Video Transcript:

Sharon B.’s question today is about constipation and bloating. She says, “Please help me, perhaps the medication I’m taking for Parkinson’s may be the cause.” She asks, “What can I do to help with digestive issues?”

So, I’m excited to share with you several options to help support your overall gut health. And it involves really kind of four facets to promoting balance from your oral health, all the way to your large intestine. And everything in between, digestively.

Support Gut Health with Probiotics

We want to support your mucosal lining, we want to add in probiotics. And one of my favorites to recommend is ProBiotixx+ here that we have that taps into an amazing single gut strain of bacteria that has been highly, highly beneficial at supporting overall optimal gut health.

Increase Fiber Intake

I also recommend making sure we’re increasing your fiber intake, especially for folks that are constipated. Sometimes they might be dehydrated and then they’re not getting enough fiber. So, getting enough water and getting enough kind of soluble insoluble fiber, the blends of that, aiming for 35 to 40 grams of fiber a day, plus really good high-quality mineral-dense water, is a good way to get things moving. That can eradicate constipation.

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Supplement with Magnesium

Another amazing thing that eradicates constipation is magnesium. So, adding the Magnesium 7 to the blend is going to be powerful. Now this is a very beneficial, multi- full-spectrum magnesium, and there will be some magnesium forms that motivate the bowels more than others. But overall, magnesium will clear out excess fluid floating through and roaming through your body via inflammation. That will actually flush more excess fluid into the digestive process, hydrating the bowels and moving the bowel contents more readily.

Detox the Liver

The other thing that we may want to zero in is supporting your liver. And that becomes a really key kind of intersection between the upper GI and the lower GI. And so, if we are dealing with maybe values on your labs of high cholesterol, high triglycerides, maybe C reactive proteins elevated, a liver detox, or a liver support would be helpful.

Add Enzymes to Help Combat Malabsorption

And malabsorption can be a factor. So not digesting food properly or absorbing, breaking down, digesting, and assimilating, and absorbing the nutrients and the food that you’re consuming. That’s where adding an Enzyme 17, where we have 17 assorted compounds and enzymes that help you break down and to assimilate your food so that we have better absorption and movement through the digestive process.

Identify the Root Cause Through Testing

And I also recommend this month, I am hosting a private workshop where I’m digging further into digestive health. It’s called A Healthier Gut, Happier You. This is a private workshop and I will post a link where you can gain access to that. And I recommend you take that because I’m going to be digging into the assorted elements and components of the entire digestive process, and really how to zero in on what might be causing the constipation, what might be causing the bloating, certain tests that you might want to look at taking.

But overall, we need to support your oral microbiome starting in the oral cavity. We need to support your large intestinal microbiome, and we need to add those good things like healthy fiber and more water and helping detox the liver are going to be critical.

So, I hope that is helpful for you, Sharon. Thanks so much for commenting and sending in your question. And I look forward to helping you in the future.

Magnesium deficiency is linked to stress, diabetes, heart disease, osteoporosis, chronic fatigue syndrome, depression, anxiety, trouble sleeping, sore muscles, migraines, and many more debilitating health conditions.

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Video Transcript:

Today, I want to talk to you about how to optimize health for men, and this is a really important topic because a lot of men rely on their partners, their spouses, to give them advice and tips on what supplements to take. Often, we as women in our households are supplying our gentlemen with supplementation.

Support Your Healthy Habits

So today, I’m going to offer some advice for any of you ladies who want to power up and support your male partner’s health and enhance their wellness, as well as any of you gentlemen looking for some basic guidance to help support your overall health. And this is going to really support and supplement any of the good, healthy lifestyle habits and maybe current lifestyle changes you’re implementing where you’re eating healthy foods, maxing out your sleep, and lowering your stress.

Address Nutritional Deficiencies

So, the first and most important thing for men to consider taking is a whole-food, plant-based supplement, and this is really, really critical because the multivitamin that has a good amount of bioavailable, plant-based nutrition can really create a foundational piece where you get a lot of the daily requirements of your nutrients, and a lot of health issues, when we look at aging and degeneration within the body, a lot of our problems or challenges ultimately come back to nutrient deficiencies.

