Health and Nutrition
Why Digestive Enzymes Are Important and How to Address Deficiencies
Digestive enzymes have numerous benefits to the body beyond improving digestion.
As someone who suffered from digestive issues for many years, including leaky gut syndrome, I achieved significant benefits by supplementing with digestive enzymes in my younger years.
As 70% of my calories come from healthy fats in my customized diet, lipase was the most prominent digestive enzyme for me. Digestive issues are common. For example, according to NIH, around 70 million people suffer from digestive disorders in the US.
Food is broken down by digestive enzymes to produce energy. However, as mentioned in the literature, digestive enzymes are used for various disorders.
For example, I read their use for reducing symptoms of IBS, decreasing inflammation, improving liver health, easing arthritis pain, and improving immune system function. I also noticed many more health benefits of digestive enzymes in the nutrition and medical literature.
In addition, physicians prescribe digestive enzymes for specific health conditions such as heartburn, indigestion, pancreatitis, cystic fibrosis, irritable bowel syndrome, celiac disease, Crohn’s disease, and pancreatic cancer. Since digestive enzymes reduce stress and discomfort, I have also found them to be beneficial for my mental health.
Many digestive enzymes are publicly available over the counter in Australia, where I live. I heard that it is the same in other countries.
However, some special digestive enzymes require a prescription from a physician, especially when treating certain medical conditions.
There are numerous digestive enzymes. For me, the easiest way to understand digestive enzymes was to categorize them based on three primary macro-nutrients fat, protein, and carbohydrates.
Even though there are several digestive enzymes, the major ones are lipase for fat, protease for protein, and amylase for carbohydrates. They are also known as pancreatic enzymes in literature and health shops.
I want to clarify a point related to digestion as it is critical. I used to confuse digestive enzymes with anti-acid supplements, which had nothing to do with digestion in my younger years.
Anti-acid tablets reduce the stomach acid to give temporary relief. However, they cause serious digestive issues in the long run as the stomach needs adequate acid to digest food.
Learning the importance of stomach acid for digestion was an eye-opener for me.
For example, when I explained my digestive issues to a functional medicine doctor, he asked me to stop using anti-acid tablets and instead suggested a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar in warm water 20 minutes before the main meal. It was a turning point for me.
Later, I learned the importance of digestive enzymes from a holistic dietician referred by my functional medicine doctor. It was when I started one meal a day, consuming my daily calories from a single meal.
The dietician introduced me to a specific enzyme formula, including high-dose protease, lipase, pepsin, betaine HCI, and ox bile extract. Even though the formula included amylase, it was irrelevant as I did not consume carbs in my customized diet.
When I used this specific formula, I experienced significant improvement in my digestion. The high-dose lipase digested the fatty food within an hour. I felt significant relief.
The body creates lipase while consuming food. Therefore, it might not be essential for everyone. However, in my case, it was insufficient. Thus, the supplementation of lipase helped me immensely.
The formula introduced by the dietician worked well during the transition period. However, at a later stage, I discovered a unique lipase formula, including three types of lipase which further improved fat digestion in my time-restricted eating regime.
More importantly, I did not experience single stomach discomfort when using this formula due to consuming a substantial amount of healthy fat.
After my body adapted to my customized diet and I continued to follow my time-restricted eating plan for a while, I didn’t need to take digestive enzymes anymore.
Instead, I occasionally use lipase when I sense discomfort, which rarely happens nowadays. My stomach feels upset only when I experience an unexpected stressful situation.
I observed a few unique cases in my family members. For example, one family member was struggling with digesting lactose, especially from cow milk. Her physician advised using a lactase supplement that reduced her symptoms.
Another family member had issues with beans. His dietician recommended he supplement with alpha-galactosidase, allowing the digestion of specific sugar types in beans. So, digestive enzymes helped two other family members and myself with digestion issues.
Digestive enzymes can be made from plants and animal sources. Therefore, there are specific formulas for various diet types. For example, a nutritionist might develop a specific formula for a client on a plant-based diet and another formula for a client on an animal-based diet.
There is substantial research on digestive enzymes, looking at their pros and cons. As I mentioned earlier, some digestive enzymes are sold over the counter, and some formulas require a prescription.
Apart from pancreatic enzymes such as lipase, protease, and amylase, the commonly available ones over the counter are bromelain, papain, trypsin, and chymotrypsin. Clinicians also use them to address various health conditions. For example, Mayo Clinic in the US provided guidance to practitioners to reduce confusion.
This Mayo Clinic proceeding prepared by medical doctors informs that “the constituent of bromelain interferes with the growth of malignant cells and inhibits platelet aggregation.
Animal studies suggest that it helps reduce inflammation and edema and has fibrinolytic activity. Some evidence suggests that papain can increase the release of reactive oxygen species by polymorphonuclear cells. Multienzyme preparations also seem to induce tumor necrosis factors.”
Even though the body can generate digestive enzymes while chewing food and during various phases of digestion, some of us might still need to supplement them. Thus, discussing the situation with qualified medical professionals and obtaining support might be valuable.
I haven’t experienced any side effects from using over-the-counter digestive enzyme supplements; however, before using any enzyme formula, I always consult my dietician and family doctor. Certain diets might require the use of specific digestive enzymes.
As digestive enzymes are made in the pancreas, I added an article to improve the health of this important organ for digestion.
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