Picture this: you’ve just enjoyed a wonderful meal and suddenly realize that you ate too much, or maybe just ate the wrong thing, but your stomach feels off. You feel overly full, bloated, gassy, or maybe you start having bathroom troubles. We’ve all been there. Did you know that digestive enzymes are super helpful in situations like this?
What are digestive enzymes?
Enzymes are proteins that your body makes that essentially help support almost all cellular functions in the body. Digestive enzymes, specifically, help our bodies help break down the food we eat and convert the nutrients into energy in our cells. They literally help prevent food from sitting in your stomach for too long and beginning to rot. Did you know that was even a thing? It is, and it’s not good, as you can imagine!
There are 2 key things that have made a huge impact on my gut health: a quality probiotic and supplementing with digestive enzymes.
So, why supplement with digestive enzymes?
The stomach, small intestines, mouth and pancreas all naturally make digestive enzymes. Food enzymes are also found in raw, unprocessed foods. As we age, our bodies slow down their production of digestive enzymes. Because of this, and as a result of the modern diet and quality of our food today, many people need extra digestion support.
Fresh, raw foods contain enzymes to aid in proper digestion. However, when food is cooked and/or processed, these naturally occurring food enzymes can be destroyed. Processes like pasteurization, sterilization, preservation, freezing, and microwaving can all cause the enzymes in our food to be useless. When our diet doesn’t provide sufficient food enzymes, the body has to spend more resources producing digestive enzymes. This causes there to be fewer resources to produce the important metabolic enzymes, which can affect our health and cellular function. This is why a quality digestive enzyme supplement can be very helpful.
What to look for
A good digestive enzyme will come from whole-food sources and contain a wide variety of enzymes. Make sure it has supporting cofactors that will bind to the enzymes. Many enzymes require a cofactor in order to become active.
This is the digestive enzyme supplement I recommend. It’s a blend of active whole-food enzymes and support cofactors that are often deficient in cooked, processed, preservative-filled foods. The blend is designed to help digest proteins, fats, complex carbs, sugars, and fiber. It also has a special tummy tamer blend to add additional digestive support. Read more about each of the enzymes below. If you’re new to doTerra, message me to get 25% off anything you order!
If you have an account with doTerra, you can actually get the digestive enzymes at an additional discount. If you don’t know how to do that, reach out and I’ll show you!
Enzyme breakdown
- Protease: breaks down protein
- Papain: breaks down protein
- Amylase: breaks down carbohydrates, starches, and sugars
- Lipase: breaks down fats and oils that are absorbed into the intestines
- Lactase: breaks down the lactose found in milk sugars
- Alpha galactosidase: breaks down the complex polysaccharide sugars found in legumes and cruciferous vegetables that often cause bloating and gas
- Cellulase: breaks down fiber to help digest fruits and vegetables
- Sucrase: breaks down sucrose for energy
- Anti-gluten enzyme blend: helps break down gluten
- Glucoamylase: breaks down starches
Whether you use digestive enzymes as an insurance policy around the holidays and other times when you’re more prone to eating heavier foods, or you take them everyday like me, they’re such an impactful way to support digestion and a healthy gut microbiome.