So, I’m very excited to recommend the Multi-Vita-Maxx. This is our plant-based, powerful multivitamin. You’re going to get all of the required daily requirements of both your vitamins as well as key minerals like magnesium, and zinc, and chromium, which is really important for gentlemen looking to balance their blood sugar levels. I also like that this is a fermented form of a multivitamin, which enhances the bioavailability of this nutrition.

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Get the Gut Healthy

Now, the second thing that’s really important is for gentlemen to support their gut health. We have a term that we reference to the balance of bacteria in the gut, and we call it the microbiome. That’s an assortment of bacteria that we want to be balanced and we want it to be very plentiful and very similar to like a coral reef – we want to have multiple types of bacteria that create this kind of rainbow cascade of good bacteria that balances our body.

And in one of my masterclasses, I host masterclasses every month, I have one of my masterclasses that digs into mastering your gut health and ultimately supporting your gut microbiome. One of the things I share in that class is that the microbiome, our microbes, the actual bacteria, enhances our hormone levels and it can actually influence our immune system and it can influence the inflammatory response in the body.

So, for any gentlemen who might be dealing with diabetes, or gout, or liver imbalances, maybe elevations in cholesterol and triglycerides, or even gentlemen who might be dealing with prostate imbalances, it’s really important for us to look at adding a good probiotic.

And we have ProBiotixx+, which is a very powerful form of L. plantarum, which we know is one of the super plentiful bacteria types that can help culture and rebalance your gut. So, making sure you get a good probiotic can be very beneficial in enhancing your overall gut health, which can balance your digestive grievances like IBS, or CIPO, or gas and bloating after consuming a meal, but it can also power up our brain health and balance our hormones.

Combat Inflammation to Prevent Illness & Disease

Now, another thing that is really important for men is to address inflammation. Ultimately, inflammation is the root of all illness and disease within the body, and systemic inflammation is something we need to combat. And signs or symptoms of inflammation can be swelling, it can be elevations in enzyme levels like our ALT and AST – those are labs that identify enzyme levels in our liver. We will present with hormone imbalances. Men will have elevations in prostate markers like PSA will be elevated or experience benign prostatitis. Other individuals might experience heart disease. And so rooted behind all of these illnesses and diseases is ultimately inflammation. Our cells, our cytokine process is overwhelmed and heightened, and there are really two ways that I use some supplementation here to combat inflammation.

The first thing is magnesium, a very well-balanced, multi-magnesium, like we have Magnesium 7. This can be really helpful in minimizing inflammation that gentlemen experience in their joints. Maybe you have joint pain, or osteoarthritis, or rheumatoid arthritis, and even gout.

Swelling is a byproduct of inflammation. So, if you notice you’re holding more fluid, Magnesium 7 is what I recommend. I’m kind of an expert in the swelling category, I’m specialized in lymphatic therapy, which is all about moving the excess fluid in the body. We use magnesium to flush fluid out of the body and it will flush fluid through the kidneys and bladder and you might notice a reduction in fluid retention of upwards of three to five pounds on the scale. So, Magnesium 7 is great for lowering your inflammation levels.

Address the Reduction in Stomach Acid & Enzymes As We Age

And then, last and final is at the age of 30, for all of us, men and women, we have a reduction in stomach acid levels and we start to notice that the pancreas is not producing enough digestive enzymes. That ends up leading to digestive grievances, imbalances in our digestive process, an inability to digest our food, assimilate the nutrients, and power up the body. That can also lead to constipation, and leaky gut, and gut-brain, gut-heart, gut-thyroid imbalances.

So, one of the best ways to combat this lowered stomach acid level and a reduction in digestive enzymes that your pancreas is producing – which by the way can often be an undercurrent for diabetes – Enzyme 17 is something you want to add to your daily practice and this is something where you take two of these supplements, about 20 to 30 minutes before you consume a meal.

