Eating mostly cooked and processed food gradually depletes our enzyme bank accounts. (Aha, perhaps we could actually do something about this. Perhaps make better choices.)

Also, current mass agricultural techniques produce vegetables, fruits and grains lower in enzymes. And, fruit and vegetables may be genetically altered to have fewer enzymes to ensure a longer shelf life. That means our food is deficient in enzymes before we ever put it in our mouths.

So how leaky are YOU!

Around age 27 enzyme production declines. Even though you may not notice it, the decrease in metabolic enzymes starts the aging process. Aches, pains and arthritic processes begin to develop. Also, with the decline in protease (protein cutting enzymes) fibrous (scar) tissue starts developing in the organs, muscles and blood vessels. The immune system is compromised. The blood begins to sludge making it harder to circulate. Therefore, it has a lessened capacity to carry oxygen. Dr. Max Wolf, MD, Ph.D. discovered this decline in enzymes and the degenerative effect in his research from 1930-1960 at Columbia University.

At age 35 to 45 many of us experience decreased production of sex hormones because of the decreased enzyme production and stressful lifestyles. There goes the sex drive, mental enthusiasm, and joy of life, along with decreased bone density, muscle mass and overall energy. Hey – I want some of that back!

On top of all that at age 45 many of us start having trouble absorbing nutrients. Consequently our tissues do not receive adequate nourishment and they may malfunction. The blood gets thicker from improper eating, decreased digestive and metabolic enzymes, and lack of exercise. With this impaired circulation our tissues cry out for oxygen, especially our brains. Do you ever experience brain fog?

Keep up this enzyme deficient diet and unhealthy lifestyle and by age 50 to 60, we’ll be losing 10% muscle mass per year. Are you having trouble getting out of bed or up from a chair or off the potty?

Still haven’t changed your habits? After 60 our internal organs may shrink and not be able to adequately support the bodily functions.

So what’s a person to do?

1. Supplement digestive enzymes – when your bank account is low, you need to make a big enzyme investment!
2. Supplement systemic enzymes – another very important investment in your enzyme bank.
3. Eat more raw vegetables and some raw fruit
4. Sprout Nuts, Seeds and Grains
5. Juice Vegetables
6. Drink Green Smoothies
7. Want to know more about the ravaging effects of enzyme depletion? Read Dr. Howell’s book on Enzyme Nutrition.

Blessings on you journey to building up your enzyme bank account,

Dr. Jo

Other articles on enzymes:

1 Enzymes the Spark of Life
http://dr-jo-md.com/bewise/enzymes-the-spark-of-life

2 The Great Enzyme Bank Robbery
http://dr-jo-md.com/bewise/the-great-enzyme-bank-robbery

 In his great nutritional experiment, Dr. Pottenger fed 3 generations of cats either raw food (enzymes intact) or cooked food (no enzymes left). The second and third generation of kitties on the cooked food developed more and more degenerative problems with each succeeding generation. They finally could not reproduce by the fourth generation. Their bank account of enzymes was depleted.

So did your parents eat a lot of cooked and nutritionally deficient food? Then you started with a smaller bank account of enzymes. Are you still eating enzyme-depleted food? Then what’s left in your bank account has a big leak.

 How do we deplete our enzymes?

 By eating mostly cooked food.

 Cooking destroys all of the enzymes in the food. Any temperature over 118 degrees F destroys all the food enzymes. 118 degrees is just a hot summer day in some places. No wonder those hot days wipe out our energy. That heat must affect our enzymes.

So food enzymes are easily destroyed. When you eat a cooked food your body has to supply all of the digestive enzymes. If your diet is primarily cooked food your body’s ability to produce digestive enzymes is always taxed because now the body has to supply 100 percent of the enzymes instead of just 25% when digesting raw foods.

Eventually the digestive tract becomes so exhausted from trying to produce enzymes that it robs the metabolic enzymes from the tissues. Eventually the metabolic enzymes also become exhausted and then the chemical processes cannot proceed fast enough to provide adequate cellular energy. That translates to chronic fatigue. Have you ever noticed how tired and sleepy everyone gets after a big Thanksgiving dinner with all that heavy cooked food.

The body in its wisdom secretes just enough enzymes to digest the amount of food eaten. Therefore if some enzymes are in the food, it secretes smaller amounts to finish the job. By eating raw food we can preserve our digestive and metabolic enzymes which allows the metabolic enzymes to heal our bodies.

Healing comes from the metabolic enzymes.

Wild animals that have to eat all raw foods take full advantage of the enzymes in the food they eat. A killer whale was once found with 32 seals in its stomach. That whale takes possession of the enzymes in the seals. It allows the seals to digest themselves in the whale’s food enzyme stomach.

