Why enzymes are essential to a healthy immune system

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, June, 2006 by Ellen Cutler

Those of us in medicine and health care recognize the importance of maintaining a strong immune system to keep the body disease-free and help all its systems and metabolic processes perform at top efficiency. In my practice, I refer to immune function dozens of times every day. Most people, however, do not realize the central importance that enzymes play in maintaining healthy immune function. Nor the vital role that enzyme therapy can play in reducing or alleviating the painful and debilitating symptoms of chronic immune disorders.

In my 20 years of working with enzyme therapy, I have found that enzymes not only prevent disease but also heal chronic health problems for which many doctors believe we have no medical solutions. My experience has convinced me that no other supplements can offer such dramatic improvements.

What Is an Enzyme?

The majority of us never even give a thought to enzymes, yet without them our bodies could not carry out their most basic functions. In their role as organic catalysts, enzymes make possible the millions of biochemical reactions that take place within us daily. They are the powerful engines that drive every bodily process, including breathing and circulation. They digest food, transport nutrients, carry away toxic wastes, purify the blood, deliver hormones, balance cholesterol and triglycerides, nourish the brain, build protein into muscle, and feed and fortify the endocrine system. On a larger scale, enzymes slow the aging process and support wellness and homeostasis (the body's ability to achieve balance among its many functions).

Enzymes are especially important for healthy immune function. White blood cells are especially rich in enzymes, which help them to digest and destroy any foreign substances--such as viruses and bacteria--that invade the body. Researchers have identified more than 3,000 types of enzymes in the human body, with each one performing a unique function. Every day literally millions of enzymes help to renew, sustain, and protect us, and they themselves renew and change at an incredible rate.

While the body uses its enzymes over and over again, the enzymes can perform only a certain amount of work before they become exhausted and must be replaced. Poor diet, digestive stress, illness, and trauma also reduce them. Aging also reduces the number of enzymes our body produces. This is why we must constantly replenish our enzyme supplies. If we don't, our bodies suffer. When we do not have sufficient enzymes, this takes a toll on virtually every system that depends on enzyme support, especially digestion, immunity, and tissue repair after injury or inflammation.

Enzymes Can Help Maintain a Healthy Immune System

Health practitioners and writers from many different disciplines emphasize the importance and complexity of the immune system and its inter-connectedness with other parts of the body. We all aspire to have a healthy immune defense system. Enzyme therapy is one of the most important tools you can use to achieve this goal.

The immune system does not have one central regulating organ like other body systems. The circulatory system has the heart; the respiratory system has the lungs; and the digestive system has the stomach and intestines. But the immune system's components are located throughout the body, communicating with one another through the immune cells. For example, the bone marrow, thymus gland, and spleen are all considered part of the immune system.

The primary function of the immune system is to stay alert for invasions by disease-causing microorganisms and to distinguish them from the body's own cells. By its standards, anything foreign to the body (a.k.a., an antigen) is a potential enemy. Once the immune system homes in on one of these invading substances, it sets in motion a highly complex response.

The immune system is responsible for maintaining our health when we're well and healing us when we're sick. It is overbuilt to ensure its effectiveness, with hundreds of control mechanisms and backup lines of defense, many of which we're still learning about. Much of the immune system is not yet understood, but we know enough about it to realize that it's essential to our very survival. For this reason, everyone should do what they can to maintain healthy immune function. Enzyme therapy is one important means to this end. Ever since I began taking enzymes more than 25 years ago, I rarely get sick--a sign of an efficient, well-regulated immune system--and my patients who take enzymes report similar improvements in their health and overall well-being.

Undigested Food Can Weaken the Immune System

There is no way that I can overemphasize the importance of good digestion in maintaining a healthy immune system and protecting the body against disease. In my clinical experience, the two primary underlying causes of immune dysfunction are poor digestion and food allergies, which occur when the body is so sensitive to a particular food that it can't properly digest it. When this happens, the undigested food finds its way into the bloodstream where the immune system targets it as a foreign invader and attacks.