Enzymes and Your Health

Enzymes, which serve as the body's labor force to perform every single function for our daily activities, are required to keep us alive. They are responsible for all of the functions of every organ system in the body. At the same time, they are most important in supporting the body's defenses and immune system to protect us from harmful forces and specific dangers to our health.

There are three classes of enzymes: metabolic enzymes, which run every process in the body; digestive enzymes, which help digest or foods; and food enzymes from raw foods, which start food digestion. All of our organs and tissues are run by metabolic enzymes. Since good health depends on all of the metabolic enzymes doing an excellent job, we must be sure that nothing interferes with the body making enough of them. A shortage could cause serious trouble.

The length of life is inversely proportional to the rate of exhaustion of the enzyme potential of an organism. The increased use of food enzymes promotes a decreased rate of exhaustion of the enzyme potential. (The Enzyme Nutrition Axiom - Dr. Edward Howell)

Enzymes are minute protein molecules found naturally in foods we eat.¹ These protein molecules serve a vital purpose. They are catalysts that make possible the chemical reactions that digest our food and break it down to useable, absorbable nutrients. Enzymes are the life force found in foods and then transferred to our bodies to keep every system functioning optimally.

Problems arise because most of the foods we eat are enzyme-deficient. Enzymes are destroyed at temperatures of 118°F and above.² That means that almost any kind of food preparation method destroys enzymes. Anytime you cook, microwave, fry, bake, grill or otherwise process your foods, you subject yourself to the dangerous consequences of eating enzyme-deficient foods.

Mother Nature must have known we wouldn’t eat all of our foods raw, so our bodies have a backup supply of digestive enzymes. However, that supply is limited and depleting this supply places undue stress on the body. In other words, whenever we eat cooked or processed foods (which for most people is every meal!), we cause our bodies to work harder than necessary.³

When the body’s resources are being commandeered to accomplish digestion, they aren’t readily available to do other things—such as delaying the aging process or burning stored body fat. That’s right. Eating cooked and processed foods can lead to premature aging and increased storage of body fat.⁴

Cooked and processed foods are so hard on the body that they actually bring on a condition called digestive leucocytosis. The body considers cooked food to be a foreign substance, an unwanted invader and eating cooked food causes the white blood cell count to rise!

Further, if enzymes are not present in the food you eat, not only is the body overtaxed, but also food is often only partially digested. This causes additional problems, including allergies, and lethargy.

Eventually, as your body’s stores of digestive enzymes are depleted, you become unable to digest certain foods at all. For example, if you were to use up your supply of lactase enzymes (from eating enzyme-deficient milk products) you would become lactose intolerant.

While we are inordinately using up our digestive enzymes by eating enzyme-deficient foods, the body is trying to compensate in yet another way—by next pulling from its supply of metabolic enzymes. These enzymes can be called upon to facilitate digestion, but their primary purpose is to run other processes of the body.

Plainly, it is not a good thing to be using enzymes to accomplish digestion when they are supposed to be regulating the heart, lungs, or kidneys instead. However, that is exactly what happens. The body places a priority on digestion and goes to great lengths to do whatever is necessary to make sure foods are properly broken down and assimilated.

Some experts recognize the extreme toll this places on the body. Dr. Edward Howell, who studied enzyme nutrition for over 50 years, wrote:

"Humans eating an enzymeless diet use up a tremendous amount of their enzyme potential in lavish secretions of the pancreas and other digestive organs. The result is a shortened lifespan (65 years of less as compared with 100 or more), illness, and lowered resistance to stresses of all types, physiological and environmental."⁵

Initially, the body may react to enzyme deficiency with what we call “indigestion.” Minor discomforts—of burping, heartburn, abdominal pain and bad breath as well as excess gas, diarrhea, constipation and more—can be linked to consuming foods that are devoid of enzymes. Headaches, mental fatigue, nervousness, and lack of concentration can all result when the body doesn’t have enzymes readily available in the foods we eat. ⁶

There is an ironic twist in this whole scenario. Most people, when they experience the first signs of indigestion, have no idea that those signs are tied to enzyme deficiency and are a signal that digestion is compromised. While this may dissuade the symptoms, it doesn’t solve the problem, and is detrimental to overall health and well being.

Along with changing your diet and adding more raw foods, the way to preserve the body’s vital enzyme supply is by taking an enzyme supplement each time you eat foods that are cooked or processed. Products that contain protease only initiate the process of protein digestion. Protease breaks protein down to a peptide. In the peptide form, protein can’t be used by the body and can actually cause more harm than good. To break peptides down to useable amino acids requires peptidase as well.

Amylase will break carbohydrates down into disaccharides. Since disaccharides are still not in a form the body can use—and, like peptides, can wreak havoc in the system—cellulase, lactase, maltase and invertase must also be included to finish the job and break the carbohydrates all the way down to useable simple sugars.⁷ Similarly, lipase, the enzyme that digests fat must have certain minerals present in order to accomplish its job.⁸

You now understand the dangers of enzyme depletion and how to avoid the side effects of eating cooked and processed foods. Choose to be free of indigestion, to preserve your enzyme stores for important metabolic function and to promote optimum nutrient absorption and fat metabolism by eating responsibly. When you eat foods that are cooked and processed and, therefore, void of enzymes, make sure you don’t let enzyme deficiencies overtax your system and deprive you of the optimal health you want and deserve.

1. Howell, Dr. Edward. Enzyme Nutrition. New Jersey: Avery Publishing Group, 1985, p. 2.
2. Ibid., p. 4.
3. Ibid., p. 6-7.
4. Ibid., p. 15-6.
5. Howell, op. cit.
6. National Digestive Disease Information Clearinghouse http://www.niddk.nih.gov/DD-statistics/DD-statistics.html
7. Gary, Gary M. "Intestinal Digestion and Maldigestion of Dietary Carbohydrates." Annual Review of Medicine 22:391-404, 1971. ; 8. McPherson, James C., et al. “Effect of lipase ingestion on blood lipid levels.” Proceedings of the Society of Experimental Biology and Medicine 115: 5124-17 (1964).