Some of you may not know that as we get older, the strength our digestive system declines. The digestive juices in our stomach, necessary to break down food, weaken. Most often we are encouraged to take digestive enzyme supplements with our meals to remedy this. We only really need to do this when we eat cooked food. All cooking (heat over 250 F) for any length of time, or exposing food in its fresh or original state to heat makes it devoid of enzymes, and therefore practically dead.

Did you know that everybody’s supply of enzymes is finite? We are born with a certain amount and die when we have depleted it. It’s true, even if it sounds kind of cruel. So you see how important it is to be careful with your enzymes and not waist them unnecessarily! Whenever we eat cooked food, and if our digestive juices are weak, the body sends enzymes from other parts of the body to help out with the digestion. This is not the best as these enzymes are actually called away from their duties they had elsewhere in the body, like protecting organs, or fighting inflammation etc. There are about 3,000 enzymes in the body that are responsible for over 29,000 enzymatic reactions.  You may understand now why enzymes are the essence of Life; no life can exist without their presence. They are also called ‘systemic’, which means ‘body wide’, or throughout your body

What is an enzyme? An enzyme is a ‘biocatalyst’; it makes something else work better and faster. Without enzymes, the chemical reactions in our body would be so slow, that we would be dead before completion. So we need enzymes for all chemical reactions in our bodies. As we age we make less and less enzymes. To make things worse, we eat so much “dead” (cooked) food; we deplete our enzymes at an even faster rate. 

You may be thinking, “Sure, but I am far from being old, so I don’t have to worry about that yet”. Don’t be careless, because “old age” begins at 27; around that time you stop making as many enzymes as you used to when you were younger. That’s why between ages 27-35 most aches and pains start to be felt. Fibrosis begins creeping into your organs, muscles, and blood vessels. Immune functions start to decline; you are more prone to get sick, with a longer healing time required. Your Human Growth Hormone HGH, (secreted by the pituitary gland in the center of your head) starts to decline, which in turn triggers the decline in your sex hormone production, and adds fat at a ratio of about a pound per year. Your DHEA drops after age 25, becoming deficient in your body by age 35. This leaves your body exposed to the ravages of time.

Here are some conditions that DHEA protects you from in your youth, and, with its decline you may experience: chronic inflammation, immune dysfunction, rheumatoid arthritis, type 2 diabetic conditions, greater risk of cancer, osteoporosis, brain dysfunction, heart disease, excess body fat, or a drop in testosterone and consequently a drop in libido.

Not a pretty picture!
Coenzyme Q10 is another important coenzyme that declines unstoppably after age 25. Just identified in 1957, it made a huge wave in the health industry; especially when researchers found the tremendous protection against heart disease, as well as a cellular energy promoter for other enzymes. It affects every cell in your body. More about these in future articles.

More about why we need enzymes.  There are ‘protein cleaving’ enzymes,  which are the ones responsible to cut and eat proteins. Their four primary functions are to reduce inflammation, support the repair mechanism, prevent fibrosis, clean the blood, and modulate (balance) the immune system, and they are great virus fighters too.
When I came across the scientific studies about systemic enzymes, about a year ago, I got very, very excited. At that time I had a lot of pain in my joints. I thought I could never run the beach again; never go into a deep yoga posture, as I was feeling pain even when walking for a while. My life had changed. I tried some prescription painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs, but stopped after a few weeks, because I knew how damaging that would be in the long run without curing the real cause.

Before I agreed to hip replacement, or other severe treatments, I thought I would try oral ‘systemic enzyme therapy’. In Europe and Japan, this kind of treatment is well known and used for over 40 years (we are always a bit behind in the ‘new world’). I can tell you, that after the first 2 weeks, my pain decreased. Today, after 6 months, I am pain free and as active as I want to be. I am totally in awe about the power of enzymes to repair, and eat away on foreign matter like fibrin.

When we were young, (now you know what I mean by that) cuts and injuries healed in no time. After age 30 the healing time takes a bit longer, and scar tissue is more visible (a bit thicker). This is ‘fibrin’. Fibrin is great for a caterpillar’s cocoon until the butterfly is ready to emerge. Did you know that an enzymatic reaction dissolves the fibrin in order to release the butterfly?

In the human body, unchecked fibrin creates disaster. Children with Cystic Fibrosis disease usually don’t make it beyond age 20, as their system do not have enough enzymes to keep the organs from becoming virtually strangled from the formation of fibrosis or scar tissue.Many women develop fibrocystic breasts, uterine fibroids, and endometrioses. Men and women may suffer from arterial sclerotic (scar tissue) plaque. Think of a spider web and this is how fibrin grows in our bodies, making its way into the blood system and all organs, reducing their size and function over time. We can call the aging process a “shrinking” process.

If we replace the lost enzymes, we can control and reduce the amount of damage fibrin and inflammation does to our bodies. It is never too late. Taking systemic enzymes orally can take care of many, even old standing conditions. Enzymes can “eat away” at old scar tissue from surgical wounds, even keltoid formation, pulmonary fibrosis, kidney fibrosis etc.

In closing if you have tried vitamins and think that they do not work for you; you may be enzyme deficient. Vitamins also need enzymes to work properly. For pain control or relief nothing is better, because now you know that enzymes go to the root of the problem (inflammation).  You can not buy a potent systemic enzyme preparation over the counter, and they are of course more expensive than over the counter painkillers, but if you are serious about your health, I think enzymes are a better choice for almost every condition. Why? Because they are a natural substance that our body recognizes and assimilates.
Have a great week!

Your partner in Health,
Angelika radiantcouncil@mac.com   242-373-2357 or 359-5550 (cell)