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| Enzymes are responsible for every
metabolic reation that takes place in your body whether it be the
blinking of your eye or the functioning of your liver. Thus, when
you're out of enzymes, you're out of vitality--in fact you're out
of life. |
Flying home from a session of Dr. Richard
Pitcairn's course for veterinary homeopaths last year, I passed
the time reading a copy of the Denver Post. An intriguing
headline caught my eye: "Cats Cozy Living Has Cost: Tinier
Brains." I was intrigued because Pitcairn's seminar had left
me musing on the effects of the modern diet on our companion animals,
certainly a major part of a cat's "cozy living."
In the Post newspaper article I read with interest the results
of a study conducted at the Universities of Tennessee and Madrid,
which compared the brain size of domestic house cats with those
of the Spanish Wildcat--a veritable "living fossil" which
appears to be almost identical to cats tamed by the ancient Egyptians
3,500 years ago. The findings, first published in the January 1993
issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, showed that "the
domestic cat has lost 30 percent to 50 percent of its brain cells
in adapting to the lap of luxury."
The authors, Drs. Williams, Cavada and Reinoso-Saurez, attributed
the change to evolutionary effects of domestication. But I wondered,
such a short period of time be due only to evolution-a process in
which millennia are like seconds and eras exceed a hundred millions
years? It would be interesting, I thought, to repeat this study
and try to factor in the effect of a wild diet versus the canned/processed
diet.
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ALL ABOUT ENZYMES |
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As has been said elsewhere, the
value of a raw food diet lies in its content of enzymes undamaged
by the heat of cooking. Enzymes are responsible for every metabolic
reaction that takes place in the body, whether it be the blinking
of your eye or the functioning of your liver. Thus, when you're
out of enzymes, you're out of vitality-in fact you're out of life.
Enzymes are protein molecules that are present in and produced by
every cell of your body. Enzymes, and enzymes alone, do the body's
actual work. They are its labor force. The battery in your car is
a plastic box filled with chemicals and plates that are charged
with electrical potential. Enzymes are protein molecules that are
charged with "biological potential." This is what differentiates
enzymes from another kind of substance that helps make life possible-catalysts.
Catalysts are elements that speed up biochemical reactions.
They possess chemical activity and cannot be destroyed. Enzymes,
on the other hand, possess both chemical and biological activity
and can be destroyed. If you heat enzymes (denature them) they
permanently lose their biological activity.
There are three classes of enzymes; 1) metabolic enzymes, which
are responsible for all organ function in the body, 2) digestive
enzymes, which are produced in the body by the pancreas and salivary
glands, and 3) food enzymes-digestive enzymes present in food. Digestive
enzymes are produced in the pancreas or salivary glands in an inactive
form (at this stage they are called pro-enzymes). They only become
activated when they reach the site where they will do their work-the
mouth or gut. The reason for this is obvious. If digestive enzymes
were active in the pancreas they would digest the pancreas. This
would not be good. Similar mechanisms control the activity of food
enzymes. The muscle cells of a mouse, for example, contain the enzyme
cathepsin. As long as the pH level within the cell indicates the
mouse is alive, the cathepsin remains in an inactive form. When
the mouse becomes a meal, pH changes activate the cathepsin, which
then begins to digest the muscle. A similar phenomenon takes place
when an apple falls from the tree.
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DIFFERENT 'ZYMES FOR
DIFFERENT KINDS |
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Nothing that we've discussed so far is new information.
This has all been known since the turn of the century. In 1943 however,
our understanding of enzyme physiology did change radically as the
result of some research done at Northwestern University. Prior to
that time, scientists had believed that the make-up of saliva was
fixed, and was not affected by the nature of whatever an animal
ate. The Northwestern research, performed on dogs led to what has
become known as "The Law of Selective Secretion of Digestive
Enzymes." Basically, it states that, "the amount of digestive
enzymes manufactured by the pancreas in response to ingested carbohydrate,
fat, and protein varies directly with the amount of these substances
it is called upon to digest."
What this law means in practice is that when dogs and cats are fed
raw diets, the pancreas only needs to secrete small amounts of enzymes,
because the enzymes necessary for digestion are already present
in the food. When these same animals are fed a heat-processed diet,
enzymes immediately show up in their saliva. This finding was of
great interest to scientist at the time, but it is not all that
surprising. Animals in the wild are very efficient organisms, and
it makes sense that they would avoid unnecessary work by not making
digestive enzymes that they don't need. While life in the wild requires
that an animal operate at maximum efficiency in order to survive,
it was not apparent at the time how this principle really applied
to the much less competitive life most of us--and our animal companions--lead.
The unnecessary loss of digestive enzymes was thought to be of little
consequence since the body, so the thinking went, could always make
more. This mindset was soon to change-dramatically.
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FLEAS, TEMPERATURE & ENZYMES |
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Research done twenty
years later at the University of Toronto certainly surprised the
scientific community. Drs. MacArthur and Baille studied the effect
of temperature on the life span of the water flea---Daphinia Magna.
Before discussing their work I should point out that one characteristic
of all enzymes is that they do their work faster at higher temperatures.
This is true up to the temperature at which they are denatured and
no longer work at all.
Daphinia Magna is a very interesting
flea. It is cold-blooded, so it cannot control its body temperature
as mammals do. This means that all body functions increase or decrease,
speed up or slow down as a direct result of the surrounding temperature
and the effect that temperature has on enzyme metabolism. Daphinia
is also a transparent flea. You can actually see the heart beat
and the intestines move. MacArthur and Baille were actually able
to count the heartbeats of their fleas using sophisticated cameras.
