Digestive Enzymes

AMYLASE
It is a digestive enzyme able to separate the oligosaccharides and polysaccharides in more little compounds (disaccharide). The serum amylase is mainly produced in the pancreas and in the parotid glands. An increase of the amylase can also establish in the inflammatory lesions of salivary glands, peptide ulcer, intestinal obstruction, gallstones, aneurysm of the aorta, peritonitis, acute appendicitis, brain trauma, burns , traumatic shock. There is a small variation in the case of tube-ovarian abscess. The hyperamylasemia can be associated to the hyperthyroidism.
Increased levels of amylasemia can be formed during pregnancy and in the alcoholics. Morphine, codeine, clorotiazine , pentazocine , corticosteroids, oral contraceptives, pancreozymin , secretine can raise the levels of amylase.

BROMELAIN
It is a proteolytic enzyme extract from the stem of the pineapple. The bromelain improves the renovation of the proteins in the organism including those of the joint tissue.
The bromelain has an activity anti-aggregating of the platelets verified in the human being. It has in same way a directed fibrinolytic activity on blood clots.
The bromelain has an anti-inflammatory activity direct and indirect. In the animal’s studies, the bromelain was been the most powerful of the new studied substances, very similar to prednisone drug. It acts on the inflammation, oedemas and ache for the direct fibrinolysis of the clots, that for the activation of the anti-inflammatory prostaglandins and for the bromelain inhibition, a substance which increases vascular permeability and which stimulates ache. The bromelain ’s action on the mediators of the inflammation is really powerful and of several type.
The bromelain was studied several times, in different types of cancer, alone or with the adjuvant treatment, for its anti-cancer and anti-metastasis activity with some interesting results that deserve to be explored.
The bromelain induces the production of cytokines, key elements of the immunity system.
Digestive help: the bromelain is active to different pH, in the stomach and in the tenuous. It good supplies the pepsin and the trypsin when they are insufficient or when the pancreas is run-down.

LACTASE
It is an enzyme able to separate the lactose in two monosaccharides that compose it (glucose and galactose), so allowing the absorption. The lactose intolerance cases in the first years of life are always almost secondary to intestinal disease; very different and of more big proportion is the problem of the lactose intolerance in the years after. Indeed, after the weaning , the lactase activity goes down quickly, according to a scheme genetically default.

LEPTIN
It is a protein mainly produced in the adipose tissue, but also by other tissues among which the placenta, breast tissue and gastrointestinal tract. The circulating levels are directly proportional to the adiposity, and they are greater in women respect to men. The leptin increases if there is a ponderal increment and reduces during fasting or after the physical exercise. Its main function is to regular the energetic homeostasis (food intake decrease and increasing energy spending).

PROTEASE
Enzyme that has the function to break the proteins in little scraps (peptides).
An its deficiency caused an accumulation of undigested proteins, causing inflammatory, auto- immune and allergic phenomenons. Normal levels, instead, have anti-inflammatory, anti-edemic immune-modulatory action.

LIPASE
Enzyme that digests fats favoring the transformation and the elimination of the fats accumulated in the organism and contributing to the reduction of adipose accumulations.

CELLULASE
Enzyme that catalyzes the hydrolysis of the cellulose. It misses in our digestive system. It causes the transformation of the cellulose in cellobiose. It is contained in digestive secretions of several invertebrates (insects, snails) and in the cells of bacterial and fungal microorganism. The production of the cellulose is an important requisite of bacteria composing the gastro-intestinal microbial flora of the herbivores , which are so able to use, as food, the products of the demolition of the cellulose.

PAPAIN
It is an enzyme able to degrade the proteins in peptides, it has also got an enzymatic digestive action that can be useful in case of difficult digestion, because it makes easer the protein digestion, so much to be an irreplaceable remedy after large and hasty meals. If ingested in fasting, the papain exercises an anti-inflammatory and an excellent draining action, above all in synergy with bromelain, (it makes easer the exit of fat acids from the adipose cells).

PANCREATIN
Medicine is extracted from the pancreas of ox or pig, a mixture of pancreatic enzymes that intervene in fats, carbohydrates and protein’s digestion. It is administered in cases of functional insufficiency of the exocrine pancreas, in the form of pills or keratinized capsules.

RENNIN
It is an enzyme of the gastric juice (together with the pepsin) that acts as an acid and causes the coagulation and milk clotting splitting casein, that it is only secreted in the stomach of the child and it is lacking in that one of the adults.

GLUTIN PROTEASE
To this group is belonging the transglutaminase, gliadin (alcohol soluble protein contained in wheat flour) and antiendomysial .The transglutaminase catalyzes the hydrolysis of gluten in peptides and recognizes as substrate the gliadin. If in the serum of the patient there are present anti-gliadin and anti–transglutaminase antibodies we will be in front a patient affected by celiachia.