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ENZYMES:
CRITICAL FOR LIFE
Article by herbalist Dave
Hawkins, MH, CNC
The importance of
enzymes in human nutrition is very important
when dealing with maintaining good health and the
prevention of disease. In a recent journal “Townsend Letter
For Doctors And Patients”, an article written by
Morton Walker, dealing with the problems of indigestion
helped me decide to write about digestive issues with this
article.
In his article he notes
staggering
statistics as to how many people suffer from
digestive disturbances, we
are talking about over 20 million people.
Of course with our standard
American diet consisting of over processed refined
chemicalized food it is no
wonder that the pharmaceutical industry makes billions of
dollars on over the counter preparations designed to
provide symptomatic relief. Unfortunately many of these
substances compromise the digestive system further down the
line. Since this topic is large, I will only be able to
address certain aspects.
In my training,
digestive functions is the center of good or bad health.
It used to be stated that "you are what you eat" now we say
"you are what you absorb".
Let take a closer
look at digestive functions. First we begin
with the mouth. Just the thought of food begins the process
in the brain that prepares the stomach for food. The first
bite is very important. How many of you chew your food
well? Chewing of food mixes enzymes in the saliva that will
help start the process once the food enters the stomach.
The stomach is
designed to secrete hydrochloric acid and
numerous enzymes mainly to take the food you have eaten and
break it down into smaller more absorbable components
that will be absorbed into the blood stream further down
the intestinal tract.
Some basic
guidelines to help this process is to chew
well,
don’t drink excessively with
meal due to diluting of the digestive juices,
watch food combining, which will be in a later article,
avoid overly cold beverages with a meals.
Let’s look at some
other aspects of the digestive principal.
Enzymes are
critical players in the digestive process. So
what are enzymes and how do they work? The body
manufacturers approximately twenty two different
digestive enzymes.
These enzymes are capable of
breaking down protein, carbohydrates, sugars, and fats. The
National Enzyme Commission has established a nomenclature
system to identify enzymes. All enzymes end with the suffix
-ase.
The following are the main four categories.
They are:
1.
Lipase- which serves to break down fat.
2.
Protease- breaks down protein.
3.
Cellulase-
breaks down fiber.
4.
Amylase- breaks down starch.
Enzymes are critical for all
life functions.
We have discussed how they
work with digestion but what other role do they play.
Enzymes in the blood take nutrients and help to build
muscles, nerves, blood cells and aid glandular functions.
They assist in storing sugar in the liver and muscles and
turn fat into fatty tissue. Enzymes work with our immunity
by attacking waste material and poisons within the blood.
They aid in elimination functions of the kidneys and the
lungs.
Enzymes are specific and
they do not cross over.
An example is protease
will not digest starch. They act on substances
and change that substance into something different without
changing themselves. As stated in the book Enzymes The
Foundation Of Life by Drs. Lopez, Williams, and
Miehlke, "the enzymes work as tireless, highly
skilled workers on a conveyor belt, dismantling,
controlling, protecting, destroying, eliminating,
reassembling or performing whatever we need in order to
exist day and night".
There are three
classes of enzymes:
1.
Metabolic which work in blood, tissue, and organs.
2.
Food
enzymes from raw food.
3.
Digestive enzymes made in the body
There are approximately 3000
thousand known enzymes in the human body.
Dr. Howell has been a
leading researcher in enzyme therapy since 1920. He is the
world leader in our understanding of how enzymes work. It
used to be believed that we had unlimited enzyme production
in our bodies. It is now believed that we have an
enzyme bank and that we do not
replenish it as we age.
It is like a bank account if
we overdraw it we pay the consequences.
The overdrawn
enzyme bank
happens when we have a diet of overly
refined food
and fail to eat raw fruits and vegetables. One
characteristic of enzymes is their inability to withstand
heat. At the temperature of 129 degrees enzymes are
destroyed.
Baking, food processing,
cooking, and microwaving are destroying our plant
enzymes. When we eat processed cooked foods
we are depleting our enzyme bank account.
It does need help by either eating raw foods or taking
enzyme supplements.
Some of the
conditions of enzyme deficiency are various
inflammation processes, enlarged pancreas,
toxicity of the colon, allergies, bronchitis,
cystitis, arthritis, acne, osteoporosis, and lupus.
Enzymes have been used to
treat many of these conditions.
They help to block
the formation of inflammatory compounds due to
injury and degenerative diseases like arthritis. They help
to reduce swelling and promote healing. Enzyme therapy has
been used to treat viruses by helping the body to break
down the protein coating that cover viruses. They have
been used to treat multiple sclerosis and are
an adjunctive therapy with cancer.
It really is fascinating to
understand how important enzymes are to our health and
vitality. Our modern diet is a constant factor when it
comes to disease processes. I
urge you to do more reading about this subject.
A few
good
books are: Enzyme Nutrition by Dr. Howell, Food Enzymes by
Humbart
Santillo, Enzymes The Foundation Of Life by Drs.
Lopez, Williams, and Miehlke.
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