Digestive EnzymesClick here to go direct to our Digestive Enzyme Supplements article. Without enzymes, we simply cannot survive. And yet until recently, this class of nutrient has been almost ignored! Research now links enzyme deficiency not just with bloating and digestive problems, but inflammation, heart disease, autism and even autoimmune diseases like lupus and MS. It is early days, but the evidence is building. Enzymes are naturally present in all foods, from fuits and vegetables to meat proteins and fats, but we largely fail to consume them because of one very important fact. COOKING DESTROYS ALL ENZYMES!
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Nu-zymes - Enjoy the foods you love!
GasSTOP - Designed to minimise gas & bloating is another excellent enzyme formula with very high Amylase, Protease and Cellulase, aimed at digesting carbohydrates, sugars, starches, protein and fibre.
DigestMORE - The Enzyme for sensitive stomachs was created to help you digest more protiens, carbs, fats and dairy. With a high bromelain and and protease blend it is the ideal companion for meat digestion and may relieve pain and inflammation. |
What are enzymes & why are they important?Enzymes are catalysts. They speed up the process of change. In digestion, they speed up the digestion of foods thousands of times! Without them, we simply can't get the nutrients out. Here is a link to Wikipedia for an in depth description of enzymes. According to Dr. Edward Howell, a pioneer of enzyme therapy rats lived almost 50% longer when fed on raw food (rich in enzymes) than those fed on cooked and processed foods. Worse still, the rats eating cooked food had lower brain weight and higher body weight. Their pancreases were also enlarged (presumably due to the strain of attempting to make up for the missing enzymes). The cooked, low-enzyme diet contributed to obesity and impaired mental function.
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What do digestive enzymes do?Digestive enzymes rapidly make the nutrients in our food available to us. Each enzyme class does a very specific job, and each food comes ready packed with the appropriate enzymes (until you cook it!). Once cooked, pasteurised or processed, amost every enzyme is lost!
Types of enzymes include:
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Enzymes in digestionEnzymes in the digestive system play a vital roll. Of the 3000 or more enzymes in our bodies, at least 22 are digestive enzymes. In addition to the enzymes which should be introduced with our food, our organs, particularly the pancreas, also contribute to the digestive enzyme picture. Between them, these digestive enzymes literally take food apart. They reduce it to the smallest, One problem though is that our pancreas loses its capacity to produce enzymes over time. So that a healthy child may produce 30 times more pancreatic enzymes than a 70 year old.
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What if you are short of digestive enzymes?So how important is it if you run short of enzymes? Well enzym deficiency is actually VERY important indeed! Here's why. Few people realise that the immune system steps in to help us digest food if we suffer a shortage of digestive enzymes — as millions of us do, thanks to decades on poor diets and almost exclusively cooked food. Research links an abnormally high white blood cell count to an enzyme-poor diet of cooked foods. The condition is called digestive leukocytosis, and it’s the immune system’s response to “too much food in your gut and not enough enzymes.” (Natural Cancer Treatments that Work, page 303) If you don't have sufficient enzymes available to break down your food, your body anticipates you might starve, so it diverts your precious white blood cells which are loaded with enzymes to attack your food and break it down into individual nutrients such as mineral salts and amino acids that our bodies can absorb and utilise. Of course if your white blood cells are busy breaking down your food, they are not available to protect you abainst foreign invaders.
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Enzyme Supplement Guide: |
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For Sensitive Stomachs and as an excellent all round digestive enzyme we recommend "DigestMORE"This has a very high protein digestive complex of protease, bromelain and papaya, as well as fat digesting complex and comprehensive carbohydrate, fiber and sugar digestive complex. Designed by Brenda Watson, who also developed GasSTOP it is the perfect choice for those who are looking to spare their white blood cells when digesting cooked and heavy meals. |
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Lactose intolerance and enzymesLactose intolerance is NOT allergy to milk, but it IS intolerance which can be devastating and it IS what most people suffer from. Bloating, gas, irritable bowel syndrome symptoms, abdominal cramps, skin problems, headaches or foggy brain and more can all be outcomes. The cause of lactose intolerance is a lack of the enzyme that breaks milk down, called lactase. Since just about all the milk we have access to these days is pasteurised (heat processed) it posesses none of its own enzymes. This puts an extra burden on our pancreas to compensate and a substantial proportion of the population cannot produce the necessary enzyme past the age of five or six. At this age, the 'milk teeth' fall out and intolerances can set in, causing pasteurised milk (lacking enzymes) to rob the body of vital minerals, thereby hampering appropriate bone growth and creating over-crowding in the mouth. This in turn can lead to dental extractions and a reduced dental arch, leading to minor dislocation of the jaw and subsequent, lifetime postural and structural difficulties. Caucasians appear to have the highest tolerance for lactose - but it would pay all of us to ensure we supplement with adequate amounts of lactase to digest pasteurised dairy products (which lack the necessary enzymes) if we choose to consume them. A study of children suffering from lactose intolerance revealed that more than nine out of ten got relief by supplementing with the lactase enzyme. |
Nu-zymes - Enjoy the foods you love! |
Pain relief, arthritis and enzymesOne class of enzyme is the proteolytic or protein digesting enzymes. These are particularly high in the enzyme supplement "DigestMore". Proteolytic enzymes are the second most popular pain relief option after asparin in Germany. Since we are largely made up of proteins, proteolytic enzymes are the tool of choice to break down damaged cells and connective tissue, thereby bringing the healing cycle of damaged tillue with inflammation to a close. A small study of 70 arthritis patients also found that most had insufficient stomach acid. Insufficient stomach acid combined with inadequate enzymes would make it alsmost impossible to digest your food without a major rerouting of white blood cells. Many people who benefit from the consumption of enzymes with their meals also find supplementation of Betaine HCL to be of great benefit.
