Fwd: [SoFlaVegans] Twelve Points on Enzymes

December 28, 2006

Note: forwarded message attached.Ronald A. Fells

N3VPU

Amateur Radio Operator

Twelve Points on Enzymes

Compiled by Dr. John Whitman Ray, N.D., Ph.D.

http://www.discoverhealthandwealth.com/articles/enzymes.html

1) Enzymes rule over all other nutrients. Enzymes

are responsible for nearly every facet of life and

health and far outweigh the importance of every other

nutrient.

2) Enzymes are needed to help control all mental

and physical functions. Each body cell has in excess

of 100,000 enzyme particles necessary for metabolic

processes.

3) Enzymes cannot function properly without the

presence of other substances which are known as

coenzymes. Coenzymes are minerals, vitamins and

proteins.

4) Once enzymes have completed their appointed

task, they are destroyed. For life to continue, you

must have a constant enzyme supply which requires

continued replacement of enzymes.

5) Enzymes are found in all living cells including

raw foods or those that are cooked at a temperature

lower than 116 de/grees Fahrenheit. Enzymes begin to

perish when the temperature increases beyond 116

degrees. The degree of enzyme destruction is a

function of time and temperature.

6) Enzymes are primarily proteins, yet enzymes

need amino acids for normal function. Hormones are

primarily proteins which require interaction with

enzymes to regulate bodily processes.

7) Enzymes aid in transforming proteins into amino

acids. Protein does not perform its function unless

broken down into amino acids. Amino Acids can be

considered as an enzyme carrier whose function is to

transport enzymes to various functions in the body.

8) Enzymes help extract minerals from food.

Enzymes transform minerals into an alkaline

detoxifying agent which combines with acid cellular

wastes and toxic settlements within the body, thus

neutralizing them and preparing them for elimination.

9) Enzymes use minerals to create an even balance

of dissolved solids both inside and outside the cells,

thus equalizing both internal and external pressures

which we call osmotic equilibrium.

10) Vitamins are required as coenzymes to work

with enzymes in every chemical reaction in every cell

of the body. Without minerals extracted from food by

enzymes, vitamins would be unable to perform their

function.

11) An Enzyme deficiency must be carefully

considered as a possible precursor of bodily imbalance

and consequent disease symptoms.

12) Enzymes are, therefore, justified as a

supplemental dietary substance which need is parallel

with mineral, vitamin and all other supportive

therapies.

From " Body Electronics Fundamentals " by Douglas

Morrison .

Live Simply So That

Others May Simply Live

December 28, 2006

4) Once enzymes have completed their appointedtask, they are destroyed. For life to continue, youmust have a constant enzyme supply which requirescontinued replacement of enzymes.

The above is not entirely true. Enzymes can be used over and over, but not indefinitely. Below is a lot of copied quotes from a great summary about enzymes and about Dr. Howell's work. You can if you want to read the whole thing.

http://www.medical-library.net/specialties/framer.html?/specialties/_enzyme_therapy.html

by Ron Kennedy, M.D., Santa Rosa, CA

Below are quotes from his article on Enzyme Therapy.

A specialized type of protein is called an "enzyme." Enzymes are protein molecules made by RNA and other enzymes with the ability to facilitate and speed up chemical reactions throughout the body. Enzymes inherit from RNA a full measure of the vital life force originally given to RNA by DNA. Enzymes are both the parents and grandchildren of DNA, the source of our vital life force. In the context of the living body, enzymes are living molecular entities. The slowest known enzyme (lysozyme) processes one substrate every two seconds. The fastest known enzyme (carbonic anhydrase) processes a phenomenal 36 million substrate molecules per minute. The shortest lived enzymes function for twenty minutes, and the longest are around and doing their jobs for several weeks. When an enzyme is worn out, it is broken down and disposed of by other enzymes, its component amino acids and polypeptide chains used to make new enzymes.

For many years it was taught in medical school biochemistry classes that an enzyme was not changed in any way when it performed its function of facilitating and speeding up a reaction. Enzymes were thought to act as true "catalysts," just as some metal ions do in purely non-biochemical chemical reactions. This is now known not to be the case. Enzymes are used up and destroyed in the process of doing their jobs, and the remains must be disposed. They are broken down by other enzymes and new enzymes are made to replace them.

Enzymes do last a long time: from twenty minutes to a few weeks, doing the same job many times before wearing out. Enzyme creation and destruction is happening throughout the body at all times. It only stops when the organism dies and actually not even then as we will now see.

It was also once taught in medical schools that enzymes could not pass through the gut wall and, therefore, any exogenous enzyme would have to first be digested, i.e., broken down to its component amino acids like any other protein, before it could be absorbed and used by the body. It is now known that both enzymes and ordinary proteins can be absorbed whole without being fully digested. The fact of antibody (which is protein) absorption directly through the gut wall is the basis for the transmission of immunity from mother to child through breast feeding. This has enormous therapeutic implications where enzymes are concerned, because once in the body an exogenous enzyme identical in structure to an endogenous enzyme can be used as though it were an endogenous enzyme — the body has no way to distinguish it from an enzyme made inside the body.

