Digestive enzymes are substances that are secreted by the salivary glands and cells lining the stomach, pancreas, and small intestine in order to help you digest your food.
Digestive enzymes are released when:
-We anticipate eating
-We smell and taste food
-Our bodies through the digestive process
The breakdown of certain nutrients in some foods require specific digestive enzymes and deficiencies in these particular digestive enzymes could lead to a variety of health conditions.
Of the various digestive enzymes in our bodies, the most important ones are:
-Amylase
-Lipase
-Lactase
-Sucrase
-Peptidase
-Maltase
Let’s take a closer look at each:
- Amylase is important for digesting carbohydrates as it breaks down starches into sugars.
- Lipase is known to break down fats into fatty acids and glycerol (aka simple sugar alcohol)
- Lactase breaks down the sugar found in dairy products known as lactose.
- Sucrase is responsible for breaking down sucrose into fructose and glucose.
- Peptidase is the digestive enzyme that breaks down protein into amino acids as well as playing a role in immune function, blood clotting, and cell division.
- Maltase is released from the small intestine in order to break down maltose into glucose.
A variety of foods as well as nutritional supplements can help to introduce digestive enzymes into one’s system if there is a deficiency in one or more.