Digestive enzymes are killed when we cook our food at over 118 degrees. There are no living enzymes in cooked foods. If you want the best chance of ingesting live enzymes, you will need to consume your food raw. If you can’t always eat raw food, the next best thing is to take digestive enzymes along with your meal.
Gas and bloating
Undigested foods tend to rot and ferment in the intestines and colon, feeding bacteria that create gas as a by- product. The better you digest your food, the less these bacteria have to feast on, thereby reducing the amount of gas they produce.
Fatigue after meals
If you don’t have enough digestive enzymes to break down the food you eat, your body has to work a whole lot harder to help break down these foods. Digestive enzyme supplements help break down food so that your body can be freed from this drudgery.
Bowel Complaints
Most bowel problems are caused by a build-up of toxins in the bowels. Where do these toxins come from? The answer is, undigested foods, which provide a veritable banquet for the hordes of bacteria that make their home in the large intestine. Supplementing with digestive enzymes may help reduce the amount of undigested foods that enter the colon and may also help to break down the toxic build-up on the colon walls.
Heartburn and Indigestion
Heartburn is caused by excessive stomach acid. Excess stomach acid is frequently caused by simply having too much food in the stomach. Digestive enzymes help to break down foods immediately, so that they can move from the stomach area more readily. Indigestion, by deinition, means “the inability to digest.” Digestive enzymes help digest foods into nutrients that the body can effectively utilize.
Digestive enzymes: a magic bullet
You can eat all the healthy food and take all the vitamins in the world, but unless digestive enzymes are present your process of digestion will remain incomplete. For this reason the practice of taking digestive enzymes with meals makes excellent sense.