Enzyme 17 is one of the most plentiful enzyme blends that is out there on the market. It’s one of my favorite products we have here at Organixx, and it can help your body digest and break down the assorted macro and micronutrients that you need to support your body.

Additionally, here is a bonus tip that I tell all my patients. If you are dealing with any inflammation, or maybe you have digestive imbalances you notice. Maybe there are food particles that you’re passing in your bowel contents. Enzyme 17 is something you can take at night on an empty stomach and it will help reduce the digestive grievances and will help clear up systemic inflammation.

So, that’s a little bonus tip, but overall, these four items are going to be very helpful in supporting overall men’s health, and are basic foundational elements that every gentleman should add to his daily supplement regimen. So, that’s my tip for you and I hope you share that with any of the gentlemen in your life. And gentlemen, if you have any questions about health and wellness, make sure you comment and hit that reply button and I will be taking questions and answering them in future videos.

Organixx Enzyme 17 contains a whopping FIVE kinds of powerful protease enzymes in combination with one of the most advanced enzyme blends on the planet. It’s scientifically designed to help your body break down and process nutrients for better absorption, digestion, and overall health.

Video Transcript:

If you are having any degree of digestive imbalances – either constipation, IBS, or just feel like your digestive process does not work optimally – I am so excited to introduce you to our Optimal Digestion Kit. This is a powerful duo of our ProBiotixx+ and our Enzyme 17 that are going to work synergistically in improving your digestive process.

Fix Digestive Issues and Skin Conditions

If you experience constipation, if you experience gurgling and weird noises from your digestive process, or if you are dealing with an assortment of skin eruptions or lesions, like cystic acne or eczema, psoriasis, even flakiness of the scalp, your gut, and healing your gut, focusing on digestive optimization, can greatly improve those skin conditions.

Skin’s a secondary elimination route. So when we heal our primary elimination route, our digestive process, via these two powerful blends of enzymes and probiotics, you are going to literally change the course of your digestive process.

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How & When to Take Enzymes & Probiotics

I’m going to introduce you to the course of action here to take with our Optimal Digestion Kit.

Step one is you want to consume digestive enzymes. Our Enzyme 17 is a very powerful, synergistic, full-spectrum assortment of digestive enzymes, and these need to be taken anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes before you consume your meal. Enzymes will help your body break down, digest, and assimilate the key macro and micronutrients from your foods. So each meal, especially larger snacks as well, you want to consume the Enzyme 17.

Now, on the follow-up, you can take with the meal the ProBiotixx+. And this is a powerful blend of a potent probiotic. This is the blend. It’s the Lactobacillus Plantarum, and it’s in a 250-milligram dose. And you’re going to get a massive amount of probiotic power in this. L. Plantarum, this particular strain, has been deemed one of the best and most powerful probiotics for cultivating and recalibrating your gut microbiome.

So, taking these two together, you’re going to have better assistance for breaking down your food and assimilating the healthy food and the expensive foods that you’re consuming, and utilizing your macronutrients, your fats, your carbohydrates, and your proteins. And then, you are going to help support a healthy microbiota, a healthy flora. These two, in concert, can be ordered here in our Optimal Digestion Kit.

Maximize Your Savings

And I’m excited because you can save money by buying these two together in the kit. You can also do what I consider, and I love it, the click and ship. So, you can preset and subscribe so you can save money and have a set order delivered to you every month – so you never run out. And that way, you never fall off and are a week or two behind of fulfilling your order. You’ll get the order delivered every month if you subscribe and save, which is great, and you get an automatic 15% off each of your orders.

Healing Your Gut & Optimizing Digestion Can Reduce Pain, Improve Sleep, and Balance Hormones

So, click on the link down below to sign up for our Optimal Digestion Kit and get kicked off on your healing and optimization of your digestive process. It will ultimately benefit an assortment of body systems like reducing aches and pains in your joints and muscle, improving your sleep, balancing your hormones, and overall helping you feel your most optimized self.

