Digestive Enzymes - drugs vs natural enzyme supplements

Whole food digestive enzyme supplements can be the key to health

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Drugs versus Natural Supplements

Gas, bloating, heartburn, stomach ache, feeling full when beginning to eat, abdominal cramping, unsatisfied hunger - these are common symptoms of enzyme deficiency. But most doctors treat such problems as though they were signs of drug deficiency! Perfect examples are Tagamet and Prilosec - Nexium, standard drugs given for indigestion and heartburn. Now the main reason there is pain is simple: blockage. All that pizza and fries and tacos and yogurt is devitalized food: no enzymes. As a result, once in the stomach, it just sits there! The stomach produces more and more acids and the few digestive enzymes trying to break down this overcooked, chemical-laden sludge we mistakenly refer to as food. But it can't do it. All that digestive juice sitting there unable to do its work is uncomfortable. It burns the stomach. On swallowing, the acid splashes back into the esophagus causing a painful condition known as reflux esophagitis, or heartburn, or for the really clueless

- hiatal hernia.

So first the geniuses try Tagamet, with the idea that all the excess acid needs to be absorbed. When that doesn't work, enter Prilosec..Prevacid or Nexium. The shrewd rationale behind this brain-child is to stop all digestion by halting further production of digestive juices! Short-term, the discomfort is postponed, but what about the underlying cause - the sludge is still sitting there in the stomach? It now begins to rot (go rancid, putrefy, or ferment, depending on whether it is fat, protein or carbohydrate). Then we have intestinal blockage, which promotes diseases like peptic ulcer, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Crohn's Disease, chronic colitis, Leaky Gut Syndrome, and colon cancer. This is how anti-digestive drugs like Prilosec can set the stage for a condition doctors call auto-intoxication.

Enzyme supplements are such a simple solution to a whole spectrum of health challenges, many of which are life-threatening, that they are generally not considered by mainstream practitioners. Most MDs are taught to look for the dramatic rescue, the "quick-acting drug", the heroic procedure that can snatch the patient from the jaws of death, or whatever. That's more sexy; it's "real medicine." The first problem is... that most medical doctors don't even know of the existence of whole-food enzymes, because such supplements are too inexpensive to be sold by the pharmaceutical companies. Yet.

The second problem is... that medical doctors have a very limited exposure to enzymes in medical school. The only concept they usually have is what is found in Guyton's Physiology, the standard text. They learn that enzymes are "catalysts," which means substances that cause things to happen but are themselves unchanged in the process. Dr. Howell, who was himself an MD, proved not only was this idea inaccurate, but that there was a grand and dynamic interchange between the enzymes of digestion and the enzymes of all the other life functions, which are called enzymes of metabolism.

Less than 20 digestive enzymes have been discovered; but there may be as many as 5000 metabolic enzymes. Enzymes are in a constant state of flux and re-organization. If this were not the case, many of us would have been dead long ago, because we wouldn't have been able to borrow from our metabolic enzymes to help out our "overwhelmed" digestive enzymes. Interlocking adaptation: survival.

There are several high quality enzyme supplements on the market today. There are also many mediocre or worthless enzymes available that are just on the shelves to sell. How do you tell the difference?

THE BEST WHOLE FOOD ENZYMES

1. are from Aspergillus, cultured in whole grain
2. contain all necessary cofactors
3. are totally bioavailable to the cells.

Scientists found out decades ago that Aspergillus-derived enzymes were the best supplements for humans because they were broad spectrum, and could operate in the whole range of pH which exists in the human digestive tract. Broad spectrum means the enzymes can digest fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. The best companies also add cellulase. This is the fiber-digesting enzyme, which allows the vitamins and minerals within fiber to be set free and made available to the bloodstream.

The esophagus, the stomach, the sections of the small intestine, and the colon define a wide range of pH. That means an acid/alkaline range. Aspergillus- derived enzymes work well in all these environments.

The best enzymes supplements contain all the necessary minerals necessary as cofactors for enzyme activity to take place, as explained above. Without these cofactors being included, the necessary minerals will be drawn from the body's reserves, thereby causing an overall negative effect. Remember, by themselves enzymes and minerals are worthless. The only way they function is in each other's presence

The final feature - bioavailability. Not only is the food able to make it from the digestive

tract into the bloodstream; it also has been broken down to simple units that can be used

completely by the cells. This is what is known as a clean product - nothing left over in the

blood after it does its work. Complete digestion.

ENZYME THERAPY

So once more, unless the patient will eat an 80% raw foods diet, he must take enzyme

supplements in order to insure complete breakdown of foods and unclumped red blood

cells. The trick is to find an enzyme supplement that will

be absorbed easily into the bloodstream

be taken up readily by the cells
and leave behind no metabolic residue as a result.

