Enzymes are Essential for Overall Health: A Look at Digestive Enzymes

Digestive enzymes are the proteins that you are naturally born with, which comprise of amino acids. The purpose of the digestive enzymes is to help in your digestion. The digestive enzymes are secreted from your pancreas and into your small intestine and your stomach. These are catalysts that enable a number of biochemical reactions to take place in your body.

Your digestive organs produce these enzymes to help to break down food into assailable forms. There are four general classes of enzymes, which are amylase, lipase, protease, and cellulase. To further break down these enzyme classes for you here are what each do for your body. Amylase helps your body digest starches, carbohydrates, and sugars that are found in fruits, grains, and starchy vegetables. Lipase breaks down oils and fats into fatty acids that are found in meat and dairy products that you consume. Your digestive system uses protease to break down proteins into amino-acids that are found in nuts, cheeses and meats. Last but not least, cellulase helps your body digest fiber. As you can see, all four of these enzymes play a large part in digesting the foods that you throughout the day.

As we said, in today's living a lot of your enzymes get depleted very quickly. The largest depletion occurs through the food that you consume. The digestive enzymes are “killed” when you cook food over 118 degrees. Microwaving further reduces the store of enzymes in the food. It is a fact that you get enzymes from only fresh and raw food and not from fried, cooked, or junk food. You can eat healthy and also take supplements but if the enzymes are not present in the food it will not be very effective to help you in maintaining a healthy body. Most degenerative diseases result from a lack of digestion as well as the improper elimination from the system.

An increasing amount of studies suggest that enzymes are essential for overall health, as well as the successful treatment of a host of diseases. These enzymes play an all-encompassing function in the overall development and maintenance of your body. Enzyme bankruptcy is a health catastrophe resulting in your body becoming weak prematurely.

Studies have shown that consuming more raw foods as well as taking enzyme supplements is important in the prevention and healing of a number of diseases including cancer. Some of the other benefits of the digestive enzymes include prevention of colon and digestive problems, hypoglycemia, asthma, hay fever, inflammation, and Crohn's disease. When you take them with proper food the enzymes can perform miraculous tasks.

On IH, we've reviewed a digestive enzyme supplement called ActiveZyme. You can read the review here or learn more about this supplement, and purchase it here! We also encourage you to view Dr. Fuller's videos about "The Healing Power of Enzymes" here.