Best Digestive Enzyme Expert Reviews of Digestive Products
Understanding when to take digestive enzymes is something that no person gets from the first try. Taking digestive enzymes is usually suggested before meals or in the morning before your day starts but depending on your natural enzyme levels along with the reactions your body goes through with the specific foods you eat, it can all depend.
There’s a lot of debate about when is the best time. Should you take them between meals, just before, during or even after? From my experience and that of readers, the best time seems to be right before your meal. Sometimes I forget to take them. When that happens I’ll just take one when I can. There is no harm in taking one later; it just may not help as much with digestion. Of course, some people also take them in between meals, but not as a digestion aid per se. Instead, they are using them for detoxification benefits.
You see, when taken on an empty stomach and not near food, the digestive enzymes (especially protease that breakdown protein) will hit your bloodstream and they’ll work to remove toxins and waste, thereby reducing inflammation and giving your liver and immune system some much needed help. The coolest thing of all is that they are very selective.
If digestion is really poor, food is sometimes pushed too quickly through the bowel, as it doesn’t really know what to do with the substance, other than excrete it. This results in loose bowels. Patients who often notice undigested food in their stool should consider digestive enzymes, since food is clearly not being broken down.
The right diet, the right way of eating and the right lifestyle, may still not be enough to help your body produce enough digestive enzymes. That’s because leaky gut, and its knock on effects, are a tough adversary to overcome.
And although I do think with enough time you could probably beat it without supplements, why wait? (I know when my gut was at its worst; patience was not a virtue I had time for!)
Also, unlike many other supplements for leaky gut, the very first time you take digestive enzymes you will notice it. Not in terms of noticing more nutrient absorption, but rather in terms of not noticing many of the after effects of eating with a leaky gut, heartburn, stomach pains etc. Everyone is of course different, but this is my experience with taking them.
Since digestive enzyme supplements will help break your food down faster AND in your stomach (not intestines) you also avoid larger food particles later tearing up your gut lining / intestines as they make their way out of your stomach.
Lack of digestive enzymes affects the pancreas. Remember the digestive system is designed to break down approximately half of the food. When we eat cooked and processed foods, we’re asking the digestive system to break down 100% of the food we’ve eaten. This means every time we eat these foods, the pancreas must produce twice as many enzymes as it is meant to and so it is working double time. Doing this year after year puts a tremendous strain on the pancreas. And eventually stresses our immune system and reduces our metabolic enzyme supply.
Autopsies have been done on people that eat mostly cooked and processed foods. The results show the pancreas is dangerously enlarged, poorly functioning and quite often on the verge of breaking down.
When your enzyme supplies run low, you become ill. There are three ways to conserve your enzyme supply so that it doesn’t run low.
I am a diabetic type 2. I am taking metfomine 500gms time release tablet at night as prescribed by my doctor. Can I take digestive enzyme and when can I take it. Please advise. Thank you.