Enzyme 17 and ProBiotixx+ from Organixx: When you combine these two powerful supplements together, you get a synergistic effect that compliments each other to heal and bring back balance to your gut microbiome and digestive tract.

Imagine visiting a theme park. You would likely see employees carefully directing traffic in the parking lot, forming orderly ride queues inside the park, and ushering guests in and out of busy restaurants and food courts. Were these workers absent, mass chaos would surely ensue, and there would be a whole lot of unhappy ticket holders.

Now, consider how your body works. Though you can’t see them, tiny “workers” live inside your body that similarly help to digest your food, keep you protected against disease, give you energy, and perform other important tasks – all in an efficient, methodical fashion. These workers are known as proteolytic enzymes, and without them your body would quickly devolve into a ragtag cellular throng – a biological ship full of passengers without a captain.

What Are Proteolytic Enzymes and Why Do They Matter?

At a fundamental level, proteolytic enzymes are responsible for catalyzing the conversion of the foods you eat (i.e., breaking them down) into smaller molecules that your body can actually absorb and use.

In the case of food proteins, proteolytic enzymes break these proteins down into smaller peptides that your digestive system then converts into amino acids. Amino acids function not only as the basic building blocks of proteins but also muscle tissue, organs, and life itself [1].

Without proteolytic enzymes, in other words, your body’s “theme park” would not only succumb to biological pandemonium, but it would also very quickly die. That’s how important these microscopic supporters, maintainers, and rejuvenators are when it comes to keeping your body in tip-top shape, beginning with digestion.

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How Does the Body Break Down Protein?

In order to digest protein, the stomach releases pepsin, a proteolytic enzyme in the gastric endopeptidase category. Pepsin “attacks” the proteins in your stomach to initiate the process of extracting their molecular components.

After this is complete, your small intestine finishes the job by instructing the pancreas to release another round of proteolytic enzymes that unpack all remaining molecules for assimilation throughout your body.

Your digestive tract as a whole is naturally equipped with two main types of proteolytic enzymes:

1. Exopeptidases, which target the ends of proteins, and
2. Endopeptidases like pepsin that target the insides of proteins

This one-two punch of complementary enzymes ensures that the base molecules of all proteins you ingest (as well as fats and carbohydrates) are fully extracted and absorbed into your body via the cellular lining of your intestines.

When proteolytic enzymes are in abundance, your body is able to derive maximum nourishment from the foods you eat. This is critical for maintaining your immune system. Proteolytic enzymes provide a steady supply of immuno-modulatory inputs that your immune system relies on for its efficacy and longevity.

Proteolytic Enzymes Are Vital for Healing

Besides optimizing digestion and nutrient absorption, proteolytic enzymes work to unlock your body’s full wellness potential by revving up its endogenous, or internal, healing mechanisms. (By the way, there are tens of thousands of unique varieties of proteolytic enzymes).

These systemic enzymes, as they’re commonly referred to in this context, help to fine-tune the body, and keep it humming like a well-oiled machine.

Modern advances in human genome sequencing have demonstrated that more than two percent of the human genetic blueprint is responsible for encoding these systemic enzymes. This is important because it suggests that systemic enzymes are responsible for a whole lot more than just turning what you eat into the nutrients you need to live.

We know, for instance, that systemic enzymes aid in the regulation of things like growth factors, cytokines, chemokines, and cellular receptors [2]. They also work to degrade various pathogenic (disease-causing) complexes that, if left to their own devices, would steadily chip away at your immune system, making your body more prone to disease.

Aging Impacts Inflammation-Modulating Proteolytic Enzymes

The human body is programmed to manufacture a steady supply of systemic enzymes. However, like with most things in life, its efficiency declines over time as a result of aging and other factors.

Enzyme stores begin to decline in tandem with the body needing more of them to get things done, which can eventually cascade like dominoes into systematic health failure – something none of us wants to experience!

One simple solution to help address this issue is to take in more enzymes. But what are the best sources of systemic, or proteolytic, enzymes?

