Introduction

In my last post on enzymes (Why I don’t Recommend HCL and Enzymes), I outlined why I don’t see enzymes as an essential part of the first stages of a good healing program. In short, we want, first, to bolster or assess our own bodily ability to produce enzymes before we supplement. Too many people jump right in to lots of supplements in the beginning, supplements that they may not need. We want our body to improve digestion and decrease transit time (to heal) on its own, if possible.

Enzymes, however, can be beneficial in the healing process. The caution from my last post on enzymes was to ensure that we are:

  1. Examining our diet, getting enough rest, and trying other, more established therapies, like probiotics, before we start another supplement; making sure we have a real imbalance before we start HCL (which can increase diarrhea in Crohn’s and colitis)
  2. Allowing time for other treatments, like the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, to work before we add another layer of treatment.

Those are my preferences—to use as few supplements as necessary to heal. With that said, enzymes have proven helpful to many people, and it’s worth outlining here, why and how they can be helpful.

The basic theory is, that if used properly, enzymes can:

  • Increase the metabolic energy available to the body such that the body can then utilize that energy to heal from disease, imbalance, etc.
  • In the case of digestive disease, using digestive enzymes can decrease the digestive energy burden on the body, which may help encourage healing.
  • Using digestive enzymes can also help to decrease the burden of undigested matter that reaches the colon, and assists your body in breaking down the food you consume, which can lead to better nutrition for those of us with active symptoms.

What are Enzymes?

Enzymes are protein catalysts. That is, they are made up of amino acids and catalyze (facilitate, or enable) the breakdown of specific molecules. There are enzymes for breaking down protein, enzymes for carbohydrates, fiber, fats, etc. In fact, there are thousands of enzymes that work to catalyze reactions in every system of our body. For our purposes, we are concerned with digestive enzymes. There is another category, metabolic enzymes (like CoQ10), which can also be helpful in disease states, but I won’t discuss them here because metabolic enzymes are much more numerous, and are difficult to synthesize in a lab. With that said, it is worthy to note that though digestive enzymes do not function as metabolic enzymes, they have been shown to increase metabolic function.

Enzyme Potential

The theory of enzyme potential, which is controversial among doctors and researchers, suggests that we are all born with a fixed potential to produce enzymes—a sort of bank account, from which we make daily withdrawals. The faster we draw down the account, the more quickly we age, the greater our potential for disease, and the shorter our life—that’s theory, at least.

It is true, in any case, that we produce ten to thirteen percent fewer enzymes each decade we live. This documented decline in enzyme production does correlate with energy levels, aging, and sometimes disease.  Indeed, Arthur Kornberg, Nobel Laureate (medicine) said that almost 200 diseases can be attributed “to a deficiency or malnutrition of a single enzyme.”

 

Digestion and Digestive Enzymes

Digestive enzymes you buy at the store can support digestion just like the enzymes your body makes. When we consume digestive enzymes with a meal, they replace or supplement our body’s digestive enzyme production burden; therefore, our body does not need to devote the resources to enzyme production that it would without supplemental enzymes. As the theory goes, our bodies can then allocate those resources to where they are needed. Some suggest that those resources are often allocated to the manufacture of metabolic enzymes, the majority of which, only our body can make.

The energy required for digestion is significant. Some estimates are as high as 60-80% of total energy demands for the day. If these estimates are true, then the digestive system uses far more energy than all of our other body systems. If taking digestive enzymes alleviates some of that energy burden, then one begin to see how digestive enzymes can be beneficial. Maybe this is part of the reason intermittent fasting is so strongly touted for health.

Take the immune system as an example of the energy balance we’re talking about. Some research suggests that the greater demand we place on the digestive system, the less effective our immune systems become. When we eat large meals, especially large meals of mostly cooked or processed food, our immune system becomes less active as energy is diverted to the digestive system. Now, if something is wrong with your body, like Crohn’s or colitis, under heavy digestive load, where does your body get the energy to heal itself? This is one of the reasons that improving digestion by using enzymes can be helpful in combating illness.

Of course, enzymes also improve digestion by helping your body break down the food you consume. This is important if you’re having active diarrhea where your transit time is too fast to break down all of the food you consume. In this case, using enzymes can lead to increased nutrition and decreased amounts of undigested food in the colon, which will also help the body heal.

 

Therapeutic and Digestive Uses

Enzymes can be used therapeutically buy taking them on an empty stomach, or they can be used as a digestive supplement by taking them with your first bite of food. Use the manufacturer’s directions or a doctor as a guide to supplementation.

 

Should I Try Enzymes?

Lots and lots of healing programs for many different illnesses start by improving digestion and healing the gut. Dr Eli Metchnikoff, winner of the Nobel Prize for his work on healthy human bacteria, coined the expression, “Death begins in the gut.” (You’re telling me!)

For us with Inflammatory Bowel or other digestive conditions, that’s exactly what we’re trying to do—heal the gut. Digestive enzymes can be an effective part of your healing program, if you so choose. They can increase nutritional intake, decrease symptoms (in some people), and free bodily resources needed to heal. Indeed, I have used them with success, but they are only a small part of my program.

Cautions from my previous post still stand, however:

  • Enzymes cannot replace changing your diet, and taking an extra enzyme pill will not counterbalance “just one piece of bread”, or other food that normally causes you symptoms.
  • We do not know what negative feedback mechanisms are triggered by long-term heavy use of digestive enzymes. That is, we do not know if, by replacing your natural enzymes consistently over time, your bodily production of enzymes is hindered. So, changing your diet, and boosting your natural enzyme and HCL production is the first place to go, before digestive enzymes.
  • Digestive enzymes are like any other supplement: Try them cautiously; buy a good brand with no fillers; work up slowly to the dose you want.

Onward to Health,

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