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 help 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. 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 protein eating (Proteolytic) enzymes have the following actions:
1) Enzymes are heat sensitive. Temperatures of 105 to 125 degrees F kill enzymes and their related activity. So cooked foods have virtually nothing in the way of enzymes. Enzymes cultured in laboratories can be made with an increased resistance to heat both in terms of degrees and in terms of time exposed to higher temps but overall the enzymes in food die from cooking.
2) Many scientists and physicians in the US still believe that enzymes are too big to pass through the intestinal tract and get into the blood stream intact. Something the size of Pac Man when compared to the dots he eats cannot possibly be absorbed through the tiny pores of the intestinal membrane. This ignores the medically known fact that Salmonella, a molecule 5 times larger than the largest enzyme, easily passes through the intestinal wall to be absorbed whole, (i.e. without being broken down and digested), into the blood stream. For those late bloomers here in the States – there are over 200 peer reviewed medical and university studies proving beyond the shadow of a doubt not only the absorption of enzymes but also their medical therapeutic actions.
They are the first line of defense against inflammation. Inflammation is a reaction by the immune system to an irritation.It warns us that a part of ourselves is hurt and needs attention. Inflammation is self-perpetuating, itself creating an irritation that the body makes CIC’s to in response.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.
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, itself creating an irritation that the body makes CIC’s to in response!
Aspirin, Ibuprofen, Celebrex 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).
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 everything 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!
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:
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.
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).
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.
The benefits mentioned here have been validated through studies done over the last 40 years on an enzyme blend containing these specific enzymes:
Systemic Enzyme Therapy is a natural method utilizing these unique enzymes to help support reproductive health and fertility. There are many fertility issues that may be supported with the use of systemic enzymes. Plan on using them for at least 3 months or more before you begin trying to get pregnant, depending on how long the issues has been around. Here are some of the issues systemic enzymes may help with:
Systemic Enzyme Therapy is one of the best and most effective natural therapies for endometriosis. Systemic enzymes may help to reduce the scar tissue and breakdown the excess tissues left from endometriosis. The systemic enzymes have been shown in research to reduce the engorgement (swelling and pain) of fibrocystic conditions. They also eat away at the cysts reducing their size or eliminating them over time. With uterine fibroids it is important to also make sure you are reducing your estrogen exposure. And actively getting rid of excess estrogens, this can be done with the estrogen metabolizer DIM.
Using Systemic Enzyme Therapy is one of the two most important natural therapies for uterine fibroids. I have not found a more powerful way of reducing or supporting the body in eliminating uterine fibroids.
1) Carroll A., R.: Clinical examination of an enzymatic anti-inflammatory agent in emergency surgery. Arztl.Praxis 24 (1972), 2307.
2) 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.
3) 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.
4) Celebrex article Wall Street Journal 19 April 1999.
5) No author listed: Regular Use of Pain Relievers Can Have Dangerous Results. Kaleidoscope Interactive News, American Medical Association media briefing. July 24, 1997.
6) Enzymes ñ A Drug of the Future, Prof. Heinrich Wrba MD and Otto Pecher MD. Published 1993 Eco Med.
7) Kakinumu A. et al.: Regression of fibrinolysis in scalded rats by administration of serrapeptase. Biochem.Pharmacol. 31:2861-2866,1982.
8) Ernst E., Matrai A.: Oral Therapy with proteolytic enzymes for modifying blood rheology. KlinWschr. 65 (1987), 994.
9) 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.
10) Jager H.: Hydrolytic Enzymes in the therapy of HIV disease. Zeitschr.Allgemeinmed., 19 (1990), 160.
