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Mr Healthy Mondays: What are enzymes and why do we need them?

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Want to live longer? Keep reading…

 

Who thinks I should have started that off with, “Come with me if you want to live?” (In my best Arnold voice of course)

 

No, reading my stuff doesn’t naturally make you live longer. If it did, I’d be a little more famous I think. I wanted to talk a bit about enzymes this week and next. Too much to put in one post. Enzymes are not the sexiest topic but if you want better health, there are few things that will give you more bang for your buck and time investment!

 

The following is a list of situations that enzyme supplementation will help your life include the following (next week will involve a more detailed explanation): weight loss, weight gain, faster recovery time from workouts/playing, indigestion, acid reflux, constipation, gas, bloating, inflammation, injury recovery, injury prevention, increased energy, better sleep, longer lifespan (potentially). Did I get everyone’s wants/desires with that list?

 

The basics: There are 2 types of enzymes, digestive and metabolic/systemic. Digestive enzymes help to break down your food into more digestible particles, making the nutrients easier to absorb and utilize. Systemic enzymes are present in the trillions of intercellular processes acting as catalysts in some and critical to reactions in others.

 

Enzymes are proteins specifically designed for certain tasks. For example protease helps to break down protein, lipase fat, and amylase for carbohydrates. They are produced by our body, sure, but they are also present in raw foods like fruits, vegetables and sprouted grains. This breakdown of protein, fat and starch molecules doesn’t only apply to digestion. It also happens in your blood and around your body too as we will discuss later.

 

When it comes to digestion, your pancreas is the primary producer of digestive enzymes, but it also gets support from the liver and gall bladder. To give you a bit more perspective at how important digestion is to your overall health, some of the most serious forms of cancer are pancreatic, liver and gall bladder cancers. Without these organs, you’re in deep trouble.

 

Digestion is important to any athletic pursuits as well. After all, we are fueled by our nutrition. I would venture most people believe that we run on the calories we put into our bodies through food. This is actually a bit too simple of an understanding which is why there is so much misconception about what we eat and how we eat when it comes to sports.

 

Humans are electrical beings. We are big batteries (think The Matrix). Enzymes help to keep our individual cells healthy by assisting with the breakdown of metabolic waste, assisting in detoxification and the building and rebuilding of cells. This helps to strengthen our electrical energy flow from head to toe. A weak flow of electrical energy is not good for our health, specifically, if it slows too much or stops, we die…

 

Speaking of dying, that’s really the simplest way that I can sum up the necessity to pay attention to enzymes and supplement your diet with them. Our enzyme production capacity tends to peak around 20 years old and then goes into a steady decline for the rest of our life. Maybe this is why when we were teenagers, we could eat anything and a ton of it without long-lasting effects.

 

Remember drinking a 12 pack in college and waking up the next day feeling refreshed? I know I’m not the only one, so I won’t even try to play that off. Point is that there are reasons we could eat and drink in excess, then wake up refreshed and do it all over again in our younger years. We had the enzymatic capacity to break all those calories and toxic compounds down quickly and dispose of them without long-lasting effects.

 

Since production of enzymes declines as we age, asking our body to produce more than it prefers ages us quicker, hence we die a little bit faster the less enzymes we have in our diet.

 

For those of you that like to act fast, pretty much any digestive enzyme supplement is better than not taking one. I recommend to start by taking 1 with dinner. I personally strive to take an enzyme pill/capsule with each meal that is less than 75% raw food. Next week I’ll get into the rest of the story with enzymes and why we should all be taking them for better athletic performance, better health and a longer life.

 

Russ Marchewka’s commitment to better nutrition has earned him the nickname “Mr. Healthy” on the tour. He has spent the last eight years studying how nutrition affects his volleyball game. For more, visit his website, WorldHealthHub.com or connect with him on Facebook, www.Facebook.com/avpruss.

 

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Category: Health & Fitness

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