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Enzymes and cardiovascular diseaseDr. Cichoke has investigated the possible link between enzymes and cardiovascular disease. He observes that our bodies constantly produce a protein called fibrin, involved amongst other things in the clotting of blood. We also produce an enzyme called plasmin that dissolves fibrin, so there is a constant play between the production and breaking down of this blood clotting factor. Unfortunately though, our ability to produce plasmin slows as we age, and we speed up that aging process with our enzyme-poor diets. Over time, fibrin can become a health hazzard as it gets out of balance, and plasmin supplementation is not an option. We can however consume the protein-eating or proteolytic enzymes bromelain and nattokinase. These not only do a similar job to plasmin, but according to Dr Cichoke enhance the body's ability to produce its own blood-thinning enzymes including plasmin. Once again the advice is to ensure sufficient enzymes are consumed when eating. This either means eating substantial quantities of raw foods with every meal or supplementing with some of the excellent enzyme products now available.
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Digestive Enzyme supplementsA digestive enzymes supplement is now recognised as one of the most important supplements we can take. Why? Because we have been brought up on cooked food. We simply assume this is normal. We even tend to look on those who eat a raw food diet as somehow strange. And yet a cooked food diet is almost devoid of digestive enzymes. Without digestive enzymes digestion is either incomplete, or comes as a huge price of diverting our immune system.
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Digestive enzymes side effectsSide effects from taking digestive enzymes are very few. Laboratory tests have shown massive quantities to be entirely safe.There are two groups of people who should take enzymes with care. People with digestive ulcers are generally advised not to take protein digesting enzymes until the ulcer is resolved. If taking a blood thinning medication, enzymes - particularly proteolytic enzymes should be taken with caution and in association with your doctor, as these will themselves have a blood thinning quality.
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Digestive enzymes for kidsA healthy child's pancreas is up to 30 times as efficient at producing pancreatic enzymes as a seventy year old, and this is one of the main reasons we are able to eat cooked and fast food, while drinking canned and hot drinks totally void of thier own enzymes. Children with digestive problems however, including autisitic chldren, may benefit enormously from the inclusion of a variety of digestive enzyme supplements. These will not only have the tendency to assist in the breakdown of foods and uptake of nutrients, but by supplementing enzymes, these children will free up their white blood cells to attack invading viruses and bacteria as described above.
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Buy digestive enzymesWhen buying digestive enzymes, always consider which foods you have trouble digesting. Some of us are sensitive to just about everything, while others suffer from gas and bloating. This is generally associated with poor digestion of greens and beans. You may find it helpful to look at the list of types of enzymes above, before selecting an enzyme supplement with an adequate level of the most needed enzyme type to suit you. The focus of each enzyme supplment is indicated beneath its photo on the right side of this page.
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Digestive Enzymes & bloatingBloating may be greatly eased by taking digestive enzymes. They are not the only course of action, but when you appreciate their impotance in digestion AND immune function, it is no surprise that huge numbers of people report thier relieving effect.
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Stomach acid and digestive enzymesAre you low in stomach acid? Many of us are; and the amount we produce tends to reduce with age. Low stomach acidity may be another contributory factor in all forms of digestive health problems from food intolerance and bloating to nutritional deficiency. Heartburn and acid reflux are sure signs that acidity is involved. The difficulty is that both inadequate and excess stomach acidity result in almost identical symptoms. In reality however, far more of us have too little stomach acid than too much. Taking a Hydrocloric Acid supplement as well as an enzyme formula may prove to be the perfect combination for many. This is because adequate HCL (hydrochloric acid) pre-digests the food, leaving less work for the enzymes to do. It also enxures that many of the microbes we inadvertantly eat, are killed or deactivated before reaching the intestine.
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