Holistic nutritionists have found that there are two obvious benefits to beginning a simple

program of enzyme therapy: digestion and blood detox

When enzyme supplements are taken with a meal, most of the enzyme energy is expended

in digesting that food. When enzyme supplements are taken on an empty stomach, they are

absorbed into the bloodstream and work to break down undigested debris in the bloodstream,

which had been clogging the blood.

Both these functions are vital to optimum health. The body is the same as the cells - when

wastes can't be removed, aging and breakdown occur.

NAME OF THE GAME

With no background in nutrition, the family physician, quite obviously may not be the best source

of information or advice when it comes to whole food enzymes. Why? Because the patient is taking

the first step in the dangerous direction known as "I Can Be Responsible for My Own Health".

As Dr. Mendelsohn explained, most doctors don't support this idea at all, because it tends to take

away their control of things. And if you don't think the name of the whole game is Control, just

observe any TV channel with a stopwatch and tell me how long you can sit there without someone

telling you to take some type of medication. Five minutes? Ten? Your job is to NEED as many

drugs as possible between now ....and the day you die. Their job is to SELL them to you and make

you dependent on them. Does this have anything to do with health? Rarely!. This has to do with

pharmaceutical economics. Good Health is an entirely different topic, altogether.

Most medical doctors tell patients that diet has very little to do with their particular disease.

Ever hear of a medical doctor doing a thorough analysis of a patient's diet before diagnosing

him as a diabetic and putting him on insulin for life? Of course not. This is sales and marketing.

Occasionally doctors might say that diet may have contributed to a disease, but almost NEVER

will they say that diet can cure a disease. They will say that curing disease comes from only one

thing: drugs.

GLOWING HEALTH ...OR MERE SURVIVAL?

A human being is not a static mass of cells, but a living process. Each day we have a chance either

to improve overall health, or else just to survive for another 24 hours. Each day, each meal, is an

opportunity to strengthen the immune system, to shore up the body's reserves through nutritional

choices. At any given moment in time, our health is simply the cumulative result of all these past

choices.

Three opposing forces are constantly at work, trying to control our food selection :

1. our informed brain

2. the advertising skills of the food industry

3. non-nutritive food additives whose only purpose is addicting us to certain foods by stimulation

of the taste buds and the nervous system

Eating when we're not hungry, or else just enough to get through the day, choosing the most conveniently available foods, the ones with that quick jolt of sugar, or processed fat – this will allow us to survive.

But there's another option available to us - choosing foods that will detox the body, build our immunity,

unclog our blood, and optimize the quality of life. Our ability to make rational choices based on the

body's real needs rather than on the programmed urges from the food industry - this ability will determine our total health potential.

Look around you. Go shopping, or to the mall. How often do you see an example of this Glowing Health, even among young people? Where is it? Or rather do you see bloated, slovenly, unhappy people with bad skin and blocked colons? Processed foods become our cells. We become processed food. Never underestimate the forces at work 24 hours a day to make us consume as much processed dairy, hydrogenated soybean oil, white sugar, and white flour as possible.

We are addicted to the things that poison us.

40/20 If you've hit 40 and are still eating the way you did at 20, chances are you're aging much faster than necessary. You're wearing out, filling up. The body has exhausted its efforts to break down all those chemicals, all those preservatives, all that hydrogenated oil. Since you still take it in, it has to end up somewhere. It does - inside you. With rare exceptions, at 40 you simply can't eat the way you did at 20. Not if you're going to be healthy enough to avoid doctors and hospitals. Comfort foods? You need your comfort foods? Poor baby, baby, How comfortable will you be in that expensive ICU?

THE MASTER KEY

The best course of action would be to eat a diet consisting of more than 80% enzyme-rich raw foods.

No arguments there. But most of us simply can't resist all that conditioning and advertising, and we rationalize to ourselves how "life was meant to be lived and the hell with the rest," etc. And that line of reasoning brings most of us to processed foods. Luckily, today we have a way at least to minimize the clogging, toxifying residues of undigested food.

Everything we put in our mouths IS a decision, even if it's an unconscious one.

Each food choice poses two questions:

- will this nourish the body?
.....or
- will this clog the body?

The cumulative effect of these decisions determines whether we are toxifying or detoxifying day by day –

whether we are getting sicker or better, building our immune reserves or using them up, promoting degeneration or slowing it down, moving toward life or toward death.. Aging or anti-aging.

ONE SIMPLE STEP

Whole food enzyme supplements can be the key to health, without changing one single other thing. Detox the blood. What's the alternative? The toxins accumulate in the blood, just like they always have. Result: allergies, autoimmune stuff, arthritis, or any type of disease that starts with a chronic low-grade inflammation of something or other. Almost sounds too simple. But that's the hallmark of the classic cure ---- simplicity.

We're not adding anything new. We're simply replacing something that has been artificially removed by food processing: enzymes. We allow the body to find its normal equilibrium. Mainly, that just means stop poisoning it.