Diet all you want, but without digestive enzymes, your efforts are a waste of time.
Digestive enzymes keep us alive. They take the food we eat and break it down into the nutrients our bodies need to survive, thrive, and reach our fitness goals. If digestive enzymes are low, we can’t fully digest our food and all sorts of digestive and overall health woes follow.
When you’re working hard to eat a healthy diet, balance your macros, and consume lots of healing, healthy food, you don’t want to flush all of that good work down the toilet! Digestive enzymes ensure all your effort pays off.
But here’s the catch…
As we age, our bodies produce fewer and fewer digestive enzymes. All that gas, bloating, constipation, low muscle mass, and high body fat could be linked to low enzymes. Supplementing with digestive enzymes might be the key you’ve been missing.
What Are Digestive Enzymes?
Digestive enzymes are like tiny pairs of scissors. They’re substances that are responsible for breaking food down into the smallest possible components so they can be absorbed into your body.
There’s a long list of digestive enzymes in your body, but the three main types are:
- Amylase: This enzyme breaks down carbs into sugar molecules. When we eat things like bread and pasta, amylase goes to work to break down that carb into sugar, allowing the sugars to enter your cells and be used as fuel for energy.
- Lipase: This enzyme works with your liver bile to break down fats. If we don’t have enough lipase, one result is a deficiency in fat-soluble vitamins, like A, D, E, and K.
- Protease: This enzyme breaks down proteins into amino acids. It can also help keep bacteria and yeast out of your intestines. A yeast overgrowth can cause many more unpleasant digestive issues. Lack of protease may also lead to certain allergies or toxicity in your intestines.
The Connection Between Digestive Enzymes and Weight Gain
Over 22 million Americans experience gastrointestinal problems because of incomplete digestion, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Insufficient digestive enzymes is a major cause of incomplete digestion.
Without enough enzymes, our bodies cannot digest food, leading to a number of gastrointestinal problems, like indigestion, heartburn, gas, bloating, diarrhea, and constipation. Undigested food can also lead to intestinal inflammation and even gastrointestinal infections.
Incomplete digestion also plays a role in your weight. When food is not digested correctly, it can lead to malabsorption syndrome, which can cause nutrient deficiencies. This can potentially lead to weight gain as your body tries to store more calories than it can use.
Malnutrition is also bad news for your metabolism and body composition. If your body is incapable of breaking down and absorbing nutrients, including protein, you could start losing weight. But as the number on the scale dwindles, so does your lean muscle mass.
Lean muscle mass is incredibly hard to build. Our bodies need enough calories and protein to sustain our muscle mass as we age. If we lose weight from our lean muscle mass, our metabolisms take a hard hit. Our bodies start burning fewer calories and storing more fat. With a sluggish metabolism, long-term fat loss becomes a steep uphill battle.
Digestive Enzymes and The Hunger Hormone
Leptin is a hormone that helps regulate your appetite and weight. When leptin is high, it signals to your brain that your body has enough energy and doesn’t need to keep eating. Leptin allows you to feel full and satiated.
When leptin is low, it signals to your brain that your body is hungry and needs more food. Low leptin increases hunger and can lead to overeating.
When your digestive enzymes are low, your body won’t be able to digest your food properly, causing you to feel hungry and overeat. Leptin increases when we overeat. Chronic overeating leads to leptin resistance—a condition where the body does not respond properly to the hormone leptin.
Leptin resistance is believed to be one of the main contributors to obesity. It also may play a role in conditions like type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
What Causes Low Digestive Enzymes?
There are a number of reasons why you may not produce enough digestive enzymes. Low stomach acid, a lack of the hormone cholecystokinin produced by your pancreas, or even certain medications can interfere with the production of digestive enzymes.
But we all hit a point in time when our bodies slow down their enzyme production. As we age, our bodies produce fewer digestive enzymes, and the decline begins earlier than you’d think.
After age 20, your body starts producing fewer enzymes which can make digesting certain foods harder. Replenishing them can help you improve digestion and dodge the side effects.
