ANTI-AGING AND HEALING MOLECULES: ENZYMES: THE SECRET OF OUR VITALITY

 ANTI-AGING AND HEALING MOLECULES: ENZYMES

 THE SΕCRET OF ΟUR ΒΙΤΑΛΙΤΥ

Enzymes are the true workers of our cells. They are essential components of Dr. Cousens’ extensively researched “Top 22 Most Recommended Food Energies.” Dr. Cousens states, “With regular use of oral enzyme supplements, the body’s enzyme production burden becomes much less, so the number of years the body can produce these can actually be extended.” It is our enzymes that create the spark in order to maintain our bodies’ optimal function. Everyone would benefit from taking extra plant based enzymes for the following reasons:

• Digesting cooked food
• Reducing inflammation after strenuous exercise
• Attaining optimal weight
• Slowing the aging process
• Enhancing immunity
• Cleansing and rebuilding organs and tissues
• Detoxifing internal pollution

Enzymes are much more sensitive to heat and cold than vitamins or minerals. Food cooked over 118 degrees for more than ½ hour will kill all naturally occurring enzymes. Your body has a certain amount of its own enzyme reserve which gradually weaken with age. Without additional outside supplementation or eating a live food diet, your body will have limited enzyme resources. A healthy digestive system is essential for good health, vitality and rejuvenation. A great part of our immune system resides in our digestive tract.

The three main categories of enzymes are: digestive, metabolic and enzymes from food (specifically found in raw foods). Examples of digestive enzymes are protease (digests protein), amylase (digests starch), lipase (digests fat). Here is a list of some of our best enzymes available.

Virtually all living things - including those we cook and eat - contain enzymes. Enzymes, which act as the spark plugs for the vast majority of chemical reactions that make life possible, are a sine qua non for life.

Although most food eaten in the United States has been cooked, which inactivates the enzymes it contains, all the plant and animal foods in our meals are derived from once-living, enzyme-abundant things.

Over 2,500 different kinds of enzymes are found in living things. All enzymes are proteins, very special kinds of proteins that act as catalysts. Enzymes give our body chemistry its vitality, literally giving our metabolism a jump start. Plus, as molecules that enable the breaking down of our food, they also play a critically important role within our digestive system. Enzymes in our saliva allow us to break apart starches. Enzymes in our stomach help us break apart proteins. Enzymes in our intestines help us break apart fats, proteins, and carbohydrates of all kinds.

When we eat fresh, uncooked foods, those foods can still contain active enzymes. When we chew a freshly picked leaf of lettuce, we break the cells in the leaf apart, releasing its nutrients, including enzymes. Enzymes are not automatically destroyed by the acids or temperatures in our digestive tract. Enzymes in the stomach - called gastric enzymes - are specially designed to function in the stomach's extremely acid conditions and are critical to our health. Our bodies can overheat from fever, extreme exercise or summer weather, but not to temperatures that will prevent the enzymes inside us from continuing to function.

Our digestive tract has specialized areas for absorbing large molecules, including enzymes (which are proteins), from food into our bloodstream. These areas house our M cells. M cells are specialized cells designed to selectively deliver large molecules from our intestines into our cells and bloodstream. The passing of enzymes from a mother to her nursing newborn is a good example of this M cell function. A mother's milk contains the milk sugar, lactose. An enzyme called lactase is needed to digest lactose, but an infant's body is not yet capable of manufacturing this enzyme. So, the mother sends lactase along with her milk, and in this way enables the baby to digest and absorb its lactose.

Ordinarily, we cook food at temperatures at least twice that of normal body temperature. For this reason, fresh, raw plant foods are our primary source of food enzymes. (Due to their high potential for bacterial contamination, most animal foods would be too risky for us to eat raw). While there have been no large scale, controlled studies to document the impact of enzyme-containing, fresh, raw plant foods on digestion and health, practitioners in fields of complementary, natural, and functional medicine have used enzyme supplementation successfully to help treat a wide variety of health problems and have long advocated the inclusion of fresh, organic, raw plant foods in the diet.

Source: The Worlds Healthiest Foods

Role of Enzymes in Biochemical Reactions

Introduction - Enzyme Characteristics:

A living system controls its activity through enzymes. An enzyme is a protein molecule that is a biological catalyst with three characteristics. First, the basic function of an enzyme is to increase the rate of a reaction. Most cellular reactions occur about a million times faster than they would in the absence of an enzyme. Second, most enzymes act specifically with only one reactant (called a substrate) to produce products. The third and most remarkable characteristic is that enzymes are regulated from a state of low activity to high activity and vice versa. Gradually, you will appreciate that the individuality of a living cell is due in large part to the unique set of some 3,000 enzymes that it is genetically programmed to produce. If even one enzyme is missing or defective, the results can be disastrous.

Enzyme Parts List:

The activity of an enzyme depends, at the minimum, on a specific protein chain. In many cases, the enzyme consists of the protein and a combination of one or more parts called cofactors. This enzyme complex is usually simply referred to simply as the enzyme.

Apoenzyme: The polypeptide or protein part of the enzyme is called the apoenzyme and may be inactive in its original synthesized structure. The inactive form of the apoenzyme is known as a proenzyme or zymogen. The proenzyme may contain several extra amino acids in the protein which are removed, and allows the final specific tertiary structure to be formed before it is activated as an apoenzyme.

Cofactors: A cofactor is a non-protein substance which may be organic, and called a coenzyme. The coenzyme is often derived from a vitamin with specific examples discussed later.

Another type of cofactor is an inorganic metal ion called a metal ion activator. The inorganic metal ions may be bonded through coordinate covalent bonds. The major reason for the nutritional requirement for minerals is to supply such metal ions as Zn⁺², Mg⁺², Mn⁺², Fe⁺², Cu⁺², K⁺¹, and Na⁺¹ for use in enzymes as cofactors.

Final Enzyme: The type of association between the cofactor and the apoenzymes varies. In some cases, the bonds are rather loose and both come together only during the course of a reaction. In other cases, they are firmly bound together by covalent bonds. The activating role of a cofactor is to either: activate the protein by changing its geometric shape, or by actually participating in the overall reaction.

The overall enzyme contains a specific geometric shape called the active site where the reaction takes place. The molecule acted upon is called the substrate.

Enzyme Nomenclature and Classification:

Enzymes are commonly named by adding a suffix "-ase" to the root name of the substrate molecule it is acting upon. For example, Lipase catalyzes the hydrolysis of a lipid triglyceride. Sucrase catalyzes the hydrolysis of sucrose into glucose and fructose.

A few enzymes discovered before this naming system was devised are known by common names. Examples are pepsin, trypsin, and chymotrypsin which catalyzes the hydrolysis of proteins.

Source: Virtual Chembook