ENZYMES: MODERN BIOMEDICINE
Only in the last ten years have powerful whole-food enzymes been available. Dr. Howell himself, having died in 1988, would certainly have welcomed a supplement as clean and powerful as the natural whole-food enzymes available today, which can be taken along with meals and can serve to help replace the enzymes removed in food processing.
Enzyme supplements are such a simple solution to a whole spectrum of health challenges, many of which are life-threatening, that they are generally not considered by mainstream practitioners. Most MDs are taught to look for the dramatic rescue, the quick-acting drug, the heroic procedure that can snatch the patient from the jaws of death, or whatever. That’s more sexy; it’s “real medicine.” The first problem is that most medical doctors don’t even know of the existence of whole-food enzymes, because such supplements are too inexpensive to be sold by the pharmaceutical companies. Yet.
The second problem is that medical doctors have a very limited exposure to enzymes in medical school. The only concept they usually have is what is found in Guyton’s Physiology, the standard text. They learn that enzymes are “catalysts,” which means substances that cause things to happen but are themselves unchanged in the process. Dr. Howell, who was himself an MD, proved not only was this idea inaccurate, but that there was a grand and dynamic interchange between the enzymes of digestion and the enzymes of all the other life functions, which are called enzymes of metabolism.
Less than 20 digestive enzymes have been discovered; but there may be as many as 5000 metabolic enzymes. Enzymes are in a constant state of flux and re-organization. If this were not the case, many of us would have been dead long ago, because we wouldn’t have been able to borrow from our metabolic enzymes to help out our overwhelmed digestive enzymes. Interlocking adaptation: survival.
There are several high quality enzyme supplements on the market today. There are also many mediocre or worthless enzymes available. How do you tell the difference?
THE BEST WHOLE FOOD ENZYMES
are from Aspergillus, cultured in whole grain
contain all necessary cofactors
are totally bioavailable to the cells.
The oldest and largest producer of enzyme supplements in the US is the National Enzyme Company. This was Dr. Howell’s company. Today they produce enzymes for some 400 supplement companies. Scientists found out decades ago that Aspergillus-derived enzymes were the best supplements for humans because they were broad spectrum, and could operate in the whole range of pH which exists in the human digestive tract. Broad spectrum means the enzymes can digest fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. The best companies also add cellulase. This is the fiber-digesting enzyme, which allows the vitamins and minerals within fiber to be set free and made available to the bloodstream.
The esophagus, the stomach, the sections of the small intestine, and the colon define a wide range of pH. That means an acid/alkaline range. Aspergillus- derived enzymes work well in all these environments.
The best enzymes supplements contain all the necessary vitamins and minerals necessary as cofactors for enzyme activity to take place, as explained above. Without these cofactors being included, the necessary vitamins and minerals will be drawn from the body’s reserves, thereby causing an overall negative effect. Remember, by themselves enzymes, vitamins, and minerals are worthless. The only way they function is in each other’s presence.
The final feature – bioavailability – is only emphasized by one formula, that of the late Dr Stan Bynum. His company has included in the formula mineral cofactors which make sure that the enzyme complexes can be absorbed at the cellular level, with no resulting metabolic residue. So not only is the food able to make it from the digestive tract into the bloodstream; it also has been broken down to simple units that can be used completely by the cells. This is what is known as a clean product – nothing left over in the blood after it does its work. Complete digestion.
ENZYME THERAPY
So once more, unless the patient will eat an 80% raw foods diet, he must take enzyme supplements in order to insure complete breakdown of foods and unclumped red blood cells. The trick is to find an enzyme supplement that will
be absorbed easily into the bloodstream
be taken up readily by the cells
and leave behind no metabolic residue as a result.
Holistic nutritionists have found that there are two obvious benefits to beginning a simple program of enzyme therapy:
digestion
blood detox
When enzyme supplements are taken with a meal, most of the enzyme energy is expended in digesting that food. When enzyme supplements are taken on an empty stomach, they are absorbed into the bloodstream and work to break down undigested debris in the bloodstream.
Both these functions are vital to optimum health. The body is the same as the cells – when wastes can’t be removed, aging and breakdown occur.
NAME OF THE GAME
With no background in nutrition, the family physician may not be the best source of information when it comes to whole food enzymes. Why? Because the patient is taking the first step in the dangerous direction known as I Can Be Responsible for My Own Health. As Dr. Mendelsohn explained, most doctors don’t support this idea, because it tends to take away their control of things. And if you don’t think the name of the whole game is Control, just observe any TV channel with a stopwatch and tell me how long you can sit there without someone telling you to take some type of medication. Five minutes? Ten? Your job is to need as many drugs as possible between now and the day you die. Their job is to sell them to you. Does this have anything to do with health? Rarely. This has to do with pharmaceutical economics. Health is an entirely different topic altogether (www.thedoctorwithin.com).
Most medical doctors tell patients that diet has very little to do with their particular disease. Ever hear of a medical doctor doing a thorough analysis of a patient’s diet before diagnosing him as a diabetic and putting him on insulin for life? Of course not. This is sales and marketing. Occasionally doctors might say that diet may have contributed to a disease, but almost never will they say that diet can cure a disease. Curing disease comes from only one thing: drugs.
GLOWING HEALTH OR MERE SURVIVAL?
Where are our bright young people today? Where are our adults who live most of their lives as shining examples of glowing health, bursting with energy and vitality?
