Subject: Enzymes Digested?

From: [email-masked] (Jay Mann)
Date: 14 Jan 1995 11:42:56 GMT

MS> [email-masked] (Bob Calvert) wrote:
MS> 
MS> >take good quality supplements if you have digestive problems.  I 
MS> 
MS> With all due respect, this statement is also ridiculous and
S> incorrect. If you want enzymes, inject them directly into your
MS> bloodstream. Enzymes are proteins, no more and no less, and they
MS> are hydrolyzed into their constituent amino acids by the acids
MS> and proteases in your stomach/intestine. No active enzymes are
MS> taken up by your small intestine, as none survive the digestion
MS> process.  

Sorry, not true.  While I don't agree with the original statement (that we
must eat only or mainly ncooked foods to be healthy), there is plenty of
evidence for ingested enzymes surviving.  The best evidence is in the
poultry enzyme, where bacterial or fungal enzymes are often added to the
pellets to protect the birds against the gel-forming action of "dietary
fibre".  (That's glucans and pentosans, mainly, from rye, barley, and
oats.)

These enzymes have been shown to survive, at least in part, right through
pelleting, grinding in the gizzard, 1.5 M hydrochloric acid plus pepsin in
the stomach, and then trypsin-chymotrypsin in the upper part of the small
intestine. Quantitative data is hard to come by, but enough enzyme is around
to cleave enough gel-forming fibre so that the birds defecate nicely formed
pellets.  There is very little enzyme left at the bottom end of the gut, so
eventually they must be degraded just like other proteins.

Needless to say the use of these enzymes has been carefully tested, and
there is no conspiracy in the industry to poison people.

Jay D Mann  <[email-masked]>
Christchurch, New Zealand