The Best Proteolytic Enzymes in Food and Dietary Supplements

While many foods naturally contain enzymes, they often end up damaged or destroyed due to cooking or processing. Some people experience the negative effects of this as gas or bloating following a meal. Foods are not being properly digested, and thus cause stomach upset.

In the longer term, persistent enzyme deficiency can trigger even worse symptoms – think organ damage, nerve inflammation, and immune failure. This is what you want to avoid by fortifying your enzyme stores, which can be accomplished by consuming more whole, raw fruits & vegetables, which are among the richest natural sources of enzymes.

Leading the pack on this front are fruits like pineapple and papaya, both of which contain very high levels of pepsin. Other enzyme-rich foods include kiwifruit, ginger, and fermented foods such as sauerkraut, yogurt, and kefir.

There are also full-spectrum proteolytic enzyme supplements that can help fill the void when enzyme-rich foods are lacking or not an option. The best proteolytic enzymes supplements are those that contain many or all of the most critical enzymes necessary for digesting not just proteins, but also carbohydrates and fats.

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These include, in each of these categories:

Proteins

Protease, sometimes described as the “Swiss Army knife” of human biology due to its incredible versatility, regulates most physiological processes inside the body. Often labeled using a number scale (i.e., 3.0, 4.5, and 6.0), proteases fragment long-chain amino acid sequences into customized smaller components that the body can use in a variety of applications. Protease also creates peptidase, which further aids in protein hydrolyzation [3].

Carbohydrates

Amylase converts starches into simple sugars. It is produced both in saliva and in the small intestine, breaking down polysaccharides, or complex carbohydrates, into maltose. Other enzymes then convert maltose into dual units of glucose that are easily absorbed into the bloodstream and sent throughout the body [4].

Fats

Lipase breaks down lipid fats into molecular fatty acids and glycerol that the body uses to reinforce cell membranes, promote cell growth, manufacture hormones, “warm” cell tissue, and produce energy [5].

Keep in mind that these three enzymes are considered to be primary in each of their respective categories. There are many other complementary enzymes that support these “big three,” including bromelain, lactase, cellulase, and phytase, all of which are linked to healthy digestion and improved nutrient absorption [6].

Proteolytic Enzymes, Inflammation, and Cancer: What Does Science Have to Say?

Proteolytic Enzymes and Inflammation

Any extrapolation of the systemic benefits of proteolytic enzymes would be woefully inadequate without mentioning inflammation. Proteolytic enzymes act as regulators of your body’s various inflammatory mechanisms, helping to modulate its inflammatory response and ensure that just the right amount of healthy inflammation gets to where it needs to go for routine maintenance.

Research has shown that proteolytic enzymes can also help to reduce pain, swelling, and bruising after surgery [7], aid with delayed-onset muscle soreness after exercise (DOMS) [8], and can even help with managing pain in patients with inflammatory conditions [9].

For example, a study published in the Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research in 2017 involved 30 patients with symptomatic Temporomandibular Joint Pain (TMJ) osteoarthritis. Researchers found the group receiving oral enzymes in addition to their Non-Steroidal Anti Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) had better pain management than with the drug alone.

According to the researchers, “The trial showed significant improvement in reducing pain in patients treated with oral enzymes and diclofenac sodium combination therapy.”

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Proteolytic Enzymes and Cancer

Macrophages are a type of white blood cell whose job is to “eat” harmful bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites. Proteolytic enzymes may help to boost the “appetite” of macrophages by as much as ten-fold.

Proteolytic enzymes may also enhance the potency of natural killer (NK) cells, a type of white blood cell that the immune system utilizes to fight things like virally infected cells and cancer tumors [10]. This, in turn, helps to balance the inflammatory mechanisms that, if left to their own devices, could turn rogue, potentially leading to serious health conditions like osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis, systemic nerve damage, or organ failure.

Experimental investigations and relevant clinical cohort studies have also identified numerous potential benefits for the use of proteolytic enzymes in complementary oncology. Therapeutically speaking, proteolytic enzymes have been shown in both in vitro and in vivo clinical research to minimize the side effects associated with cancer and conventional cancer treatment protocols.

