Help with digestive enzymes?

[Guest guest]

Hi, everyone!

I am hoping someone can help me- how do you compare digestive enzyme levels in

different brands?

For instance, my NOW plant enzymes say they have 750 FIP for Lipase, but my new

Nu-Zymes brand says it has 100 FCCLU of Lipase. Does FIP and FCCLU just mean the

same thing?

 

Much thanks for any advice!

Marcie

[Guest guest]

http://www.enzymestuff.com/basicsenzymeguide.htm

 

 

What is the activity per capsule?

 

Sometimes it is helpful to compare products by activity per capsule. The

product label may already list the activity per capsule. You always want

to buy a product that lists the ingredients by acceptable units for

activity, not by weight (such as in milligrams -- mg). Weight tells you

nothing. You can have 100 mg in an enzyme capsule but if it has zero

activity, it is worthless to you. 100 mg may contain 5 units of activity

or 500,000 units of activity. You can only compare values for activity

if the units are identical. FCCLU is not the same as LU.

 

If the units are not identical, you need to find the conversion factor

to get them into similar units. If the units are not identical and there

is no conversion factor, you cannot make a side-by-side comparison and

will need to look at other factors.

 

The U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP) helped by establishing a standard for the

pancreatic enzymes (animal-derived) by which you can compare other

enzyme supplements, such as plant- and microbial-derived. This standard

is called 'X' and contains an equivalent of:

 

25 USP units of amylase,

2 USP units of lipase, and

25 USP units of proteolytic enzymes

 

If a supplement contains 5X pancreatic enzymes, it would provide five

times the amount of each of the enzymes in this standard, or 125 USP

amylase, 10 USP lipase, and 123 USP protease. There is no direct

conversion between USP units and FCC units, because they are produced

from different sources, using different methods.

 

Marcie Johnston wrote:

>

> Hi, everyone!

> I am hoping someone can help me- how do you compare digestive enzyme

> levels in different brands?

> For instance, my NOW plant enzymes say they have 750 FIP for Lipase,

> but my new Nu-Zymes brand says it has 100 FCCLU of Lipase. Does FIP

> and FCCLU just mean the same thing?

>

> Much thanks for any advice!

> Marcie

>

>