I did an interesting study on enzymes, I never knew what they were or where they come from, why our body needs them. As far as I knew they were something the soap companies were putting into laundry detergent to help break away the dirt on your clothes "EXTRA SPECIAL ENZYME ACTION!"

Here's an article I got from my desk reference about enzymes. It may take about 4 minutes to read, but is worth the information--GET SMART ABOUT YOUR BODY!

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The Importance of Enzymes

There are two basic categories of enzymes:
digestive and metabolic. Digestive enzymes are absolutely vital to human health. They break down and digest food in order to liberate the essential nutrients, vitamins, and minerals that sustain life. Some digestive enzymes are present in the food we eat; some are produced by the body itself.

A lack of digestive enzymes in the diet forces the body to overproduce its own digestive enzymes and limits its ability to produce metabolic enzymes which are also crucial for health and normal metabolism. This limitation occurs because both digestive enzymes and metabolic enzymes are created from the same enzyme precursors. The production of these precursors
is limited in the human body, so when the digestive system must overproduce digestive enzymes (due to an enzymeless diet), it causes a harmful underpro-duction of metabolic enzymes.

How important are metabolic enzymes? Metabolic enzymes are involved in every process of the human body. The immune system, circulatory system, liver, kidneys, spleen, pancreas, and even our ability to see, breathe, and think, depend upon metabolic enzymes.

When the diet is supplemented with digestive enzymes that are naturally present in whole, raw, or uncooked foods, two powerful benefits are unleashed:

1. The body can extract maximum nutritional value from food
2. The body can reduce its internal production of digestive enzymes, which allows for higher production of metabolic enzymes, crucial for daily metabolism, health, and detoxification.

So there are three categories of enzymes:

1) Metabolic enzymes

These enzymes work in the blood, tissues, and organs. Our organs are run by metabolic enzymes. These enzymes convert food substances into healthy cells. One researcher found over 98 enzymes carrying out metabolic functions in the arteries alone.

2) Digestive enzymes produced by the body

These include trypsin, chymotrypsin, and pepsin, which contain a broad spectrum of protein, starch, and fat-digesting enzymes. Some typical animal-derived enzymes include pancrelipase (from pigs) and pancreatin (from cows).

Protein digesting enzymes
�Eprotease
�Eprotease
�Eprotease
�Epeptidase

Fat-digesting enzymes
�Elipase

Starch-, sugar-, and carbohydrate-digesting enzymes
�Ealpha-galactosidase
�Esucrase
�Emaltase
�Einvertase
�Elactase
�Ecellulase
�Eamylase
�Eglucomylase
�Ehemicellulase
�Ephytase
�Emalt diastase

3) Digestive enzymes found in food

These are present naturally in raw food and jump start the digestive process. They are broadly classified into proteases (protein-digesters), lipases (fat-digesters), and amylases (starch digesters). There are also many different subcategories of enzymes.

Broad-spectrum plant enzymes
�Epapain
�Ebromelain

Amylase is the only digestive enzyme that does not exist in a newborn infant. It can only be obtained through mother's milk. Children who use formulas and cow's milk do not receive this enzyme. This may be the reason some children are born with allergies or develop allergies as they begin growing.

In the food chain, nature has strategically placed enzymes in many raw or whole foods to assist our own body's enzymes in the digestive process.
Ancient cultures prized the natural enzymes in foods, especially meats. They worked hard to conserve the natural enzymes present in their foodstuffs because they knew how valuable they were for strength and health. This is why many ancient cultures 'aged' or cured meats. This allowed the natural enzymes present in the flesh to predigest it, thereby easing the burden on their own digestive system and conserving their own limited pool of enzymes.

When meat is predigested, it places less stress on the body's own enzyme bank. Predigestion also enhances the breakdown of peptide chains and proteins into free form amino acids, the building blocks of every major body function, from immunity to growth.

Every protein that enters the human body via digestion has to be broken down into amino acids before it can be fully utilized. Meats that are not completely digested contain large protein fragments that cannot benefit the body. In fact, these protein fragments can cause allergic reactions if the body's antibodies mistake them for foreign microorganisms. Even worse, these protein fragments can become trapped in the intestines where they will ferment and promote parasite infestation.

Cathepsin is a natural enzyme present in all animal flesh. The aging or 'curing' process allows cathepsin, an enzyme that is within the flesh, to slowly digest the meat. This is not unlike the process that ripens bananas. A green banana starts out high in starch. As it ages or ripens, the natural amylase in the banana converts the starches into sugar. In effect, the
amylase is digesting the banana, eventually turning it brown.

As soon as an animal is dead, cathepsin begins to predigest the meat. It begins splitting large peptide (protein) chains into smaller, more digestible ones. When this meat is eaten after it has been hung for two to three weeks, the digestive system now has a far easier job completing its breakdown and liberating the vital free-form amino acids, the building blocks of all bodily processes.

The remarkable physical strength and endurance exhibited by the pioneers and Native Americans may have been due to their consumption of enzyme-rich raw and unprocessed foods, despite the sometimes meager rations of less than four ounces of food a day. We have been taught that you must eat to have strength. But there is more to it than that. You must be able to digest and assimilate the nutrients that you take in, in order to sustain health and strength.