Comment on Medical Politics and Dogma

The medical dogma that proteins could not be absorbed without being broken down to the component amino acids died hard in standardized medical circles and medical schools, and this delayed the popular perception of the value of oral enzyme therapy immeasurably. The heyday of enzyme therapy has not yet come in the United States, although it certainly has arrive in other countries, notably Europe and Japan. It is truly unfortunate that the medical establishment in the U.S. is so intensely nationalistic as to believe that if a therapy has not been proven inside the boundaries of the U.S.A., then it is worthless until proven otherwise.

Unfortunately for humans, we have discovered how to cook our food. Cooking destroys the autolytic enzymes contained in food! All enzymes are extremely heat sensitive. If you cook them, they die! While pre-fire man received all the benefits of exogenous enzymes, post-fire man is starved for exogenous enzymes and must rely almost entirely on endogenous digestive enzymes, those he makes for himself.

The Function of Fever

If you raise temperature a few degrees above normal body temperature, enzymes become hyperactive. The enzymes in the immune system are activated and powered up to fight infection by acceleration of the activity of certain white cells which literally eat and digest bacteria. This process is called "phagocytosis," which means literally "eating cells." At 104 degrees Fahrenheit, enzymes and phagocytic cells are at their maximum state of activation. Therefore, a fever should not be artificially brought down unless it exceeds 104 degrees Fahrenheit. At 106 degrees, brain damage (i.e., enzyme destruction) begins. When there is a fever it should be monitored every thirty minutes and treated if it exceeds 104.

Cooking: The Great Nutritional Disaster

If you raise the temperature to 118 degrees for a few minutes enzymes are completely destroyed. It is practically impossible for the body to create such an intense fever; however, cooking can easily exceed this temperature. Therefore, cooking, even at low temperatures, is the death of enzymes.

Since man mastered the use of fire, the practice of cooking food has been with us. From a nutritional standpoint, this was a great disaster. Let me explain that. Enzyme production is so labor-intensive that the eating habits of animals in nature are designed to take advantage of the presence of living enzymes in food. Fortunately for animals, they have not discovered how to cook their food.

The Overgrown Pancreas

Because of cooking, our digestive organs, especially the pancreas, are called upon to do the job of enzyme production alone. In a person who eats even a moderate percentage of cooked food, the pancreas is hypertrophied (overgrown) to two or three times its normal size (that size found in people who eat only raw food).

Animals in the wild eat raw food and their pancreases are approximately 1/3 the size of the typical human pancreas when corrected for body weight. Those animals are busy taking advantage of exogenous digestive enzymes contained in the raw food they eat.

"So what?" you ask. So what, is that you have an organ (the pancreas) which is hypertrophied and is begging, borrowing and stealing from the rest of the body, so that enough enzymes can be produced to digest the food you eat. The precursors of metabolic enzymes, the amino acids and polypeptides, which are needed in the rest of the body are being hogged up by the pancreas to produce digestive enzymes because the pancreas is getting no help from the enzymes contained in raw food. Cooking has destroyed them.

It is this simple: if living enzymes can be derived from food sources, the body does not have to expend its precious energy making digestive enzymes in large quantity. It can utilize that energy in the process of living healthier and longer by concentrating its ability to make enzymes on the production of metabolic enzymes. This is important. If you do not understand this, read it again until you do.

Exogenous Enzymes and Longevity

Lest you still are not taking this discussion seriously, let us consider some research relating to enzymes, health and longevity. Because insects are cold-blooded and short-lived, it is easy to demonstrate the value of enzymes to their longevity. A study done with Daphnia magna, the water flea, demonstrated that raising its environmental temperature from 46 degrees to 82 degrees Fahrenheit cuts its life-span to 1/4 of that at 46 degrees. Increased temperature raises enzyme activity, and when enzyme vitality is used up, life is over.

The same can be said for you, not because of increased temperature — because you are a warm-blooded animal, able to regulate your temperature — but because you deplete your enzyme stores in another way: by eating cooked food and requiring your body to divert precious resources to making digestive enzymes. This shortens your life span and robs you of your natural state of health.

Many people, even people otherwise well-educated in nutrition, do not take the idea of enzyme support seriously. Many seem to think that enzyme support should be done only if the pancreas is weak, while the truth is that it should also be done if it is strong. If the pancreas is strong — enlarged and producing triple doses of enzymes, thus robbing the rest of the body, including the immune system, of precious enzyme precursors — we would do well to supplement endogenous enzyme production with exogenous food enzymes contained in raw foods. People who eat lots of raw food live longer and feel better.

If you are interested in living long and remaining healthy, perhaps I can get your attention with the fact that enzyme production, both digestive and metabolic, decreases with age. When the enzymes finally check out, so do you.

Nancy Parlette HEALTHY LIVING STRATEGIES Natural Health Counselor Nutrition Educator ENERGIZING YOU FOR LIVING!

(410) 531-2410 http://www.healthylivingstrategies.net/