Enzymes

Enzymes are not difficult to pick out in a science book, because 90% of all enzymes are given scientific names that end in the letters ase. Following are two types of enzymes contained in foods.

Digestive Enzymes

Plant foods contain many of the same enzymes that humans use to metabolize different kinds of macronutrients. Proteases and peptidases, which help digest protein; lipases, which help digest fat; and cellulases and saccharidases, which help digest starches and sugars are examples of the kind of digestive enzymes that would normally secreted in our digestive tract or in a nearby organs like the pancreas or liver. However, these same digestive enzymes can be found in the plant foods that we eat.

Antioxidant Enzymes

Like humans, plants must protect themselves against oxygen-related damage, and they depend on enzymes to help them do so. A recently germinated sprout, for example, starts to generate many new oxidative enzymes in preparation for its journey up through the soil and into the open air. Superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) are examples of oxidative enzymes that occur in higher concentrations in young plant sprouts than in the older, mature leaves. Glutathione peroxidase (GPO) is another example of an important oxidative enzyme that is found in the human body and in the plants we eat.

Virtually all living things - including those we cook and eat - contain enzymes. Enzymes, which act as the spark plugs for the vast majority of chemical reactions that make life possible, are a sine qua non for life.

Although most food eaten in the United States has been cooked, which inactivates the enzymes it contains, all the plant and animal foods in our meals are derived from once-living, enzyme-abundant things.

Over 2,500 different kinds of enzymes are found in living things. All enzymes are proteins, very special kinds of proteins that act as catalysts. Enzymes give our body chemistry its vitality, literally giving our metabolism a jump start. Plus, as molecules that enable the breaking down of our food, they also play a critically important role within our digestive system. Enzymes in our saliva allow us to break apart starches. Enzymes in our stomach help us break apart proteins. Enzymes in our intestines help us break apart fats, proteins, and carbohydrates of all kinds.

When we eat fresh, uncooked foods, those foods can still contain active enzymes. When we chew a freshly picked leaf of lettuce, we break the cells in the leaf apart, releasing its nutrients, including enzymes. Enzymes are not automatically destroyed by the acids or temperatures in our digestive tract. Enzymes in the stomach - called gastric enzymes - are specially designed to function in the stomach's extremely acid conditions and are critical to our health. Our bodies can overheat from fever, extreme exercise or summer weather, but not to temperatures that will prevent the enzymes inside us from continuing to function.

Our digestive tract has specialized areas for absorbing large molecules, including enzymes (which are proteins), from food into our bloodstream. These areas house our M cells. M cells are specialized cells designed to selectively deliver large molecules from our intestines into our cells and bloodstream. The passing of enzymes from a mother to her nursing newborn is a good example of this M cell function. A mother's milk contains the milk sugar, lactose. An enzyme called lactase is needed to digest lactose, but an infant's body is not yet capable of manufacturing this enzyme. So, the mother sends lactase along with her milk, and in this way enables the baby to digest and absorb its lactose.

Ordinarily, we cook food at temperatures at least twice that of normal body temperature. For this reason, fresh, raw plant foods are our primary source of food enzymes. (Due to their high potential for bacterial contamination, most animal foods would be too risky for us to eat raw). While there have been no large scale, controlled studies to document the impact of enzyme-containing, fresh, raw plant foods on digestion and health, practitioners in fields of complementary, natural, and functional medicine have used enzyme supplementation successfully to help treat a wide variety of health problems and have long advocated the inclusion of fresh, organic, raw plant foods in the diet.

Necessary for Proper Digestion

Digestive enzymes play an integral role in the digestion of proteins, fats and carbohydrates since they catabolize these macronutrients into smaller molecules, which can be absorbed in the intestines. Our optimal physiological functioning depends upon the proper digestion and absorption of these nutrients.

Confers Inflammatory and Oxidative Protection

Certain enzymes, such as bromelain (found in [pineapple:foodspice,34]), have anti-inflammatory properties. Bromelain seems to confer anti-inflammatory protection through a variety of mechanisms. It is thought to inhibit intermediates of the clotting cascade, increase fibrinolysis (the dissolution of clots), and reduce the production of inflammatory molecules such as bradykinin.

Support for the Immune System

Enzymes support the immune system in a few different ways. Since enzymes can work on substrates wherever the substrate is found, some of their targets include molecules other than the macronutrients associated with food. For example, protease enzymes can break apart the proteins that are found in unwanted bacteria and therefore reduce our risk of infection. In addition, the enzyme bromelain has been found to increase the production of a host of different immune system messenger molecules, including cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor-alpha, interleukin-1-beta and interleukin-6.

Promoting General Metabolic Eficiency

Evidence shows that the body conserves it own digestive enzymes by absorbing intact both endogenous (produced in the body) and exogenous (supplemented to the body by food or supplement) enzymes. Exogenous pancreatic enzymes have been found to be absorbed intact from the gut, transported through the bloodstream, taken up by the pancreatic cells, and resecreted into the intenstines by the pancreas, mixed with newly synthesized pancreatic enzymes. It is suggested that oral supplementation of enzymes may have a sparing effect on the body's own digestive enzymes, perhaps aiding organ regeneration, by breaking down substrates, such as foods, for which endogenous enzymes would otherwise be used, thus freeing these enzymes for other beneficial activities.

Cooking foods at virtually all standard cooking temperatures denatures enzymes, destroying their functioning.

The majority of processing techniques used by food manufacturers destroys the natural enzymes found in foods.

The effects of storage on enzyme integrity varies greatly, depending upon temperature and duration. The higher the temperature and the longer the food is stored, the greater likelihood that any enzymes it contains will be denatured.

Bromelain, the enzyme found in pineapple, seems to increase the absorption of antiobiotics, notably amoxicillin and tetracycline. In addition, since bromelain and papain (an enzyme found in papaya) act as blood thinners, it is suggested that they may increase the effect of warfarin, aspirin and other anticoagulant medications.

There is limited research on the interaction between enzymes and nutrients, although some minerals serve as cofactors for certain endogenously produced enzymes. Studies have suggested that pancreatin supplementation may reduce [folic acid:nutrient,63] absorption.

A high dietary intake of enzymes may help in the prevention and/or treatment of the following health conditions:

• Maldigestion and malabsorption
• Pancreatic insufficiency
• Steatorrhea (diarrhea due to fat malabsorption)
• Celiac disease
• Lactose intolerance
• Thrombotic disease
• Acute sinusitis
• Post-operative recovery
• Sports injuries
• Adverse food reactions

 

As a supplement, dietary enzymes can be found either as individual compounds or in combination products that combine more than one type of enzyme. The combination products may either feature enzymes that are specific for one type of macronutrient (for example, a variety of proteases for protein digestion) or they may be a broad-spectrum product that features enzymes that catabolize carbohydrates, proteins and fats. Since protein-digesting enzymes can be denatured in the stomach, these supplements are oftentimes enteric coated, so they do not dissolve in the stomach but in the small intestine.

Some enzyme supplements are manufactured from animal sources while others are from non-animal sources. A popular, and effective, non-animal source of enzymes is Aspergillus oryzae, a type of fungus (Aspergillus is also used in the traditional Japanese technique of fermenting soybeans to produce soy sauce, tamari and miso). Bromelain and papain are two examples of enzymes derived from plants.

Virtually all fresh, organically grown, uncooked plant foods are sources of enzymes. Bromelain is found in pineapples while papain is concentrated in unripe papayas.