On the average, only 8 percent of the food we consume is metabolized and used to sustain normal bodily function. The remainder passes through us undigested. Even worse, only 1 to 2 percent of the nutrient value of the food that we consume reaches our cells.

Many people today suffer wheat and grain allergies. This may be due to the fact that grains are not grown and prepared as they used to be.

Egyptian hieroglyphics depict the ancient process of grain harvesting. The grain was cut with a handsaw, tied into sheaves and left to stand in the field for several days. It was then loaded into ox carts, hauled to the threshing site and thrown into a big stone grinder operated by an ox team. The stone rolled around on the grain, cracking the hulls. With the sifting of the wind, the chaff was blown off, and the grain picked up by slaves and carried in baskets to the storehouse.

Stone-ground, whole-wheat bread which is rich in enzymes, vitamin E, and other nutrients, sadly, is a thing of the past. Today, modern technology brings grain to us via a machine called a combine. The combine cuts the grain, almost instantly separates the kernel from the husk and delivers the grain ready for market on the same day it was cut. It is then further processed to strip out the vitamin E and other oils. Most of it is then bleached leaving only a tiny fraction of the grain's initial enzymes.

To maximize the enzymes in a food, the fruit of the plant needs to mature on the stalk/stem to the point of ripening, or readiness to sprout. This is when the enzyme content of the food is the highest. Unfortunately, many fruits, vegetables and grains are harvested when they are immature and assumed to ripen in transit. This results in a food that has a far lower enzyme content.

In order for grains to fully digest in the human body, they must contain a full complement of their natural enzymes. Every food has its own specific enzymes. In order for a grain to have viable enzymes, it must have time to germinate. Once it germinates, its enzymes are released from the bondage of enzyme inhibitors. This is why sprouted grains are so health-giving, because the enzyme inhibitors have been deactivated and can no longer counteract the natural enzymes present in the food.

What are some of the early signs of enzyme deficiency?

Digestive complaints, heartburn, gas, bloating, fatigue, headaches, stomach aches, diarrhea, constipation, chronic fatigue, yeast infections, nutritional deficiencies, pain, joint stiffness; colon, liver, pancreas, and intestinal problems, skin eruptions, psoriasis, and eczema.

Many enzymes are not only deficient but also inactive. At the Young Life Research Clinic in Springville, Utah, Gary Young tested over 21 different enzyme products from 21 different manufacturers and did not find a single one that was effective in a clinical environment. The patients were closely monitored, their food intake measured; their blood and digestive systems regularly measured and analyzed. The clinic staff found that patients were simply not obtaining value from their foods because
their enzymes were inactive.

How are enzymes destroyed or rendered inactive?

1) Chemical cultivation. When natural food is grown in an artificial, chemical environment created by chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, enzyme content suffers.

2) Heat. Enzymes begin breaking down at 118� F and are totally destroyed at 129� F.

3) Pasteurization, Sterilization, Freezing, Microwaving. All these modern processes render enzymes inactive.

Fasting allows the body to slow down the secretion of digestive enzymes, thereby permitting an increase in metabolic enzymes that help the body to repair and rejuvenate tissue that has been damaged or destroyed. In effect, the fasting process rebuilds the body.

In addition, fasting spurs an increase in growth hormone release, which is important for preventing premature aging.

The human body has the potential to live for 120 years and beyond. However, devitalized, enzyme-deficient foods deplete our enzyme stores and unduly stress the organs and major physical processes. This can hasten the onset of many degenerative diseases. Hence, one of the most effective ways of preventing disease is to maintain an ample reserve of enzymes in the body.

Medical research shows that food enzyme supplements can fight illness, slow the development of life-threatening diseases, and slow the effects of aging.

Dr. Francis Pottinger conducted an amazing study with over 900 cats. He fed one group of cats raw milk and meat. They lived healthy and disease free. They produced healthy litters generation after generation. He fed another group of cats pasteurized milk and cooked food. After the first generation, this group became lethargic and began to suffer from allergies, infections, and other diseases, including heart, kidney, and lung diseases. Each succeeding generation of cats that ate cooked food suffered more diseases. By the third generation, the cats were unable to reproduce.

Another study showed that after eating cooked food, the human body reacted just as if suffering an acute illness. Within 30 minutes of eating cooked food, white blood cell counts increased dramatically, as though the body were fighting an infectious disease.

In a very interesting experiment, one group of pigs was fed enzyme-rich raw potatoes and another group enzyme-deficient cooked potatoes. The pigs eating cooked potatoes gained weight rapidly. The pigs that were eating raw potatoes did not get fat.

An area of deep concern is obesity. Dr. David Galton at the Tufts University School of Medicine tested people weighing 230-240 pounds. He found that almost all of them were lacking lipase enzymes in their fatty tissues. Lipase, found abundantly in raw foods, is a fat-splitting enzyme that aids the body in digestion. Lipase activity breaks down and dissolves fat throughout the body. Without lipase, fat are kept and stored in tissues. We see this manifest around the waistline, hips, and thighs.

It is astounding to see the obesity levels of American children. According to 1998 statistics, a minimum of 25 percent of our children are overweight today, an increase of 33 percent since 1978. This obesity may be due to chronic enzyme deficiency.

Copyright �2002 Essential Science Publishing All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.