| By :
Ben Mester
Digestive enzymes are proteins that assist in the breakdown of complex chemicals so that they can be absorbed by the body. Most people don't realize just how amazing proteins are, how varied they are in composition and what they're like. Here are a few astounding facts about proteins. The first comes from the book "The Hidden Face of God:" "Each of your seventy five trillion cells is incredibly producing two thousand proteins each second...It makes our heads spin and it should." 2000 every second in every cell! That's pretty amazing, especially when you consider how a protein is made and what shape they take. Proteins are basically just strings of amino acids that our bodies link together and twist into a specific shape. The picture to the right shows you an example. The shape of the protein is very important and proteins are very delicate substances. Heating them up beyond 120 degrees Fahrenheit can cause them to quickly break down, making them useless. Why is that? When something is heated, it undergoes a physical change, not a chemical change. When you heat a protein, it still retains the same chemical makeup of amino acids, but the shape is changed, and is generally rendered useless. The protein is broken down back into its base amino acids and then the body can reabsorb it. If you study proteins in any detail, you start to see how amazing they really are. The differing levels of complexity and the different shapes, along with the different ways the body uses them is really amazing. And it's all made possible by linking the different 20 essential amino acids together one after another in a chain and then twisting the whole chain into a specific shape. That begs another question. Does the body make its own digestive enzymes? The answer is yes. Like you discovered earlier, each cell in your body is producing an average of 2000 proteins a second. It sounds utterly impossible but it's true. Some of those proteins are muscle proteins, other are digestive enzymes and so forth. Protein is everywhere in the body, doing a huge variety of different tasks. But as we age, there is generally a decline in the amount of digestive enzymes the body produces, which is why many people turn to digestive enzyme supplements. But the absolute best method of getting enough digestive enzymes is to ingest a lot of raw vegetables and fruits. In fact, a good trick is to make a fruit shake with fruits and some real yogurt that has lots of probiotic bacteria in it that will also support the digestive system. Some brands of yogurt actually have active probiotic bacteria still alive in the yogurt, which is a great thing, because these bacteria live inside the digestive tract and help people digest and absorb food. So making a fruit shake in the morning with yogurt is a really great way to get both digestive enzymes and probiotic, digestion supporting bacteria. From what I've studied and read, the digestive system is really one of the big battlegrounds where a person's overall health and wellness is decided. Having an efficient, healthy digestive tract will allow you to eat less and absorb more nutrients, keeping all of the other systems of your body fully supplied with the building blocks they need. Having a digestive tract that's inefficient really means that your body will need to consume more food in order to get the same nutritional benefit as someone with an efficient digestive tract, meaning that you'll have to put up with more calories and other things. So I think the choice is clear.
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