The importance of good digestive health cannot be overstated. We get nearly all our energy from food. But if our body is unable to properly break down and absorb the nutrients in what we eat, it can impact our energy levels, and how well our bodies function and age.
Domino Effect
Digestion uses up a significant amount of the energy our body produces. If our bodies don’t have sufficient digestive enzymes to break down the food we eat into absorbable nutrients — like amino acids, simple sugars, fatty acids, vitamins and minerals — our body has to work much harder, diverting energy from powering our muscles and minds. Plus, incomplete breakdown of food can cause unwanted and unpleasant gut symptoms.
It’s easy to understand that poor digestion can make us feel tired and cause abdominal discomfort. But when you aren't digesting your food well, you can also face imbalances in all the systems of your body, not just your digestive tract. Digestive enzyme deficiencies can cause minor symptoms like occasional gas and bloating, but can also be at the root of much deeper health issues.
Case in point, around 70% of the body’s immune system resides in the gut, so if we want to stay healthy, we need to pay attention to what’s happening in there! To that end, let’s explore some of the factors that impact digestive enzyme digestion, and how supplementing with full spectrum digestive enzymes can make a big difference in supporting your gut and whole body health.
Poor Diet
Nature creates raw foods that contain the very enzymes that aid in their digestion. Papaya, mango and pineapple are especially rich sources of digestive enzymes. In contrast, the highly processed food in our modern diet is not only stripped of nutrition, it’s also lacking these important plant enzymes.
Natural and fresh whole foods not only contain their own beneficial enzymes, they nourish your microbiome to facilitate the healthy breakdown of fiber and promote your body’s enzymatic access to their vital nutrients.
Eating In A Rush
Your grandmother probably told you how important it was to sit and chew your food. Well, turns out she was right! Digestion starts in our mouths where chewing triggers enzyme-rich saliva production, which starst breaking down what we eat.
When we begin to salivate, our stomach starts producing gastric juices and digestive enzymes that jump-start the whole process. When we’re in a hurry, and barely chew our food, our bodies have more difficulty breaking down large bites into the nutrients they need.
Stress
Stress keeps us in “fight or flight” mode and forces our sympathetic nervous system to be continuously in gear. When we’re functioning in this way we don’t allow our body to shift into parasympathetic mode which means we are not able to properly “rest and digest.” Simply put, when we’re stressed, our body is distracted from producing the right levels of gastric juices or enzymes to optimally digest food.
Aging
It is well known by medical science that the body’s ability to produce digestive enzymes simply goes down with age. Since none of us can stop the hand of time, this goes for all of us!
Tummy Trouble
Digestive enzymes are first secreted in our mouth by our salivary glands. Then as food progresses down our digestive tract, digestive enzymes are produced by our stomach, pancreas and small intestine. If there is imbalance in any of these organs, our enzyme supply can be affected.
Don't Go It Alone
Each food group (i.e. carbohydrates, fats, protein, fiber, etc) needs a specific type of enzyme to break it down, and not everyone can digest all foods with ease. If this is the case for you, it might be time to add a full-spectrum digestive enzyme supplement and start getting all of the nourishing nutrients out of your food. Enzyme Power™ might just be your ticket to digestive comfort and optimal, glowing health.
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