Enzymes And Digestion

As of late you may have heard about the benefits of supplemental digestive enzymes.  While the body does create some of its own enzymes, enzymes can also be gotten from foods.  Now a days, however, overcooking and a lack of raw foods in the diet has led to low levels of enzyme consumption.  Enzymes are extremely sensitive to heat and therefore even low levels of heat (anything above 118 F) can destroy most enzymes. As you can see, to get enzymes in our diet, we need to eat a larger supply of uncooked foods.  Alternatively, taking supplemental enzymes can help to avoid enzyme depletion in the body.

Foods rich in enzymes include avocados, papayas, pineapples, bananas and mangos.  Extracted bromelain and papain from pineapple and papaya respectively, are usually sold as digestive enzymes in health food and vitamin stores.  These extracted sources are also often made from animal enzymes, including pancreatin and pepsin, which helps in digestion of food once it has reached the lower stomach and intestinal tract. 

These enzymes are important for digestion, because when proteins are not properly digested or if undigested particles are left, they can make their way directly into the bloodstream through leaks in the intestinal wall resulting in leaky gut syndrome.  This syndrome can cause allergic reactions both minor and severe.  Enzymes help to properly digest food in such a way as to help avoid these complications.
For maximum effect in selecting your enzyme supplement you should pick one that contains all four of the major enzyme groups.  These include: amylase, protease, and lipase.  These enzymes should be taken after meals, unless you are eating unprocessed and uncooked foods in which case it is best to simply let these foods do the work themselves.  To make your own digestive enzymes, simply dry out papaya seeds, place them in a coffee or pepper grinder and then sprinkle them on your food.  These will have a peppery taste.

Enzyme supplementation can be a great way to avoid allergic reactions caused by leaky gut syndrome and to aid in the general well being of the gastrointestinal tract.  Because of the many unwholesome foods we eat, and because even the wholesome choices are most often cooked, giving the body the extra enzymes it needs is a good idea.  Unless you are eating a high proportion of raw and uncooked foods, you are most likely not giving your body enough in the way of enzymes.  Supplemental enzymes, or even self-made papaya seed enzymes, will therefore be greatly beneficial.  For those already suffering from digestive trouble, giving enzyme supplements a try before turning to those antacids would be well worth it.  You may find, that adding these to your diet greatly diminishes digestive, stomach and intestinal disorders.