They allowed the fleas access to all the food they could eat, and
they essentially ate continuously. The results of their work are
given below.
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TEMPERATURE (ºF)
46º
50º
64º
82º
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LIFESPAN (Days)
108
87
40
25
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MacArthur and Baille concluded that the duration of
the life in the water flea Daphinia Magna varied inversely with
the intensity of their metabolism. At lower temperatures the metabolic
enzymes worked at a slower rate. The average heart rate at 46º
was only 1/3 the average rate at 82º, and all associated body
functions proceeded at a correspondingly slower pace. MacArthur
and Baille calculated that the life span of the water flea constitutes
about 15,000,000 heartbeats. This is true regardless of whether
it lives 26 days with a heart rate of 7 beats per second or 108
days with a rate of 2 beats per second. The heart beats just so
many times, and then life ends.
What this study showed conclusively is that enzymes do their work,
are used up, and the body's ability to replace them is worn out.
The body's capacity to make enzymes is finite. From their work MacArthur
and Baille concluded that we are all born with what they called
an "enzymatic potential," a fixed capacity to make enzymes.
As enzymes do their work the animal's enzymatic potential is worked
out and depleted. In the words of Dr. James Sumner, Nobel Laureate
in Chemistry and Emeritus professor at Cornell University: "Living
creatures are born with a fixed enzyme potential. This potential
diminishes with time, subject to the conditions and pace of life.
Animals eating dead, enzymeless food use up a tremendous amount
of their enzyme potential in lavish secretions of the pancreas and
other digestive organs. The result is reduced vitality, reduced
longevity, and resistance to all types of stress.
Think of this enzymatic potential as an "Enzymatic Bank Account"
that we're all born with. Our individual genetics dictate the balance
in the account at birth. What we eat and how we live determines
how long it takes to deplete the account. One fact is absolutely
certain---when the bank balance reads zero, life ends. Most of us
go through life making extremely lavish withdrawals to digest our
food.
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OLD AGE & ENZYMES |
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Subsequent research has added
to our knowledge of this enzyme potential. Dr. Edward Howell at
the University of Chicago studied the same Daphinia water flea at
the same temperatures as MacArthur and Baille, but restricted their
access to food. Essentially they were given only enough food to
keep them alive. Howell found that under these conditions, life
was extended at every temperature level. He made the obvious conclusion
that with reduced food intake there was a reduced need for the body
to synthesize digestive enzymes, and thus more of the limited enzymatic
potential could be used to do life-sustaining metabolic work. According
to Dr. Howell: "Life ends when the worn-out metabolic enzyme
activity of the body machine drops to such a low point that it is
not able to carry on vital enzyme activity. Old age and depleted
metabolic enzyme activity are completely synonymous."
It should be pointed out that, regardless of diet, older animals
have weaker enzymatic activity than young animals. Research done
by Dr. I. Michael Meyer at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago found
that the enzymatic activity in saliva of 35-year-old men was 30
times as potent as the enzymatic activity in saliva of 70-year-old
men. All subjects had basically eaten the Standard American Diet
throughout their lives. Many other researchers have confirmed that
this is true not only for digestive enzymes, but also for metabolic
enzymes.
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SHRINKING BRAINS &
PROCESSED FOOD |
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All of this brings us back to the study reported in
the Denver Post about your cat's shrinking brain and my theory
that somehow the canned food diet he's eating may somehow be responsible.
Another remarkable study, performed at the University of Prague,
does seem to indicate that a processed diet may indeed be the culprit.
Drs. Bartos and Groh of the University of Prague compared organ
weights of 140 wild mice eating a 100% raw diet with those 100 laboratory
mice given unrestricted access to 100% processed diet.
Their results:
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| PANCREAS Weight of Mice |
| Mouse |
No. of
Mice |
Average Body
Weight (gms.)
|
Pancreas
Weight
(% body
weight) |
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Wild
Lab |
140
100 |
37.1
30.8 |
.32
.84 |
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| BRAIN Weight of Mice |
| Mouse |
No. of
Mice |
Average Body
Weight (gms.)
|
Pancreas
Weight
(% body
weight) |
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____________________________________________
|
Wild
Lab |
140
100 |
37.1
30.8 |
2.65
1.60 |
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Very interesting. It seems that the lab mouse is ruled by the
pancreas, and the wild mouse is ruled by the brain. I think we're
all familiar with how muscles atrophy when from disuse, but can
brains actually atrophy when animals are kept in a boring environment,
are not challenged, and fed as much processed food as they can
eat? The numbers seem to indicate so.
Now we can sum up what we know about enzymes. We know that our
ability to manufacture them is finite and that we're all born
with a given enzymatic potential. We know that regardless of our
diet, our enzyme secretions are less potent with advanced age,
and finally we know that by eating raw foods that contain enzymes
we can stop wasting our bodies precious store of enzymes on digestion
and save it for the more essential production of metabolic enzymes.
And finally, we also know that a diet high in enzyme-deficient,
processed foods may actually have an effect on brain size.
I hope both you and your kitty have decided to eat more raw food.
We're all born with a checking account filled with enzymes.
A judicious person would contemplate every check written very
carefully. When you eat and apple turnover at McDonald's your
writing a very big check. When you eat an apple, you're writing
a much smaller check.
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