What Are Plant Enzymes and What Do They Do?

What Are Plant Enzymes and What Do They Do?

"Enzymes are substances that make life possible. 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. Our bodies, all of our organs, tissues, and cells, are run by metabolic 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." (Dr. Edward Howell, Enzyme Nutrition, the Food Enzyme Concept, 1985).

Plant or food enzymes are living proteins present in all raw plants, namely, protease, amylase, lipase, cellulase, and disaccharidases. When activated by a certain amount of moisture, heat and a certain pH (acid-base) range, protease digests protein, amylase digests carbohydrates, disaccharidases digest disaccharides, such as sucrose, lactose and maltose, lipase digests fats and cellulase digest fiber. Each enzyme does its work only at its own specific pH and temperature range. Outside of its pH range, the enzyme is deactivated but not destroyed. Outside of its temperature range. the enzyme may be deactivated or destroyed. Enzymes are much more heat-sensitive than vitamins and are the first to be destroyed during cooking, pasteurization, canning, microwaving or heating above 118 degrees Fahrenheit. You can swallow pounds of vitamins and minerals but without enzymes, nothing works and you are wasting your money.

Plant enzymes differ from animal enzymes (pancreatin). Pancreatic enzymes are not used to enhance digestion. They do not work in the stomach nor do they spare the pancreas. Plant enzymes work in the stomach where they predigest foods and thus spare the pancreas. Both plant and pancreatic enzymes can also be used to alleviate inflammatory conditions when taken on an empty stomach.

Plant enzymes do work to optimize digestion, absorption and assimilation of food. They do not act like drugs, which control body chemistry. Instead, they enhance nourishment of the body so that the body can control itself.

Taken with food, plant enzymes work in the cardiac (upper portion of the) stomach to digest food and spare the pancreas from having to do all of the digestive work. Amylase will digest up to 80% of the carbohydrates, protease up to 30% of the protein and lipase up to around 20% of the fats. This was what the late Dr. Edward Howell, the food enzyme pioneer, discovered. By optimizing digestion of protein, carbohydrates, sugars, fats and fiber, plant enzymes aid in normalizing the acid-base (pH) balance of the blood without creating excess acidity or alkalinity as do betaine hydrochloride and calcium carbonate supplements do, respectively.

Taken on an empty stomach, plant enzymes will immediately enter into the blood where they have a profound effect on the immune system by their ability to digest toxic debris (protease), the fatty components of certain viruses (lipase), the protein capsid of others (protease) and pathogenic yeast such as Candida albicans (cellulase). Since we are digesting toxins, not killing them with drugs, there are no organ-toxic side effects or "die-off" effects of the digestion of toxins with enzymes. However, the body must be able to eliminate digested cellular debris through the normal channels of elimination - urinary tract, colon, skin and lungs. Inability to eliminate must be addressed or the patient will develop a rash or a fever. There are enzyme formulas that also address elimination, called drainage remedies. For example, there are drainage remedies containing herbs plus whatever plant enzyme is necessary to do the job. In the Thera-zyme line of plant enzymes, TRMA and VSCLR are blood drainage or purifier formulas; Smi, the acidophilus formula is for the small intestines and contains cellulase to digest pathogenic yeast, Kdy helps the kidneys purify the blood, amylase formulas, especially MSCLR and Skn, help purify the skin to relieve rashes, hives and other inflammatory skin conditions.

Combined with herbs or foods, plant enzymes will predigest them and allow complete delivery to the organism without allergic reaction. Why? Allergies can only result from undigested substances. Thus, we treat vitamin and mineral deficiencies by adding small amounts of foods high in the desired nutrient to the plant enzymes required to digest them. Here's an example. If you have a B-vitamin deficiency, we don't give you one isolated, lonely B vitamin. Instead, we combine Brewer's yeast with just the right amount of enzymes required to predigest them. No allergic reaction will occur, since the food is predigested. I have given this formula (Thera-zyme Adr) to many "yeast-allergic" patients with no side effects. Remember, there can be no side effects if the food is digested. That is the secret of enzyme nutrition and it is the reason I do not use any isolated vitamin or mineral.

There are no side effects of taking enzymes as there are in drugs with one exception: patients with an ulcer, gastritis or hiatal hernia cannot tolerate protease. Why? Because the digestion of the protein in the capsules increases acidity, which aggravates gastric irritation. So, if you take protease and your stomach burns, this is a diagnosis of gastric irritation.

Do plant enzymes affect the blood and can you detect the effects in a blood chemistry? Yes, but, since enzymes are not drugs, they will not make a normal value abnormal. Thus, enzymes will correct physiological deviations but they will not make normal physiology abnormal -. a characteristic of synthetic drug therapy. For example, lipase will lower high cholesterol but it will not lower a normal cholesterol level. Lipase will also carry chlorides and raise the blood level of chlorides but only in a patient who is low in hydrochloric acid due to lipase deficiency. Lipase will not overly-acidify the patient like betaine hydrochloride supplements. Protease will increase protein digestion but will not increase a normal BUN to an abnormal level. Disaccharidases will increase digestion of disaccharides into simple sugars including glucose and fructose but will not increase a normal blood glucose level.

Does enzyme therapy interfere with the many synthetic drugs used today? Quite the contrary. It is the other way around. Drugs interfere with enzymes and in fact, many of them work by poisoning enzymes. If you believe that enzymes, which are foods, interfere with drugs, stop eating when you take drugs!!! (I know this sounds silly but it is the logical answer to the above question!).

Have these enzymes been tested in double blind, placebo controlled studies? This is a common question asked by sincere but skeptical people who are familiar with the testing of synthetic drugs. I do not and never will do this kind of testing because I believe it is very unethical and unnecessary. Let me give an example. Projectile vomiting is very common in young babies, especially those who are given formulas and always in those whose formulas are microwaved. The medical treatment for this is Valium, one of the most addictive tranquilizers used in America. The enzyme treatment for this is Thera-zyme DGST, which contains the four food enzymes plus disaccharidases. I have given these enzymes to babies for nine years and have never seen it fail. To you who ask this question, would you place your baby in the placebo-controlled group?

Dr. Loomis' Enzyme Formulations are available from Moonlight Health at 1-888-337-0511