How Digestive Enzymes Can Help You!

Digestive enzyme supplements are highly beneficial in certain situations especially when you’re gonna outdoors and considering enjoying foods that are cooked at high temperatures and exposed to various chemical ingredients or environmental pollutants.

Since excessive heat can destroy naturally occurring enzymes of foods while cooking, they may cause numerous digestive issues in your body if taken with outdoor pollutants. Digestive enzymes help in both, for digesting foods as well as removing toxins.

In this article, we’ll discuss exactly what digestive enzymes are, why they are important, and most importantly how digestive enzymes can help you stay healthy without skipping your favourite street foods. So, let’s dive into deep.

 

 

Table of contents

• What are digestive enzymes?
• Types of digestive enzymes
• Why digestive enzymes are important for your health
• Benefits of digestive enzymes
• Precautions and side effects
• Final words

What are digestive enzymes?

Digestive enzymes are protein substances that help your body digest foods. They play an important role in breaking down food materials and turning them into easily absorbable substances so that you can soak up essential nutrients.

While many digestive enzymes are naturally produced in the digestive tract by the mouth, stomach, and small intestine, the majority of them come from associated organs such as the pancreas, liver, and gallbladder.

Certain foods such as fruits and vegetables are also good sources of natural digestive enzymes. Taking these foods may also improve your digestion.

Natural sources of digestive enzymes may include:

• Honey
• Papaya
• Mangoes
• Avocados
• Pineapple
• Banana
• Kiwi
• Ginger

Types of digestive enzymes

There’re a number of variations in digestive enzymes and each of them targets a specific food category and break it down into a form that the body can subsequently soak up. They’re typically classified based on the reactions in which they act as catalysts.

There’re three major types of digestive enzymes, these are:

• Amylase – helps in breaking down carbohydrates and starches into their building blocks simple sugars or monosaccharides.
• Lipase – helps in breaking down lipids such as oils and fats into their building blocks fatty acids and glycerol.
• Protease – helps in breaking down proteins into their building blocks amino acids.

Other types of digestive enzymes include:

• Maltase – helps in breaking down malt sugars into glucose or simple sugars.
• Lactase – helps in breaking down lactose into galactose and glucose.
• Sucrase – helps in breaking down sucrose into glucose and fructose.

Why digestive enzymes are important for your health

Digestive enzymes play a critical role in the process of healthy digestion which is vital for a healthy body and overall wellbeing. They, along with other ingredients in the body such as bile and stomach acid, help foods convert into molecules for a variety of bodily requirements.

For instance, protein is required to repair and build body muscles and carbohydrates are necessary for producing energy. But they must be transformed into such molecules that can easily be absorbed by the human body.

 

Benefits of digestive enzymes

Though the role of digestive enzyme supplements hasn’t yet been extensively reviewed, studies have found that digestive enzymes can improve gut health and overall wellbeing.

Here’re some of the most common benefits of digestive enzymes, but not limited to:

 

Promotes nutrient absorption

The principal function of digestive enzymes is to promote nutrient absorption inside the body.  They accelerate the process of food metabolism by breaking down what you eat and drink into molecules that can easily be soaked up by your body. Therefore, digestive enzymes can help you achieve the optimal nutritional benefits from the food you eat.

 

Enhances your energy

Digestive enzymes particularly amylase helps in producing glucose (sugars) that are the essential sugar molecules used as fuels in your body. You will feel more energetic throughout the day by taking digestive enzymes in an adequate dosage.

 

Improves various digestive issues

In some clinical trials, digestive enzymes have been found to be effective in several digestive issues such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), lactose intolerance, food allergies, and many more. Some studies have also found that digestive enzymes can be potential therapeutic agents in the treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease.

 

Helps prevent gut leakage

When food items aren’t properly broken down, the larger undigested particles often try to push the wall and cause damage to the gut lining. This pressure breaks the barrier of the gut lining and allows harmful ingredients such as bad bacteria and gluten to enter your bloodstream. Digestive enzymes can protect your gut by breaking down foods properly. 

 

Improves inflammatory conditions

Research shows that excessive proteins particularly from animal sources such as meats, eggs, and fishes may increase the risk of developing inflammation in your body. 

Digestive enzymes specifically proteases including papain, trypsin, bromelain, and pancreatin help in the digestion of proteins by converting them into polypeptides or amino acids. Thus, digestive enzymes significantly increase the bioavailability of proteins and improve the anti-inflammatory response in your body. 

 

Reduces chronic pain and fatigue

Pains are closely linked with inflammation and the underlying root cause of fatigue is lack of sugar production. Since digestive enzymes can help reduce inflammation and increase sugar synthesis, they are highly beneficial in the treatment of chronic pain and fatigue. 

Helps to cope with anxiety and depression

According to some recent studies, anxiety and depression have been found to be closely connected with gut health. Experts call it the “Gut-Brain Connection” which can link gastrointestinal issues to anxiety and depression and vice versa.

The gut is sensitive to certain emotions such as anger, sadness, anxiety, and depression. Digestive enzymes improve gut conditions and stop intestine sending signals to the brain, which can trigger anxiety and depression.

 

Precautions and side effects

Digestive enzymes are generally considered safe and well-tolerated for most people for short-term uses in low dosages. However, long-term uses in higher dosages may show some side effects including headache, abdominal cramping, nausea, neck pain, dizziness, and allergic rashes among others.

Besides, though there are no known serious interactions, digestive enzymes may interact with some medications such as acarbose, miglitol, and more.

It’s highly recommended to check with your healthcare practitioner prior to using digestive enzyme supplements especially if you are pregnant, or breastfeeding, or taking prescription drugs for any underlying medical condition.   

 

Final words

Digestive enzymes are highly beneficial to improving digestion and removing toxins from your body. Besides they are safe for short-term uses.

Therefore, when you consider going outside and enjoying outdoor foods, digestive enzyme supplements can be an effective tool to protect your health and general wellbeing. 

 

Check out our Essential Digestive Plus Capsules here.

Also, check out our protein digestive enzymes Protease Enzyme here.

 

Disclaimer – The information is intended to increase general awareness, hence, cannot be used as medical advice. Always consult with your healthcare provider before using any part of this article.