Why Women Need Digestive Enzymes
As we age, most of us women produce fewer of these important natural enzymes that help us break down our food and absorb the nutrients our bodies need to feel our absolute best. Because of this reduction in naturally occurring digestive enzymes, women experience more heartburn, reflux, inability to tolerate foods like protein and fiber, and weight gain.
If your body is unable to effectively break down the nutrients in your diet, you’ll feel sluggish, tired, and unwell overall. That’s a hard battle to fight when trying to lose weight and feel your best.
The 7 Big Benefits Of Digestive Enzymes
If you’re a woman over the age of 40, a digestive enzyme supplement can help you:
Improve Nutrient Absorption
With fewer digestive enzymes as we age, women can experience reduced efficiency in breaking down food and absorbing nutrients. Supplementing with digestive enzymes can help you break down fats, proteins, and carbohydrates, ensuring your body receives the essential nutrients it needs.
Relieve Digestive Issues
Women over 40 commonly experience digestive discomforts like bloating, gas, and indigestion. Digestive enzymes can help alleviate these symptoms by supporting the breakdown of food and reducing the workload on your digestive system.
Manage Weight
Inadequate digestion can contribute to weight gain or difficulty in losing weight. Digestive enzymes can help you break down food more efficiently and support your weight loss efforts.
Reduce Acid Reflux and Heartburn
Age-related changes in stomach acid can lead to acid reflux and heartburn. Digestive enzymes can help improve digestion and reduce the likelihood of these symptoms.
Enhance Gut Health
A well-functioning digestive system can transform your body composition and overall health. Digestive enzymes promote a healthy balance of gut bacteria and can reduce your risk for gut-related issues like leaky gut syndrome.
Age More Gracefully
Certain health conditions are more prevalent as we age, like lactose intolerance or gluten sensitivity. Digestive enzymes that target specific food components like lactase (which breaks down lactose) or protease (which breaks down gluten) can help women manage these conditions.
Increase Energy Levels
A healthy, functioning digestive system allows your body to efficiently convert food into energy. Enzymes can, therefore, help you improve your digestion and boost your energy levels.
Foods Full of Digestive Enzymes
You can increase your digestive enzymes by simply tweaking your diet. These foods alone can transform your digestive system, especially if you’re still in your 20s and 30s. Start including foods that have naturally occurring digestive enzymes in them. Here’s a quick list:
- Pineapple: The enzyme bromelain in pineapple helps our bodies digest proteins.
- Avocados: Avocado contains the enzyme lipase which helps us digest fat.
- Kiwi: Kiwi contains a protease enzyme called actinidine, which helps break down proteins and can help reduce bloating and constipation.
- Ginger: Ginger contains the protease enzyme called zingibane. This helps to break down proteins into amino acids.
- Honey: Honey contains several types of enzymes. Diastasis break down starches, amylases break down starch into sugars like glucose and maltose, and invertases break down sucrose into glucose and fructose. Proteases help break proteins into amino acids.
- Papaya: The papain enzyme in papayas helps us digest proteins.
- Dates: Dates contain natural enzymes that can help soothe digestion pain, gas, and bloating.
- Kimchi and Sauerkraut: These foods contain a probiotic species called bacillus species. This helps your body produce the enzymes proteases, lipases, and amylases. These enzymes allow your body to break down proteins, fats, and carbohydrates.
The Best Digestive Enzymes You Should Take
Here are the digestive enzymes that I personally use and suggest to all of my clients over the age of 40. I recommend that they take digestive enzymes before their biggest meal every day.
Not sure if you need a digestive enzyme supplement? Sometimes a medical professional is required to help us make a diagnosis and come up with a treatment plan to help improve our health issues. A lot of things can lead to digestive upset, not just a lack of digestive enzymes. Illnesses, bacteria, viruses, and other medical therapies can cause digestive issues.
If you’re feeling poorly and not improving, are having chronic digestive issues like constipation, diarrhea, and vomiting, or are experiencing extremely low energy despite eating a healthy balanced diet, talk to your doctor. They can help you determine whether digestive enzymes are the fix you need.
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