Chickens take advantage of the enzymes in seeds by digesting them in their crop where moisture and heat allow the seeds to germinate. This germination inactivates the enzyme inhibitors and increases the enzyme activity. Pretty smart chicken, now it only has to add a few of its own enzymes to finish digestion.

The upper part of the human stomach acts like the food enzyme stomach of animals in that raw food will begin to digest there. Hey, maybe we could be as smart as those chickens. How about learning to sprout (germinate) our own nuts, seeds and grains.

High calorie foods have many more food enzymes than low-calorie foods. Therefore the enzymes in an a raw vegetable salad will not be adequate to help digest cooked steak and potatoes, which in their raw state would have contained a far greater amount of food enzymes than the amount in the raw salad. However, I am not advocating eating raw animal protein because of the parasite and bacteria problems in raw meat.

You may want to gradually decrease the amount of cooked food in your diet and increase the raw food, especially those high in food enzymes.

Read on for more insight into what adds to the Enzyme Leak.

Enzyme articles in this series, including this one:

1 Enzymes the Spark of Life
http://dr-jo-md.com/bewise/enzymes-the-spark-of-life

2 The Great Enzyme Bank Robbery
http://dr-jo-md.com/bewise/the-great-enzyme-bank-robbery

3 Big Enzyme Leak
http://dr-jo-md.com/bewise/big-enzyme-leak

Blessings,

Dr. Jo

What is an enzyme and why are they important? Enzymes are huge proteins that speed up chemical reactions. They are the sparks of life. They keep chemical processes going fast enough to keep us alive. To a certain extent they recycle themselves in that they’re not used up during the chemical processing. However eventually they can be depleted.

Let’s identify the classes of enzymes.

1. Digestive enzymes: The body makes less than two dozen different digestive enzymes but it uses more of its enzyme potential supplying these digestive enzymes for cooked food than it uses to make hundreds of metabolic enzymes to keep tissues and organs functioning optimally. Because of the increased need for more digestive enzymes when humans eat cooked food, they are much more concentrated in the saliva and pancreatic juices than the digestive enzymes of animals on raw natural food.
2. Metabolic (systemic) enzymes work in the tissues to facilitate the chemical processing in each cell. The body makes hundreds of different types of metabolic enzymes. Metabolic enzymes are also known as systemic enzymes.
3. Food enzymes are found in raw foods. Most raw food comes supplied with approximately 75 percent of the enzymes that are needed to digest that food.

The greatest nutritional deficiency in the American diet – the missing link:

Minerals are the keys that turn these enzyme protein sparks on. Vitamins are actually coenzymes, partners to help enzymes work. Oh – so that’s why taking all those vitamin and mineral supplements isn’t sparking my energy enough. Enzymes are the missing link. Why didn’t anyone ever suggest I take enzymes, so vital to life? Then the 3 partners working together, vitamins, minerals and enzymes might actually revitalize me.

 How are digestive and food enzymes used in the body?

 Since raw foods come with approximately 75% of the enzymes needed to digest them the body has to add only 25 percent more enzymes to complete digestion of that food.

The first digestive enzyme is secreted in the mouth in the form of ptyalin in the saliva. Thorough chewing of the food provides the ptyalin with the best opportunity to initiate digestion of food starches in the mouth.

When the food reaches the stomach it sits in the upper portion of the stomach where the food enzymes become activated to continue the digestive process. After approximately 30 to 45 minutes the stomach secretes acid to digest proteins in the food. This acidity then inactivates the food enzymes temporarily.

As the food moves into the small intestine the pancreas secretes sodium bicarbonate, which changes the mixture back to an alkaline pH. Now the food enzymes become active again and continue the digestive process. The pancreas also secretes pancreatic enzymes to digest specific components of the food. The small intestine cells secrete enzymes and the gallbladder and liver secrete bile to help digest fats.

As the food you ate moves through the digestive tract, it can only be thoroughly digested if digestive enzymes are plentiful. If it is not thoroughly digested, larger food particles may enter the blood stream. Then your body perceives these larger particles as foreign invaders and launches an attack which may manifest as food allergies or an auto-immune disorder. And thus the downward spiral to disease and disability.

How does enzyme deficiency come about?

Read The Great Enzyme Bank Robbery to find out.

Enzyme articles in this series, including this one:

1 Enzymes the Spark of Life
http://dr-jo-md.com/bewise/enzymes-the-spark-of-life

2 The Great Enzyme Bank Robbery
http://dr-jo-md.com/bewise/the-great-enzyme-bank-robbery

3 Big Enzyme Leak
http://dr-jo-md.com/bewise/big-enzyme-leak

Blessings,

Dr. Jo