It’s All About the Digestion

Working with thousands of clients, the one common thing I have found in about 95% of men and women of all ages is that we all have some degree of digestive issues. Some people are aware and notice things such as indigestion, heartburn, and gas, but some people are walking around thinking everything is great.  It’s apparent that there is excessive protein and fat floating around in their blood, that their body isn’t breaking their food down correctly. A lot of people have been sold a prescription for acid but there are less people who need a proton pump inhibitor than those that need more stomach acid. In fact, lack of stomach acid causes a lot of the heartburn the population is experiencing. Food sitting in the stomach acts like a rock in a puddle and causes the acid to rise up to the esophageal opening and creates the burning. Food sitting in the stomach starts to ferment and make us bloat and creates gas. Not a lot of fun and not healthy for our body.

I believe we need to all slow down and chew, chew each bite until it’s almost liquid they’ve been telling us this for years!  I know we are all in a hurry, eating on the run never taking time to enjoy a meal, eating in our cars, working through our lunch, and other interferences during mealtime. So, what else can we do?  One of the best things you can do is use a high quality, full spectrum digestive enzyme with each meal. Raw food has the enzymes intact but when you cook food over 114 degrees it kills all the enzyme activity and now our body is required to ramp up the digestive juices to break that food down. A good enzyme will be a blend of Protease to break down proteins, amylase for sugars, and lipase for fats. The supplement should have all ingredients listed in activity not milligrams. Activity is how much each capsule will break down. So, it’s like having two pots of water of equal size but one pot the water is boiling that’s activity this is important. The measurement for protein digestion is H.U.T- Hemoglobin units of tyrosine basis. Amylase- D.U.- Alpha amylase dextrinizing units, and Lipase -FIP, Federation International Pharmaceutique. So for example 200,000 HUT of protease can break down 225grams of dairy protein, it will be different for fish or soy protein. Not all proteases can break down the same proteins and that is why you look for companies that use a blend of different ones to break down that pizza you ate too fast. The same is true with amylase and lipase. If you really want to dive into the science of enzymes, Read Tom Bohager’s book, “Enzymes, What the Experts Know, or ‘Everything you Need to Know About Enzymes.”  Mr. Bohager is the founder of the enzyme company Enzymedica, I was fortunate to work with him many year ago.

What else can enzymes do besides break down your meals? Many doctors, naturopaths, patient advocates, and individuals have had tremendous success with digestive enzymes for helping with Autism, psoriasis, eczema, gout, uric acid, lactic acid, allergies, and longevity. Yes you can prolong your life by assisting your digestion, enzymes are catalyst of every function in the human body  and that means they are designed to help us in our growth process, blood coagulation function, healing diseases, breathing, and reproduction. When everyone at the Thanksgiving table is blaming the tryptophan from the turkey making us tired, it’s not it’s the body compensating your enzyme supply to digest the giant meal you just ate. Doctor DicQie Fuller, studied and worked with enzymes for over thirty years, used mice to determine fasting can prolong your life, hence not using up your enzymes for digestion but utilizing them for other necessary functions helped the mice live longer. She founded the Transformation Enzyme company and has authored, “The healing Power of Enzymes.” 

Autism, Karen DeFelice(1961-2012), was the author of “Enzymes for Autism and Other Neurological Conditions,’ and ‘Enzymes Go with Your Gut.” She was a scientist and the mother of two autistic children, an amazing speaker and very passionate for helping others understand the powerful effect enzymes had on children dealing with special needs. After taking digestive enzymes children that were non verbal began to speak, make eye contact, respond positively to touch, and much more. 

Now we see just how important it is to break down our food supply, to make our bodies fuel readily available to our cells. To embrace we don’t need to take a synthetic pharmaceutical we need nature to nurture our bodies to light us up in every sense. My own personal experience, I had IBS since before it was a defined condition, when I started taking enzymes I instantly could tell a difference in the way I felt after a meal. The beans and cruciferous vegetables no longer caused gas, the bloating from poor food combining lessened, and elimination changed drastically.

Enzymes are so safe they are deemed Gras in the medical definition, that means even pregnant women can get relief from digestive issues, it even helps the developing fetus get the nutrients it needs easier. I’ve helped thousands of my clients get the help they needed and were surprised that something as simple as an enzyme with their meals could be of such great help. That the gout they experienced in their big toes stopped occurring when thy started digesting the proteins in their food. That their psoriasis cleared up because they were breaking down the fats in their diet. I’ve had testimonials from individuals how much digestive enzymes have helped their gastritis and acid reflux. 

There are digestive enzymes like Papain from papayas and Bromelain from pineapple stems that do help with more of a soothing effect. If you have an upset stomach you can get a soothing effect with these enzymes but for breaking down your foods your full spectrum plant based  enzymes are the best choice.