It’s a gas! -Fermentation during digestion-

Enzymes help it happen

• 
  Strongly held yet conflicting opinions regarding the efficacy of supplemental and plant enzymes make this subject controversial. The AMA tends to hold that such enzymes have been proven by studies to have no beneficial effect whatsoever. On the other hand, renegade alternative practitioners cite conflicting studies (that the AMA refutes) and hundreds of anecdotal stories of success, which may or may not have been due to the placebo effect. This chapter can serve as an introduction to the issues.
  
• 
  Some enzymes with wide pH activity (pH 2 to pH 10 from aspergillus supplements) do survive gastric fluids to aid digestion, then may get absorbed intact through the intestinal membrane (“Unique Features and Applications of Non-Animal Derived Enzymes” by Brad Rachman, Clinical Nutrition Insights Vol.5 No.10; Conscious Eating by Gabriel Cousens ISBN 1-55643-285-2). Such absorption across the membranes remains extremely controversial, but in the event that significant active enzymes from aspergillus supplements (Hippocrates Health Institute’s HHI-Zyme www.hippocratesinst.com, or Now’s Plant Enzymes) or enzymes and vitamin cofactors produced by probiotic bacteria in the intestines do get absorbed, they may help the body to ameliorate or reverse disorders.
  
• 
  For example, proteolytic enzyme therapy may help reduce arterial clotting, with a greater range of beneficial effects and possibly none of the dangerous side effects of aspirin (Please see “Pharmaceuticals: better living through chemistry?”). The proteolytic enzymes break apart proteins holding the clots together.
  
• 
  Enzyme supplements need to get taken between meals for optimal absorption into the bloodstream and any possible therapeutic benefit. Taking them with meals optimizes digestion.
  
• 
  Among other causes of arterial clotting are plaque-induced damage, high blood viscosity (blood more like molasses than water) with consequent slow flow, and a tendency to over-produce fibrin that makes blood “stickier” with increased clotting. Enzymes could possibly reduce that stickiness by breaking apart fibrin, also eating away at clots.
  
• 
  Enzymes secreted in the body can reduce the fibrin that cloaks cancer cells, revealing them to the immune system for destruction. Reduction of adhesion (stickiness) of cancer cells inhibits metastasis. Enzymatic breakdown of debris from destroyed cells eases the aftereffects of immune destruction of cancer cells.
  
• 
  Enzymes may help dissolve auto-immune complexes and antibodies, possibly ameliorating auto-immune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis.
  
• 
  The body usually makes proteolytic enzymes (protease) to aid in the digestion of proteins, and to break apart debris in the body, where such enzymes may also remove part of the protein portion of a viral coat before it can enter cells, or even deactivate viruses.
  
• 
  When a hypothesis says “Nature is dumb”, it’s time to reexamine the hypothesis. While Nature can be dumb, as in the juncture of the windpipe with the esophagus, allowing swallowing down the “wrong throat”, hypotheses can also be false. In the case of the blanket statement that plant catabolic enzymes always get destroyed by the proteolytic pepsin and HCl in gastric fluids, we need to ask, “Is Nature really that dumb, as to destroy useful enzymes?” 1] Yes, in the case of digestion of concentrated animal protein, so much pepsin and HCl can get secreted as to possibly destroy plant enzyme supplements while the bolus is in the stomach. But even in that case, while chewing and during the 30 to 60 minutes that it takes to fully secrete pepsin and HCl, plant proteolytic enzymes can usefully hydrolyze protein. Also, not all protein usually gets hydrolyzed by pepsin and HCl before the chyme exits the stomach, so that not all enzymes get hydrolyzed either. 2] In the case of plant-based foods, wherein the lentils and other legumes have the higher protein content, the protein is enmeshed in carbohydrates and fibers. The stomach may not secrete nearly so much HCl and pepsin as in the case of animal protein. In this milder gastric ambient, plant enzymes might play a larger role in the stomach breaking apart the protein, fats and starch, sparing the pancreas the effort, even if the gastric pH eventually gets low enough to temporarily deactivate the enzymes. To a great extent plant enzymes might survive this milder gastric ambient to reactivate in the intestines and continue catabolic action to break apart food molecules. 3] Supplemental digestive enzymes filtered from aspergillus oryzae koji mold have been shown more active than plant enzymes in an extremely broad acid-alkali or pH range, from pH 2 through pH 10. Therefore these enzymes can stay active more readily than plant enzymes to help digestion throughout the digestive tract, including the stomach. Such enzymes are active at a broader pH range than plant enzymes. For added benefit, blending the aspergillus enzyme powder from the capsules with foods lets the enzymatic action start before ingestion. Such enzymes can break apart most types of molecules found in food, even cellulose to some extent. 4] In all these cases, the enzymes under discussion are catabolic, breaking apart molecules, for example breaking apart the storage nutrients in seeds or existing structures that need to be reformed in plants [or yeast], not the anabolic enzymes that plants use to build new structures in plants [or yeast].
  
