By William Wong ND, PhD, Member World Sports
Medicine Hall of Fame The word “systemic” means
body wide. Systemic enzymes are those that operate not just for
digestion but throughout your body in every system and organ. But
let’s take first things first,
What
Is An Enzyme?
An
enzyme is a biocatalyst - something that makes something else work or
work faster. Chemical reactions are generally slow things, enzymes
speed them up. Without enzymes the chemical reactions that make up our
life would be too slow for life as we know it. (As slow as sap running
down a tree in winter). For life to manifest as we know it, enzymes are
essential to speed up the reactions. We have roughly some 3000 enzymes
in our bodies and that results in over 7000 enzymic reactions. Most of
these enzymes are derived or created from what we think of as the
protein digesting enzymes. But while digestion is an important part of
what enzymes do, it's almost the absolute last function. First and
foremost these body wide proteolytic (protein eating) enzymes have the
following actions:
Natural
Anti-Inflammatory.
They
are the first line of defense against inflammation. (1,2,3).
Inflammation is a reaction by the immune system to an irritation.
Let’s say you have an injured right knee. The immune system
sensing the irritation the knee is undergoing creates a protein chain
called a Circulating Immune Complex (CIC for short), tagged
specifically for that right knee. (The Nobel Prize in biology was won
in 1999 by a scientist who discovered this tagging mechanism). This CIC
floats down to the right knee and causes pain, redness and swelling are
the classic earmarks for inflammation. This at first is a beneficial
reaction; it warns us that a part of ourselves is hurt and needs
attention. But, inflammation is self-perpetuating, it creates an
irritation that the body makes CIC’s for!
Aspirin, Ibuprofen, Celebrex, Vioxx and the rest of the Non Steroidal
Anti Inflammatory Drugs all work by keeping the body from making all
CIC's. This ignores the fact that some CIC’s are vital to
life, like those that maintain the lining of the intestine and those
that keep the kidneys functioning! Not to mention the fact that the
NSAID’s, along with acetaminophen, are highly toxic to the
liver. Every year 20,000 Americans die from these over the counter
drugs and another 100,000 will wind up in the hospital with liver
damage, kidney damage or bleeding intestines from the side effects of
these drugs. (4,5).
Systemic
Enzymes
Systemic enzymes on the other hand are perfectly safe and free of
dangerous side effects. They have no LD-50, or toxic dose. (6). Best of
all systemic enzymes can tell the difference between the good
CIC’s and the bad ones because hydrolytic enzymes are lock
and key mechanisms and their "teeth" will only fit over the bad
CIC’s. So instead of preventing the creation of all
CIC’s, systemic enzymes just “eat” the
bad ones and in so doing lower inflammation everywhere. With that, pain
is lowered also.
Enzymes eat scar tissue and fibrosis. (7). Fibrosis is scar tissue and
most doctors learn in anatomy that it is fibrosis that eventually kills
us all. Let me explain. As we age, which starts at 27, we have a
diminishing of the bodies’ output of enzymes. This is because
we make a finite amount of enzymes in a lifetime and we use up a good
deal of them by the time we are 27. At that point the body knows that
if it keeps up that rate of consumption we’ll run out of
enzymes and be dead by the time we reach our 40’s. (Cystic
Fibrosis patients who have virtually no enzyme production to speak of,
even as children usually don’t make it past their
20’s before they die of the restriction and shrinkage in the
lungs from the formation of fibrosis or scar tissue).
So our body in it's wisdom begins to dole out our
enzymes with an eyedropper instead of with a tablespoon; as a result
the repair mechanism of the body goes out of balance and has nothing to
reduce the over abundance of fibrin it deposits in nearly every thing
from simple cuts, to the inside of our internal organs and blood
vessels. This is when most women begin to develop things like
fibrocystic breast disease, uterine fibroids, endometriosis, and we all
grow arterial sclerotic (meaning scar tissue) plaque, and have fibrin
beginning to spider web its way inside of our internal organs reducing
their size and function over time. This is why as we age our wounds
heal with thicker, less pliable, weaker and very visible scars.
If
we replace the lost enzymes we can control and reduce the amount of
scar tissue and fibrosis our bodies have. As physicians in the US are
now discovering, even old scar tissue can be “eaten
away” from surgical wounds, pulmonary fibrosis, kidney
fibrosis and even keloids years after their formation. Medical doctors
in Europe and Asia have known this and have used orally administered
enzymes for these situations for over 40 years!
Blood
Cleansing.
The blood is not only the river of life, it is also the river through
which the cells and organs dispose of their garbage and dead material.
