Science Facts Sundays: Enzyme Nutrition Introduction – The Enzyme Complex & The Food Enzyme Concept (Part 1)

Welcome to Science Facts Sundays.

This week we are beginning the journey through Dr. Edward Howell’s ground-breaking book, Enzyme Nutrition, The Food Enzyme Concept – Unlocking the Secrets of Eating Right for Health, Vitality, and Longevity. I read this book several years ago with much interest, and am excited to be combing through it again.

Published in 1985, this book was written by Dr. Howell when he was in his late eighties. A pioneering biochemist and nutrition researcher, Dr. Howell began his study of food enzymes and how they affect human health in the 1920′s – right around the time Dr. Weston A. Price was connecting the dots between tooth decay and modern diets.

In 1930, Dr. Howell began utilizing nutritional therapies in his own facility, where he used the concepts described in this book to treat chronic ailments.

Our modern diet is severely lacking natural, unprocessed foods. Although unrefined foods are vital to our health, we are plagued with degenerative diseases. Why?

Dr. Howell discovered natural elements already in our food play a key role in longevity – and it’s not just the vitamins and minerals. Food enzymes play a vital role in health, and this book will show you why – and how.

Although we will learn all the details in this book, I want you to know where Dr. Howell is coming from. Here is the Enzyme Nutrition concept in a nutshell, from Dr. Howell’s own mouth:

The length of life is inversely proportional to the rate of exhaustion of the enzyme potential of an organism. The increased use of food enzymes promotes a decreased rate of exhaustion of the enzyme potential.

In other words, Dr. Howell believed that as we age, our internal enzymes become depleted, thus leading to chronic illnesses.

Dr. Howell may or may not have correctly assessed the how’s and why’s (do we really have a store of enzymes? can we conserve them? do they really run out?), but he was a man ahead of his time. We have much to learn from this book about enzymes – much of which is being proven in new ways by modern science.

Join me as we lean everything there is to know about Enzyme Nutrition. If I am moving too slow for you, consider purchasing your own copy of Enzyme Nutrition. Warning: it is not an easy read! As a biochemist, Dr. Howell uses impressive words, as did most men of his era. This is a book that you will need to read slowly so you can absorb it (at least I do!).

This week our focus is The Enzyme Complex, and The Food Enzyme Concept (written in my own words, from the view of the author):

Although the view has been that enzymes work by mere presence, are not used up, and come from an unlimited supply, the Enzyme Concept maintains that enzyme potential is both limited and exhaustible.

More than catalysts, which work by chemical reaction only, enzymes also have biological action.

Enzymes contain proteins and often vitamins which can be synthesized by chemists. But what chemists can not synthesize is the “life principle” or “activity factor” of the enzyme. The best way to describe enzymes are “protein carriers charged with vital energy factors.”

Why is it that we, as humans, now have several hundred different diseases and ailments that afflict us. How is it that wild animals aren’t affected by as many diseases and afflictions? Do they know something we don’t know? We shall see.

First let’s look at the different types of enzymes: metabolic enzymes, digestive enzymes, and food enzymes.

Metabolic enzymes are those which run our bodies. These enzymes take proteins, fats, and carbohydrates and use them to heal and repair damage in the body. There are more than a thousand different kinds of metabolic enzymes, nearly a hundred identified as working in the arteries alone.

Digestive enzymes, as you probably guessed, digest our food. Proteases are enzymes responsible for digesting protein; amylases digest carbohydrates; and lipases digest fat.

Food enzymes are enzymes occurring naturally in the food we eat. These enzymes are available by design to lighten the load of the digestive enzymes, according to the Law of Adaptive Secretion of Digestive Enzymes. Herein lies the key – if we allow the available enzymes in our food to aid in digestion, we won’t have to use up the digestive enzymes stored in our bodies.

The Food Enzyme Concept gives us a new way of looking at disease. According to this concept, when we ingest the enzymes in raw food or in supplemental enzymes, it results in a significant degree of digestion.

Now if we were to heat all of our food, thus destroying the food enzymes, our body will need to create an excess of digestive enzymes. The enzyme potential may thus be less focused on metabolic enzymes, and the ability to heal and repair may be compromised.

In most people, digestive enzymes are being used up with reckless abandon. Although there are less than two dozen digestive enzymes, our bodies spend more energy creating these few digestive enzymes than it does on the thousands of metabolic enzymes that are essential for health.

That’s it for today! I hope you learned something Check back next week as we continue to discuss Dr. Edward Howell’s book, Enzyme Nutrition and focus on The Law of Adaptive Secretion of Digestive Enzymes and The Food-Enzyme Stomach.