• 
  Enzymes are biological catalysts that facilitate reactions without getting used up in the process. Eventually after many repetitions of their function, enzymes get damaged and need to be replaced. A robust pancreas can biosynthesize replacement enzymes. However, the pancreas may get somewhat drained by overproducing digestive enzymes to deal with the SAD diet, although some MDs criticize this hypothesis. This possible partial exhaustion is what’s meant by the technically inaccurate phrase “running out of enzymes” that some raw foodists use. One hypothesis holds that taking aspergillus enzymes for digestion relieves the pancreas of some of its burden of biosynthesizing digestive enzymes, allowing the pancreas to recover and become more robust in biosynthesis of metabolic enzymes. When the pancreas produces metabolic enzymes, it’s performing more of its critical role of providing enzymes to itself and to some extent to the rest of the body for detoxification, revitalization, and repair, and possibly for support of the immune system, rather than diverting so much of pancreatic effort to producing enzymes for digestion. Another hypothesis holds that relieving the pancreas of some of its burden only teaches it to be lazy, not to recover.
  
• 
  Human digestive enzymes include ptyalin, pepsin, trypsin, lipase, protease, and amylase. While vegan enzyme supplements do not include the specific enzymes that our bodies biosynthesize, they can contain proteolytic enzymes that break apart proteins, as well as enzymes that break apart fats and carbohydrates. The human body does not make cellulase that breaks apart cellulose in plant cell walls, but some vegan enzyme supplements contain cellulase. Supplemental aspergillus yeast enzymes provide a broad range of digestive enzymes. Fruit enzymes such as bromelain in pineapple and papain in papaya may get destroyed more easily in gastric fluid, but could also help relieve the pancreas of the need to produce some digestive enzymes.
  
• 
  Foods that are germinating and sprouting probably contain more active enzymes than any other source except aspergillus yeast-sourced enzymes. Such foods must be undergoing high levels of enzyme-catalyzed self-transformation. Germinated larger nuts probably contain fewer enzymes per calorie than smaller sprouted root-shooting seeds and grains. A maximum stage for enzyme content may well be reached for seeds and grains between 3 to 5 days or so after first soaking the dry seeds. The enzyme content of raw foods varies greatly, as well as any contribution of those enzymes to digestion.
  
• 
  The argument has been made that nuts and seeds are easier to digest when they are soaked, not because soaking activates the enzymes, rather that soaked nuts and seeds are easier to digest simply because they’re hydrated. However, thoroughly chewing dry foods wets them with saliva; wetting them certainly provides the moisture that enzymes need to be active, but digestive enzymes are needed to break up the storage molecules. Water alone does not break up molecules; it merely dilutes them, making it easier for enzymes to access them for digestion. When raw nuts and seeds germinate during and after hydration, enzymes must activate to reform storage proteins, fats, and carbohydrates into the structures of the sprouts. These enzymes could aid digestion during the 30 minutes that it takes for HCl to get secreted, and to some extent upon reactivation in the intestines.
  
• 
  Dry enzymes are not charged; they are neutral overall. If they weren’t, a battery could be made out of capsules of supplemental enzymes. Rather, some local polar (hydrophilic) domains on the peptide chain of an enzyme are charged positive or negative relative to other local domains; some domains are positive, some negative, others neutral (hydrophobic). The hydrophobic domains hide from polar water during the folding of the peptide chain, protected from water within a shell of hydrophilic domains of the peptide’s outer fold.
  
• 
  The reason that enzymes come encapsulated is they’re hydrolytic, activated by moisture. Their duration after re-hydration is very limited. The capsules and bottle delay re-hydration from the moisture in the atmosphere. A packet to maintain dryness is usually included in the bottle because the capsules aren’t truly hermetic, not completely waterproof.
  
• 
  While I was at Hippocrates for their Health Educator's Program, I found out that some raw food proponents take large amounts of yeast-sourced digestive enzymes, which may well survive gastric acids and may make the raw diet more doable because the enzymes work to break up well-chewed or blended fibers. Enzymes may make any diet friendlier for problems like digestive distress. The proponents may take 20 or more capsules per day! For those who can’t afford supplements, a larger percentage of cooked food may help strike an optimal balance. The latter’s my personal preference.
  
• 
  Heating above 118ºF deactivates enzymes.
  
• 
  Here’s a summary of the “digestive net energy” hypothesis maintained by some leaders in the raw foods movement: “Because cooking deactivates enzymes, the pancreas needs to expend energy by producing digestive enzymes. The active enzymes in raw foods (or better, aspergillus yeast-sourced enzymes) relieve the pancreas of much of this burden. The digestive energy saved can be deducted from the calories needed to maintain weight eating cooked food, lessening the raw calories needed.” However the calories saved if any by eating raw foods may actually not be so substantial. Assuming that any of the plant-based enzymes survive the gastric fluid, for example say 2% of the cooked calories would be saved. If so, one could not maintain weight eating less than 98% of the cooked food calories. The moral: one still needs to eat foods in quantity to maintain weight, regardless of hypotheses to the contrary.