The connection between food allergies and weight is a fairly well-known connection. What is less known and rarely addressed is the fact that food allergies are often the result of humans overeating cooked foods and thereby overloading their digestive enzyme capacity.
Aging also plays a role in diminished enzyme activity due to decreased hormone activity and demineralization, which is in itself a phenomenon of reduced enzyme activity.
An allergy is a disorder of the immune system manifesting as an extreme sensitivity to a normally harmless substance (allergen or antigen), resulting in overstimulation of the immune system to that substance.
The human body was designed to eat—and chew well—raw, whole foods. All raw food contains the precise enzymes necessary for that food to digest itself. A raw apple digests itself; a baked apple does not. Our body must produce enzymes to digest that cooked apple, but this does not always happen.
When our bodies don’t produce the proper enzymes to break down food, this undigested food can and often passes into the blood stream, triggering an immune response and depleting our body’s enzyme reserves. This is known as digestive leukocytosis, and has been shown to occur every time one eats cooked food. Digestive leukocytosis is the medical term for the rapid increase of white blood cells (leukocytes) in the blood after eating cooked food that your body uses to finish processing undigested food remnants that have passed through the GI tract and into the blood stream.
This inability to break down foods completely also leads to immune reactions against circulating immune complexes, oxidative stress, intestinal inflammation, leaky gut and, in many cases, eventual weight gain.
As early as 1935, evidence for enzyme treatment of food allergies was published in medical journals. In the American Journal of Digestive Disease and Nutrition 1935/36, Anton W. Oelgoetz MD et al. demonstrated that administration of enzymes resolved food allergies in most patients. “…food allergy may be caused by a decrease in the concentration of serum enzymes, which permits whole…proteins to reach the cells, where, because they cannot be used as food, they exert their own physiological action which is essentially that of irritation.” (Inflammation) “…allergy to foods is caused by an excess of food…with reference to the (deficiency of the)…necessary quantity of enzymes for complete digestion …”
What Are Circulating Immune Complexes (CIC’s)?
Antibodies are specialized proteins attached to the surface of antigens (the substance causing an allergy), forming the antibody-antigen complex. These antibody-antigen immune complexes allow the body to identify, break down this immune complex, and eliminate the antigen. Immune complexes can originate from incompletely digested food, pollen and other air-born allergens, or environmental toxins. They are a source of chronic stress. When the body cannot eliminate these immune complexes they are known as Circulating Immune Complexes (CIC’s) and can circulate in the body for weeks, months, even years.
CIC’s are the “background noise” of the immune system; the trouble the body continually tries to recognize. CIC’s have been identified in allergies, asthma, cancer, autoimmune diseases, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, and many other illnesses. A few studies have shown enzymes to be the only substance to thoroughly eliminate CIC’s from the body.
Enzymes Are The Alpha And Omega Of The Immune System
Our immune system relies on a variety of elements to protect us from foreign invaders, such as bacteria, molds, fungi/yeast spores, and viruses. We also are exposed to many non-pathogenic allergens like animal dander, dust mites, plant pollens, and environmental pollutants like household chemicals, pesticides, and heavy metals.
White blood cells produce enzymes while engulfing pathogenic microorganisms to destroy and digest them. This is called phagocytosis. When stimulated by foreign matter in close proximity to its membrane, all cells have the ability to behave like white blood cells. They can trap undigested food, microorganisms, and other allergens, and then engulf and digest the matter with enzymes. This is pinocytosis.
Enzymes are used in the liver to break down chemicals and safely eliminate them. However, in today’s excessively synthetic world, exposure to toxins may overwhelm the kidneys, liver, and lymphatic system. Without a continuous supply of simple enzymes from food or supplements, these organs become stressed, further hindering critical detoxification and elimination.
Based on this new paradigm, allergies can be seen to be an exaggerated immune response due to underlying chronic enzyme deficiencies. Allergies are evidence of the body’s inability to break down and eliminate material entering the body.
What Is The Best Solution?
Enzymes offer the best chance for full recovery for those suffering from allergies because:
- Enzymes taken with meals can prevent and rectify food allergies
- Systemic enzymes taken between meals break apart circulating immune complexes, relieving the burden on the immune system.
Over time, using specific enzyme formulas and implementing a detoxification program to relieve the lymphatic system will resolve allergic reactions without side effects. Modifying what one consumes daily relieves much of one’s dietary stress and allows for rapid recovery. Eventually, many people are able to return to foods that once caused allergic response without having any reaction.
Enzymes From An Enzyme Company
How good are your enzymes? We recommend Transformation Enzymes (TEC) for both digestive and systemic enzymes for many reasons. TEC enzymes are better researched, formulated and have broader and more complete activity than others we have worked with.
Many nutritional supplement companies market a few enzyme products that lack the strength, completeness or have the activity levels needed to really be effective for enzyme therapies. Enzymes are a specialty in and of themselves. There are basic enzyme formulas for general digestion, GI inflammatory issues, gall bladder insufficiency and systemic purposes.
We welcome the opportunity to discuss and review your clinical needs in this important area and offer:
- A complete TEC catalog of Enzyme Products
- A FREE review and analysis of your current enzyme products
- Case Consultations concerning the selection of appropriate enzyme formulas.
Please feel free to contact us at 864-408-8320 ext. 102.
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