This article will discuss what Digestive Enzymes are, what happens when you don’t have enough of them, and how you can provide your body the enzymes it needs.
Introduction To Enzymes
Your body requires Enzymes to function. Enzymes are proteins that speed the rate of chemical reactions in the body to support your various processes. Enzymes are required for Digestion and the conversion of food nutrients into energy. You need Enzymes for breathing, thinking, immune function, hormone regulation, detoxification, and thousands of other biochemical functions.
Types of Enzymes (Endogenous and Exogenous)
- Endogenous Enzymes are produced by your body. There are two types of Endogenous Enzymes:
1) Metabolic Enzymes – are active in the blood, tissues, and organs, and regulate metabolic activities such as glucose control and energy homeostasis.
2) Digestive Enzymes – are produced in the mouth, stomach and pancreas to help convert food to usable nutrients.
- Exogenous Enzymes are obtained from foods and are found outside your body.
Why Digestive Enzymes are Important
Digestive Enzymes break down carbohydrates, fats, and proteins from the foods you eat and converts them into usable nutrients. Without Digestive Enzymes, your body would be unable to absorb the nutrients in the foods you eat.
Digestive Enzymes from Foods
Fresh, raw foods naturally contain enough enzymes for proper digestion to occur. However, once you cook or process the raw foods (heating, microwaving, freezing, preserving, etc.), these naturally occurring enzymes are destroyed. Much of the average North American diet consists of cooked and processed foods, which means that the average North American is not getting Digestive Enzymes from their foods.
How Lack of Digestive Enzymes Affects You
Your body’s ability to properly digest and absorb nutrients is limited to the availability of both your internal (Endogenous) enzymes, and external (Exogenous) enzymes. If you do not eat enough fresh, raw, plant-based foods to get Exogenous enzymes into your body, your Endogenous enzymes will be overworked and become depleted.
If your body starts losing Digestive Enzymes, your rate of digestion will slow down. A lack of Digestive Enzymes can lead to poor digestion and malnutrition. If your Digestive system is not working properly, your body won’t be able to break down the foods into nutrients that are vital to cellular function and communication. To make matters worse, if you do not have enough Digestive Enzymes, your body may start shifting production of your Metabolic Enzymes to start working as Digestive Enzymes. That is, your body starts using the Metabolic Enzymes as Digestive Enzymes! As previously stated, Metabolic Enzymes are active in the blood, tissues, and organs that regulate metabolic activities such as glucose levels and energy availability. If your body lacks Metabolic Enzymes, the metabolic activities in your body will become sluggish and you will feel tired and lack energy.
Digestive Enzyme Supplements
If your diet does not consist of enough fresh, raw, plant-based foods that provide Exogenous Digestive Enzymes, you can obtain them from Digestive Enzyme Supplements. The TerraZyme supplement is a natural way to support your body’s production of enzymes. TerraZyme consists of 10 whole-food Enzymes including Amylase, Lipase, and Protease which are the main types of Digestive Enzymes:
• Amylase – breaks down carbohydrates into sugar molecules.
• Lipase – breaks down fats. If you do not have enough Lipase, you will lack fat-soluble vitamins such as A, D, E, and K.
• Protease – breaks down proteins into amino acids. It is involved in several physiological immune responses.
The 10 Enzymes are essential for the digestion of proteins, fats, complex carbohydrates, sugars, fibers, and other food nutrients. The Enzymes support your Digestive system to efficiently digest food into its nutrient components, thus reducing the demand on your body to produce Digestive enzymes, which allows your body to focus on the production of Metabolic enzymes.
I hope this article was helpful in providing information on Digestive Enzymes and what you can do to support your Digestive system. If you have any questions, feel free to send me a message at RoseExcellenceCoach@gmail.com.
Thank you,
Rose 🌹