Enzymes

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Another article that was posted which I found interesting...just

posting it for anyone who may be interested. Lili

 

Enzymes

 

The Missing Link to Health

 

There is convincing evidence derived from the works of Drs. Francis

Pottinger, Jr.,1 Weston Price2 and Edward Howell3 that the

destruction of enzymes in the cooking and processing of food is,

perhaps, the most significant factor in chronic and degenerative

diseases in both humans and animals. It begins with a phenomenon

known as digestive leukocytosis.

 

" Leukocytosis " is a pathological condition defined in Dorlands

Illustrated Medical Dictionary as " a transient increase in the number

of leukocytes in the blood, resulting from various causes, such as

hemorrhage, fever, infection, inflammation, etc. "

 

Leukocytosis was first discovered in 1846. At first, it was

considered normal because everyone who was tested had it. Paul

Kautchakoff, M.D.4 later found that leukocytosis was not normal. In

fact, the major cause of leukocytosis was discovered to be the eating

of cooked food. An entire category of leukocytosis was classified

as " digestive leukocytosis, " that is, the elevation of the white

blood cell level in response to the lack of enzymes in the cooked

food in the intestine. It is pathological because the pancreas was

never intended to provide 100% of the digestive enzymes needed.

 

Dr. Kautchakoff divided his findings into four classifications

according to the severity of the pathological reaction in the blood:

 

Raw food produced no increase in the white blood cell count.

Commonly cooked food caused leukocytosis.

Pressure cooked food caused even greater leukocytosis.

Man-made, processed and refined foods, such as carbonated beverages,

alcohol, vinegar, white sugar, flour, and other foods, caused severe

leukocytosis. Cooked, smoked and salted animal flesh brought on

violent leukocytosis consistent with ingesting poison.

This phenomenon occurs after eating cooked food, since prolonged heat

above 118 degrees Fahrenheit destroys enzymes in food. Three minutes

in boiling water destroys the enzymes; pasteurization destroys 80% to

95%; and baking, frying, broiling, stewing and canning destroys 100%.

Nature designed food with sufficient enzymes within it to digest that

food when it is ingested. When enzymes are destroyed by cooking or

other processing, ingesting that food triggers the body's immune

system, and it responds with leukocytosis.

 

Many health professionals are coming to the conclusion that this

syndrome is an abusive scenario that puts significant stress on the

pancreas, accounting for the enlarged pancreases of people in

industrialized societies, and contributing to blood sugar problems

such as diabetes and hypoglycemia, as well as the proliferation of

chronic degenerative disease.

 

What Is An Enzyme?

 

The medical dictionary defines an enzyme as " a protein produced in a

cell capable of greatly accelerating, by its catalytic action, the

chemical reaction of a substance (the substrate) for which it is

specific. "

 

This is the standard definition taught in medical school. But more

significantly, enzymes are the body's workers. Enzymes operate on a

biological and chemical level, perhaps even the radiological level,

and although vitamins, minerals, hormones, proteins and other

substances are essential to life, it is enzymes that perform the work

and utilize these substances in restoring, repairing and maintaining

health and life. Enzymes are the closest thing to what can be

described as a " life force. " Without them, life would not exist. In

fact, when enzyme levels fall below a given level in any living

system, life ceases.

 

Attempts to produce synthetic enzymes have failed. Science has

identified over 80,000 different enzyme systems, and it is suspected

that there may be hundreds of thousands, even millions of different

types of enzymes. Yet although science endeavors to know what certain

types of enzymes are made of, no one has yet been able to directly

measure or take a picture of one.

 

What Do Enzymes Do?

 

Enzymes build, orchestrate and unify the physical _expression we

call " life. " They seem to know precisely what to do and when to do

it. They " assemble " molecules during their formative growth and they

take molecules apart when individual cells are fractured. Enzymes

create and modulate every system in the body. Enzymes help assemble a

human body from a one-cell organism into a 50 to 70 trillion-cell

life form. Enzymes are involved in repairing the body when it is

damaged; they transport, use, and transform oxygen molecules and

every other nutrient the body needs; they break down metabolic waste

and the by-products of cells; they quench free radicals, and they

split off unwanted molecules from nutrients, adding necessary ones.

The physical existence of every human being and the existence of all

other living organisms is totally dependent upon the ability of

enzymes to do their job.

 

Cells can even create " customized " enzymes for specific purposes. For

example, prior to 1947 cyanocobalamin, the commercial form of vitamin

B-12, did not exist, yet the body is usually able to custom

manufacture an enzyme to split off the cyanide molecule from the

cobalamin which was added in the manufacturing process to stabilize

the product and increase shelf-life. Unless the appropriate enzyme is

created and removes the cyanide, cyanocobalamin is biologically inert

in the body. There have been documented cases where infants have been

harmed or worse from receiving B-12 (cyanocobalamin) shots because

the infants body lacked the ability to make the appropriate enzyme to

split the cyanide molecule off. The result was cyanide poisoning.

 

Enzymes do things that in a laboratory require up to 2,000 degrees

Fahrenheit to duplicate. They are present in raw food in direct

proportion to the proteins, complex carbohydrates, lipids and other

food constituents that exist there. Food enzymes break food down so

its constituents are small enough to pass into the blood or lymph

system, enabling the body to effectively utilize them.

 

Eating cooked or manufactured food forces the body to call upon the

immune system to donate enzymes in the digestive process, a process

nature did not intend the immune system to participate in habitually.

It was meant to function as a back up. But when it is chronically

called upon to fulfill this role, it creates a stress upon the body

that contributes to premature aging and a pathological enlargement of

the pancreas, with chronic depletion of metabolic enzymes from white

blood cells. The immune systems primary defense mechanism in the

blood is the secretion of appropriate enzymes by specialized blood

cells that disassemble foreign substances that threaten the local

ecology. When food is eaten that does not have sufficient enzyme

levels within it to accomplish digestion, the condition such an

insufficiency creates triggers the immune response. The sleepy,

lethargic feeling many people get after eating is a symptom of the

depletion the body suffers in this process. There are simply not

enough metabolic enzymes left in the blood after eating to run the

body at pre-meal levels. The depletion results in a loss of energy

taken from operating the body to digest what was ingested.

 

How Does the Body Get Its Enzymes?

 

We are born with the ability to produce our own metabolic enzymes, an

ability that appears to be limited. Dr. Edward Howell equated it to

being born with an enzyme bank account that is finite. We have an

enzyme capability designed to last our entire lifetime. How often we

make withdrawals and how big they are determines our

enzyme " balance, " and that balance affects the level of health we

enjoy. It may also affect the length of our life span. Constantly

writing checks out of our enzyme account without making deposits ends

up running our body on deficits. These deficits inevitably show up as

problems in the body. Those who write lots of checks and make few

deposits, sooner or later are likely to end up with degenerative and

other disease.

 

Of course, we also get enzymes from outside sources other than food,

such as those made by a variety of intestinal bacteria. Lactose

intolerance, is a deficiency in ß-galactosidase, a lactose digesting

enzyme made by certain strains of acidophilus bacteria living in the

intestine. If the bacteria in the intestine does not exist in

sufficient numbers to produce enough ß-galactosidase, an intolerance

to dairy products may result.

 

Due to modern food processing, packaging, and preparations that make

longer shelf-life possible, prepared food is essentially dead

relative to human and animal nutritional needs. Over 80% of the

average American diet today is comprised of processed and fast food.

Food is even irradiated without being labeled to give consumers an

informed choice, thereby destroying enzymes without cooking

 

http://www.healthstar.com/Pages/WhyEnzymes1.html