As noted in the journal Integrative Cancer Therapies, “These studies demonstrated that systemic enzyme therapy significantly decreased tumor-induced and therapy-induced side effects and complaints such as nausea, gastrointestinal complaints, fatigue, weight loss, and restlessness and obviously stabilized the quality of life.”

Some of the best proteolytic enzymes for addressing the root causes of cancer include:

• trypsin
• chymotrypsin
• papain
• bromelain

All of these proteolytic enzymes possess generalized immunological, anti-inflammatory, anti-infectious, antitumoral, and anti-metastatic properties that support a cancer-free lifestyle.

In patients with plasmacytoma (a type of cancer that starts in plasma cells and develops into a single tumor), proteolytic enzyme therapy was shown to help improve the overall effectiveness of the treatment process. It also helped to reduce the duration of remissions while boosting overall survival rates [12].

Proteolytic Enzymes Represent Life

In conclusion, proteolytic enzymes represent life. Our bodies would not survive without them. They’re essential for supporting pretty much everything we hold near and dear in terms of quality of life – so be sure you’re getting enough of them!

Organixx Enzyme 17 contains a whopping FIVE kinds of powerful protease enzymes in combination with one of the most advanced enzyme blends on the planet. It’s scientifically designed to help your body break down and process nutrients for better absorption, digestion, and overall health.

One might argue that one of the most amazing feats of human engineering is the automobile. Consider everything that goes into making one… from the advanced assembly lines to the precise robotics, to the human ingenuity behind it all. Those human beings were able to come up with a way to harness energy from the earth and basically infuse it into a boxy metallic structure on wheels that can take us wherever we desire is nothing short of awe-inspiring when you really stop and think about it.

As incredible as they are, though, cars would be entirely worthless if not for the human brainpower behind their build and daily operation. What makes a car a useful machine, in other words, are the regular refuelings, oil changes, tire rotations, and maintenance that keep it running smoothly – all things that are entirely impossible without human involvement, willingness, and know-how into what it takes to keep a car going.

Where we’re going with all of this is that the human body functions similarly to a car in that it’s a finely-tuned creation that requires its own special inputs for proper function and maintenance.

Our bodies are obviously much more impressive “machines,” in that they’re uniquely equipped to perform self-maintenance and self-regenerate without the need for a driver. At the same time, they still require outside help – primarily in the form of proper nutrition − in order to thrive.

Why Your Body Needs Enzymes

But what is proper nutrition, and more importantly, how is your body able to benefit from it? Every time you eat, your body produces saliva, bile, and other digestive catalysts that break down the foods and converts them into smaller molecules.

These molecules are used to build muscle tissue, regenerate cells, strengthen immunity, and produce energy. Proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals all get broken down during this process in order to fuel your body.

Going back to our car analogy… if our physical bodies are like the raw materials from which a car is made, and the food is our fuel, then digestive catalysts are the drivers that make sure our bodies are operating as they should and are properly maintained at all times.

Among the most important of these catalysts are enzymes, the biochemical catalysts found in food and inside our bodies that facilitate the necessary chemical reactions needed to keep the whole process going as normal.

“Enzymes are substances that make life possible,” says Dr. Edward Howell, MD, pioneer of Enzyme Therapy and author of Enzyme Nutrition: The Food Enzyme Concept.

“They are needed for every chemical reaction that takes place in the human body. No mineral, vitamin, or hormone can do any work without enzymes. They are the manual workers that build our body from proteins, carbohydrates, and fats, just as construction workers build our homes. You may have all the raw materials with which to build, but without the workers (enzymes) you cannot even begin.”

Symptoms of Enzyme Deficiency

Enzymes are obviously very important for life, so where you one find them? Raw foods naturally contain enzymes, which act as digestive co-factors every time you eat. Your body also makes some of its own enzymes, though it primarily relies on enzymes in food to digest and assimilate nutrients.

