Food intolerance and enzymes

Have you ever experienced discomfort after consuming milk and cereals together? What do pizza, bread, milkshakes and ice-cream have in common and do you find it difficult to digest? If the answer is ‘YES’ then read on. If the answer is ‘NO’, then definitely read on and think about it, because you probably haven’t caught the body signals yet.

Suprisingly, majority of the people find it difficult to digest these food items and treat it wrongly as simple acidity or indigestion. The main underlying cause can be protein — gluten and the sugar molecule – lactose.

Currently gluten and lactose intolerance are major cause of concern as today’s tremendously changed lifestyles have led to changed eating habits. Good traditional eating habits have been replaced by high consumption of fast food and low consumption of fruits and vegetables.

Gluten digestion is challenging as the two main groups of the proteins in gluten, gliadin and glutenin are extremely difficult to digest. Undigested proline rich peptides from gluten trigger the immune system to attack the inner lining of the small intestine; resulting in varying levels of gluten sensitivity reactions.

Gluten intolerance is mainly characterised by indigestion, gas, abdominal bloating, decreased appetite with various allergic reactions like rashes. Experts recommend that first step is to get tested for a wheat allergy and for celiac disease. If both of those are negative, then doctor may recommend a gluten elimination diet. If symptoms improve on a gluten-free diet, then gluten sensitivity is confirmed.

The second tough digesting molecule is nothing but the lactose in our diet. Lactose intolerance is a problem of inability to digest the lactose sugar mainly found in milk and dairy products due to lack or insufficiency of lactase enzyme. Infants and young children produce lactase enzyme for digesting milk, since milk is to be an important food in the early stages of life. However, by 3 to 7 years old, many children lose their capacity to produce lactase enzyme.

It has been observed that the lactose intolerance is occurred, besides hereditary lactase deficiency, by lowering of the lactase activity of the intestinal mucosa due to various causes like damage, atrophy, edema, inflammation, osteoporosis or changes in cellular function of intestinal mucosa. It is characterised by gastrointestinal distress caused by ingested food containing the disaccharide lactose which is hydrolysed during the digestive process to glucose and galactose.

Lactose intolerance is diagnosed clinically by several methods like Lactose Tolerance Test, Hydrogen Breath Test, and Stool Acidity Test. A simple way at home to do it is to first, avoid milk and lactose containing food for several days. Then on a free morning, such as a Saturday, drink two large glasses of skim or low fat milk (14-16 oz). If symptoms develop within four hours, the diagnosis of lactose intolerance is fairly certain.

Currently gluten and lactose intolerances have been treated by a gluten-free and lactose-free diet, which is not a right solution. The right solution to this problem is to take exogenous enzymes in the form of supplements.

Advanced Enzyme Technologies, Thane (AETL), manufactures enzymes from different origins viz., plant and those obtained by microbial fermentation. Now, among the wide array of enzymes made by AETL, find a way to these problems by providing the unique solutions through natural enzymes for gluten intolerance which is principally Dipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPPIV) a specific enzyme that breaks down proline-enriched peptides from gluten to cleave its peptide bonds internally and externally. Breaking down these proteins can help alleviate the symptoms associated with gluten sensitivity and prevent further damage to the body and lactase enzyme supplement that digests lactose. Lactase breaks lactose into a form that can be easily absorbed by the blood i.e. glucose and galactose.