Digestive enzymes

What are digestive enzymes? They are specialized proteins supporting the breakdown of consumed foods.

Benefits of digestive enzymes

• Foods get broken down into essential nutrients, enabling you to maximize what you consume.
• Digestive enzyme supplements support food digestion with minimal discomfort
• Aging reduces our body's digestive enzyme production
• Lacking these enzymes, unprocessed food travels to the colon, triggering bloating, gas, and diarrhea

The optimal digestive enzymes

• Amylase: Present in saliva, begins carbohydrate breakdown immediately upon first bite.
• Protease: Produced in the pancreas, dismantles protein into amino acids and peptides (smaller amino acid clusters) that your body subsequently utilizes for various purposes.
• Lipase: Dismantles dietary fat (lipids). Let's explore additional essential digestive enzymes, many appearing on digestive enzyme supplement labels (which usually combine multiple enzymes rather than featuring just one)
• Alpha-galactosidase: Experiencing gas from foods like black beans? Alpha-galactosidase helps render this nutritious legume less gas-producing.
• Cellulase: Struggling with vegetable digestion after consuming substantial amounts, consider cellulase supplementation, which facilitates plant cell wall digestion.
• Hemicellulase: Functions comparably to cellulase for vegetable and fruit digestion.
• Phytase: Another favored enzyme supporting plant-based food digestion.
• Pectinase: Also facilitates vegetable consumption…with enhanced comfort!
• Xylanase: Another digestive enzyme option for those requiring high-fiber food digestion assistance.
• Lactase: Among the most recognized digestive enzyme supplements, lactase enables lactose digestion, a milk and dairy product sugar frequently causing digestive discomfort or occasional gas.