Enzymes: Critical to Life Tiny, highly active substances called enzymes play an amazing role in digestion. Enzymes function as protein catalysts. A catalyst speeds up or slows down a chemical reaction in the body. In digestion, enzymes are produced by the body to help completely break down food for proper absorption. Enzymes in the body are critical to all known life processes. Without enzymes, life could not exist. Raw Food Vs. Cooked Food All uncooked foods naturally contain a wide variety of enzymes. When we eat uncooked food, these enzymes are highly active and promote the digestion of the food itself. Recent research has now shown that our digestive enzyme systems gradually wear out with use, especially if we eat a predominantly cooked food diet. The process of cooking food destroys the enzymes inherent to the food, which requires our body to produce larger amounts of these enzymes in order to digest the food. A lifetime of eating mostly cooked food hastens the failure of our natural enzyme production systems. When cooking food, the higher the heat, the worse the destruction of enzymes. For example, whole wheat bread baked at 350 degrees requires our bodies to make far more digestive enzymes than eating soup that was heated only at boiling temperature (212 degrees F.). The Digestive Process To digest food properly, especially cooked food, the body first releases ptyalin in the mouth as you chew the food. Next, as the food enters the stomach, the stomach secretes hydrochloric acid and pepsin to continue breaking down the food. Then, the food travels to the small intestine, where it will spend several hours being digested. Finally, the pancreas releases 3 main digestive enzymes: protease to digest protein; lipase to digest fat; and amylase to digest carbohydrates. Unfortunately, the ability of the pancreas to produce these enzymes slowly declines with age. The more cooked food we consume, the sooner the body’s capacity to make enzymes declines. In addition, the body’s ability to produce enzymes can diminish dramatically with stress. Good Digestion: Good Health An efficient digestion can help enhance your immune system’s response. With good digestion, the body can destroy harmful organisms naturally present in food before they can gain entry to the body. Good digestion also prevents the entry of incompletely digested food particles into the blood. An efficient digestive process promotes complete digestion of food which can mean a healthier intestinal tract, healthy blood lipids, improved mineral absorption, healthy blood glucose levels, healthy blood triglyceride levels and may even help prevent tooth decay. Poor Digestion: Poor Health In contrast, a poor digestive system can allow the blood to become more toxic due to incompletely digested food particles absorbed through the bowel into systemic circulation. Enzyme Deficiencies: Whole Body Problems Exciting new molecular, biological research suggests that to slow the aging process and enhance immune response, taking a supplement with living plant digestive enzymes may reduce the body’s digestive enzyme burden, boost digestion, enhance immunity and thereby extend the life of your own enzyme systems. Beware of Junk Enzymes Beware of “junk” enzyme supplements. Digestive enzymes used in commercial digestive products can vary widely in quality. If the enzymes in a product have originated from an animal, its potency may be highly variable, with often no activity at all. In addition, animal-source enzymes typically contain toxic tag-alongs such as pesticide and synthetic hormone residues. Worse yet, they may also present the risk of prion exposure (viral-like particles from “mad cow syndrome”). On the other hand, if enzymes are extracted from a plant source such as fungi (usually Aspergillus), they may be free of pesticides and hormones, but they almost always contain remnant fungal residues, which itself can be immune compromising. We have found most plant enzyme products to be contaminated with residual fungal toxins, which presents an unnecessary risk of developing fungal infection, such as fungal lung infection. Secondly, we have also found most plant enzyme products to be too highly heated in their extraction process, resulting in damaged, inactive enzymes. New Cutting Edge Enzyme Research Premier Digest offers the most potent delivery available of once living, plant-source enzymes to support and enhance the body’s own enzyme production. Premier Digest is made using a breakthrough proprietary fermentation process using Aspergillus to yield the most highly purified, unheated, fully active enzymes. This revolutionary process yields the highly purified enzymes, free of any toxic Aspergillus residues, thereby eliminating any risk of immune system compromise. Premier Digest delivers a broad spectrum of the most potent and purest source of plant enzymes. It contains all 3 typical enzymes: protease, amylase and lipase, but it also contains special enzymes: invertase, lactase, maltase and cellulase. Together this broad spectrum of enzymes helps support digestion of all types of food: protein, starch, fat, lactose, sugar and fiber. |