Enzymes improve circulation by eating the excess fibrin that causes
blood to sometimes get as thick as catsup or yogurt, creating the
perfect environment for the formation of clots. All of this material is
supposed to be cleared by the liver on its "first pass", or the first
time it goes through but given the sluggish and near toxic or toxic
states of everyone's liver these days that seldom happens. So the
sludge remains in the blood waiting for the liver to have enough free
working space and enough enzymes to clean the trash out of the blood.
This can take days, and in some cases, weeks! (8).
When systemic enzymes are taken, they stand ready in
the blood and take the strain off of the liver by:
Cleaning excess fibrin from the blood and reducing
the stickiness of blood cells. These two actions minimize the leading
causes of stroke and heart attack causing blood clots. (8).
Breaking dead material down small enough that it can
immediately pass into the bowel. (8).
Cleanse the FC receptors on the white blood cells
improving their function and availability to fight off infection.
(9). And here we come to the only warning we have to give concerning
the use of Vitalzym or any other systemic enzyme - don't use the
product if you are a hemophiliac or are on prescription blood thinners
like Coumadin, Heparin and Plavix, without direct medical supervision.
The enzymes cause the drugs to work better so there is the possibility
of thinning the blood too much.
Immune
System Modulating.
Enzymes are adaptogenic seeking to restore a steady state to the body.
(9). When the immune system is running low we become susceptible to
infectious disease, when it’s cranked up too high then the
system creates antibodies that attack it's own tissues as are seen in
the auto immune diseases of MS, Rheumatoid Arthritis, and Lupus. Here
the enzymes will tone down immune function and eat away at the
antibodies the immune system is making to attack its bodies own tissue.
Virus
Fighting.
Viruses harm us by replicating in our bodies. To do this a virus must
bond itself to the DNA in our cells through the medium of its exterior
protein cell wall. Anything that disrupts that cell wall inhibits the
ability of viral replication by rendering individual viruses inert.
(10,11). Systemic enzymes can tell the difference between the proteins
that are supposed to be in your body and those that are foreign or not
supposed to be there, (again the enzyme lock and key mechanism).
Vitalzym has the strongest protein eating effect of any enzyme due to
its Serrapeptase content and can be of help in combating viruses.
One note: many in the States have learned in school
that enzymes are too big a protein to be absorbed through the gut. The
pioneering research done in the US by Dr. Max Wolf (MD & PhD
x7) at Columbia University in the 40’s through the
70’s has not made it to the awareness of most doctors. There
are currently over 200 peer reviewed research articles dealing with the
absorption, utilization and therapeutic action of orally administered
systemic enzymes. A search through Pub Med using the key words:
serrapeptase, papain, bromelain, trypsin, chymo trypsin, nattokinase
and systemic enzyme will yield some of the extensive work. Systemic
enzymes now have a 4 decade plus history of widespread medical use in
central Europe and Japan. Vitalzym with it's serrapeptase based blend
of enzymes is the strongest and fastest working systemic enzyme on the
planet with research to prove it.
References
Carroll A., R.: Clinical examination of an enzymatic
anti-inflammatory agent in emergency surgery. Arztl. Praxis 24 (1972),
2307.
Mazzone A, et al.: Evaluation of Serratia peptidase
in acute or chronic inflammation of otorhinolaryngology pathology: a
multicentre, double blind, randomized trial versus placebo. J Int Med
Res. 1990; 18(5):379-88.
Kee W., H. Tan S, L., Lee V. Salmon Y. M.: The
treatment of breast engorgement with Serrapeptase: a randomized double
blind controlled trial. Singapore Med J. 1989:30(l):48-54.
Celebrex article Wall Street Journal 19 April 1999.
No author listed: Regular Use of Pain Relievers Can
Have Dangerous Results. Kaleidoscope Interactive News, American Medical
Association media briefing. July 24, 1997.
Enzymes ñ A Drug of the Future, Prof.
Heinrich Wrba MD and Otto Pecher MD. Published 1993 Eco Med.
Kakinumu A. et al.: Regression of fibrinolysis in
scalded rats by administration of serrapeptase. Biochem. Pharmacol.
31:2861-2866,1982.
Ernst E., Matrai A.: Oral Therapy with proteolytic
enzymes for modifying blood rheology. Klin Wschr. 65 (1987), 994.
Kunze R., Ransberger K., et at: Humoral
immunomodulatory capasity of proteases in immune complex decomposition
and formation. First International symposium on combination therapies,
Washington, DC, 1991.
Jager H.: Hydrolytic Enzymes in the therapy of Back
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