A human being is not a static mass of cells, but a living process. Each day we have a chance either to improve overall health, or else just to survive for another 24 hours. Each day, each meal, is an opportunity to strengthen the immune system, to shore up the body’s reserves through nutritional choices. At any given moment in time, our health is simply the cumulative result of all these past choices.
Three opposing forces are constantly at work, trying to control our food selection:
- our informed brain
- the advertising skills of the food industry
- non-nutritive food additives whose only purpose is addicting us to certain foods by stimulation of the taste buds and the nervous system
Eating when we’re not hungry, or else just enough to get through the day, choosing the most conveniently available foods, the tasty ones with that quick jolt of sugar, or oxidized fat – this will allow us to survive.
But there’s another option available to us – choosing foods that will detox the body, build our immunity, unclog our blood, and optimize the quality of life. Our ability to make rational choices based on the body’s real needs rather than on the programmed urges from the food industry – this ability will determine our total health potential.
Look around you. Go to the mall. Where is this Glowing Health today, even among young people? Where is it? Rather do you see bloated, slovenly, enervated unhappy people, caricatures of the human form, with bad skin, bad posture, and blocked colons?
Processed GMO foods become our cells. We become processed GMO beings. Never underestimate the forces at work 24 hours a day to make us consume as much processed dairy, GMO hydrogenated soybean oil, white sugar, and white flour as possible.
We are addicted to the things that poison us.
40/20
If you’ve hit 40 and are still eating the way you did at 20, you’re going down my friend. You’re wearing out, filling up. The body has exhausted its efforts to break down all those chemicals, all those preservatives, all that hydrogenated oil. Since you still take it in, it has to end up somewhere. It does – inside you.
After age 40 you simply can’t eat the way you did at 20. Not if you’re going to be healthy enough to avoid doctors and hospitals. Comfort foods? So you have to have your comfort foods, right? Poor baby, baby, baby. How comfortable will you be in ICU? Or in the Afterlife?
After 40, no more chips and fries. That’s it for you. Next time around maybe.
THE MASTER KEY
The best course of action would be to eat a diet consisting of more than 80% enzyme-rich raw foods. No argument there. But most of us simply can’t resist all that conditioning and taste manipulation and advertising. We rationalize to ourselves how “life was meant to be lived and the hell with the rest,” etc. And that line of reasoning brings most of us to processed foods.
Everything we put in our mouths is a decision, even if it’s an unconscious one. Each food choice poses two questions:
- will this nourish the body?
or
- will this clog the body?
The cumulative effect of these decisions determines whether we are toxifying or detoxifying day by day – whether we are getting sicker or better, building our immune reserves or using them up, promoting degeneration or slowing it down, moving toward life or toward death… Aging or anti-aging.
ONE SIMPLE STEP
Whole food enzyme supplements – 3 capsules 3 times a day for 60 Days – can be the key to health, without changing one single other thing. Detox the blood and the tract. What’s the alternative? The toxins accumulate in the blood. Result: allergies, autoimmune stuff, arthritis, or any type of disease that starts with a chronic low-grade inflammation of something or other. Almost sounds too simple. But that’s the hallmark of the classic cure – simplicity.
We’re not adding anything new. We’re simply replacing something that has been artificially removed by food processing: enzymes. We allow the body to find its normal equilibrium.
Unless we take in sufficient enzymes to completely break our food down, we eat too much. Year by year, we balloon up – check out the mall! Even for those of us who are not overweight, we still have a decision to make. If we insist on sticking with the modern American processed food diet, our only salvation from “digging our graves with our teeth” is this: whole food enzymes.
The importance of this chapter can scarcely be overemphasized. No matter what the diet, no matter what the drug program, no matter what condition the body is in, if this issue of enzyme intake is not meticulously addressed on a daily basis, you’re really not serious about getting better.
With any illness or chronic degeneration, a program of enzymes is the starting point, the minimum, the foundation of any healing regimen that has the slightest hope of success.
Copyright MMVIII
Dr Tim O’Shea
REFERENCES
CDC—- National Vital Statistics — 2004.
Schlosser, E—- Fast Food Nation — 2001 Naisbitt, J—– Megatrends 2000 — Harpe 1991.
Douglass, WC, MD — The Milk Book 1984.
D’Raye, T —- Food Enzymes — Avieca 1997.
Howell, Edward, MD —- Enzyme Nutrition —Avery 1988
Bieler, H MD —- Food Is Your Best Medicine— Random House, 1965.
Price, W, DDS—- Nutrition and Physical Degeneration —1939 Keats
Tilden, JH, MD —- Toxemia Explained — Kessinger 1926.
Lee, RoyaL, DDS —- Conversations in Nutrition — Standard Process 1955.
Wiley, H MD —- The Foods and Their Adulterations — 1930.
Guyton, AC, MD —- Medical Physiology — Saunders 1996.
Twogood, D —- No Milk — Wilhelmina 1991.
Whittaker, J, MD—- Best and Worst of Today’s Supplements
Carrel, Alexis MD—- Man, The Unknown — 1935 MacFadden
Jensen, Bernard —- Empty Harvest — Avery 1990
Anderson R —- Cleanse and Purify — 1998
Mendelsohn R, MD —- Confessions of a Medical Heretic
“How Safe is Soy?” Newlife Magazine May 1996.
O’Shea T—- The Magic Bean? Soy-tainly Not!
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