When these enzymes are lacking as a result of cooking, pasteurization, or some other form of processing, then the body has to work overtime to make up for it.

This is a taxing process that, over time, can leave the body enzyme-deficient. Some of the more common symptoms of enzyme deficiency include:

• indigestion
• acid reflux
• bloating after eating a meal

If you feel like food is just taking its sweet time moving through your system, or if you feel constipated or experience irregular bowel movements on a regular basis, you could be lacking in enzymes, and thus your body is incapable of fully digesting your food in a timely manner.
Other signs of an enzyme deficiency can include:

• lack of energy
• brain “fog”
• muscle degradation
• weakness
• joint pain
• difficulty sleeping due to an upset stomach

When your body isn’t able to extract the nutrients it needs from food, then it can’t provide you with energy or vitality, nor can it effectively engage in any of the reparation processes by which your body stays healthy and in tip-top shape.

Which Enzymes Do You Need?

So what types of enzymes does your body need, and where can you find them? Let’s start with the basics:

1. Metabolic Enzymes

   Metabolic enzymes are necessary for the proper function of every system of the body – including every tissue, cell, and organ. Metabolic enzymes facilitate both the production of energy and detoxification within the body’s 100 trillion-plus cells, and they’re manufactured by the body for this purpose.

2. Digestive Enzymes

   Digestive enzymes are secreted within the digestive tract to help break down food and extract nutrients. Examples of digestive enzymes include pepsin, trypsin, lipase, protease, and amylase. The body is capable of producing some of these itself, but it also relies upon the natural enzymes found in raw foods to help with the process.

3. Food Enzymes

   Food enzymes occur naturally in food and pair perfectly with the digestive enzymes manufactured by the body. Raw foods contain only enough food enzymes for that particular food, however, which is why supplemental food enzymes are often recommended. Supplemental enzymes also offer systemic support to help clean up the blood, neutralize and eliminate toxins, and repair cell tissue.

In a perfect world, we would get all the food enzymes we need from food, and our bodies would take care of the rest. But in our imperfect world, food is often lacking in enzymes due to processing, pasteurization, and everyday cooking.

When our food is deficient in enzymes, our bodies have to make up for it. After a while, however, our bodies become depleted of enzymes, and that’s when health problems start.
Aside from eating more raw food, the best remedy for enzyme deficiency is to take enzyme supplements.

The best digestive enzyme supplements include enzymes such as:

• Amylase – breaks down carbohydrates, sugars, and starches in grains, rice, potatoes, fruits, vegetables, beans, and herbs
• Alpha Galactosidase – breaks down simple sugars (polysaccharides) and complex sugars (oligosaccharides) in legumes and cruciferous vegetables
• Beta-glucanase – breaks down cellulose (plant fiber) in grains and cereals
• Bromelain – breaks down proteins, and also provides proteolytic (systemic) support for the body
• Catalase – breaks down hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen
• Cellulase – breaks down food fiber (cellulose) in fruits and vegetables
• Glucoamylase – breaks down long-chain carbohydrates and starches in grains and potatoes
• Hemicellulase – breaks down hemicellulose, a type of cellulose in plant walls, as well as non-cellulose polysaccharides
• Invertase – breaks down sucrose and simple sugars
• Lactase – breaks down lactose, a simple sugar found in milk and dairy products
• Lipase – breaks down fats in butter, cheese, meat, and oils
• Papain – breaks down proteins
• Pectinase – breaks down pectin, a polysaccharide found in fruits and vegetables
• Peptidase – breaks down proteins into amino acids
• Phytase – breaks down carbohydrates, as well as “anti-nutrients” like phytic acid in plants, grains, and seeds
• Protease – breaks down proteins in meat, fish, poultry, grains, nuts, gluten, and milk (casein)
• Xylanase – breaks down nutrients in high-fiber vegetables

Every single one of these food enzymes is essential for life, and chances are you’re not getting enough of them as part of your daily diet. In fact, unless you’re eating a high-quality 100 percent raw food diet all the time, you’re probably not getting enough food enzymes, which is why supplementation can be beneficial.

Not only will supplemental enzymes help you get more nutrition from the foods you eat, but your body will also get the support it needs systemically to grow healthier, stronger, and more robust.

Your body is equipped in many ways to handle the foods you put into it. But your body also relies on food itself to meet it halfway in furnishing certain conversion elements.

These elements pre-digest that food and extract its nutrients. They also deliver these nutrients to areas throughout the body where they’re needed.  These conversion elements are known as enzymes, and they’re the foundation upon which human life exists.

The reason why these enzyme reserves are so important is that every biochemical process that takes place inside the body only occurs because of enzymes. Enzymes ensure that each piece of the vast molecular puzzle that makes up our bodies is functioning as it should, as well as interacting with all the other pieces in sustained congruence.

You can think of enzymes as a type of “micro miracle” that necessitates life as we see it animated in the human form.

The Good News/Bad News About Enzymes

The good news is that the human body is designed to produce its own enzymes to aid in the food digestion process. It also has the ability to compensate for whatever enzymes are lacking in processed or otherwise enzyme-deficient foods – at least for a time.  This is where the bad news comes into play…

The fact of the matter is that the body is limited in the quantity and types of enzymes that it can produce for supplemental purposes beyond what it was originally designed to handle.

When the foods a person eats are persistently lacking in native enzymes, in other words, the body will eventually exhaust its own enzyme reserves.

What Happens When Food Lacks Essential Enzymes?

Enzymes are important for digestion – the primary way that our bodies obtain vital nutrients from the foods we eat. Enzymes are absolutely crucial if you want to live a long and healthy life, in fact, which is why you need to make sure that you’re getting enough of them.

Let’s take a closer look at the three primary types of enzymes that your body needs:

1. Food enzymes – occur naturally in raw food. Their job is to begin pre-digesting food in the upper stomach; a process that takes between 30-45 minutes after eating.
2. Digestive enzymes – are manufactured by the body to further break down this pre-digested food and deliver its nutrients through the gut wall and into the bloodstream.
3. Metabolic enzymes – are also produced by the body, and perform various other important functions throughout the body such as cell tissue repair, waste cleanup, and even destruction of harmful cells.

Each class of enzyme is designed to perform its own unique set of functions to keep your body going strong. Together, this enzymatic trio is what sustains overall health and well-being – serving as the basis of life itself.

But what happens when one piece of this enzyme mosaic is thrown out of balance, such as when otherwise enzymatically-dense foods are cooked or processed?

Many people don’t know this, but enzymes are extremely delicate and volatile, despite their incredible importance and amazing abilities. When exposed to heat, even at extremely low temperatures of as little as 118 degrees Fahrenheit (48 degrees Celcius), enzymes in food quickly begin to die off in very high numbers.

Enzymes are also unable to withstand the types of processing that lands food in shelf-stable packages, boxes, and cartons. For many people, this is a very large percentage of what they eat on a daily basis.

Such heated and processed food, stripped of its enzymes, is categorically speaking: dead. This means that the body has to offset the problem by producing extra enzymes to help digest this dead food before attempting to send its nutrient components into the small intestine for absorption.

This is a difficult process that puts immense strain on vital organs like the pancreas that already have the responsibility of manufacturing enzymes for other purposes such as cellular tissue repair, toxin elimination, and waste removal.

While your body is equipped to adapt to problems like this in order to offset them, it can only do so for a limited time. The fact of the matter is that enzyme production potential and stores gradually diminish the longer the body has to overcompensate for enzyme deficiency in food.

This creates a situation where either food is no longer being fully and properly digested, or the rest of the body isn’t getting the enzymes it needs to repair tissue and clean up waste.

In some cases, both scenarios occur at the same, creating the ultimate recipe for a health disaster.

One of the most obvious symptoms of enzyme deficiency in your diet is poor digestion. If you often feel bloated or gassy after eating a meal, for instance, or experience abdominal discomfort on a regular basis, chances are you aren’t getting enough enzymes.