Why Enzymes are So Important to Your Pet's Life

Enzymes are vital to maintaining health in both humans and animals. As a lot of pet foods are processed, those necessary enzymes are being rmoved. The purpose of this article is to explain the importance of enzymes in humans and in their dogs and cats.

Enzymes are the foundation of energy and the life force in all living things. They are responsible for building, detoxifying, and healing the body. They are also the force that allows your body to digest and absorb food.

Enzymes also regulate tens of thousands of other biochemical functions that take place in the body every day. Even thinking involves "enzymes". Without enzymes, seeds would not sprout, fruit would not ripen, leaves would not change color, and life would not exist.

Classifications of Enzymes

Throughout nature, there are many classifications of enzymes. Our focus is on two of these classifications, namely dietary enzymes, and digestive enzymes.

Dietary Enzymes - All natural foods contain Living Dietary Enzymes. They are a powerful nutritional factor that supports the digestive process and the assimilation and distribution of key nutrients. They activate to strengthen the body's immune functions and natural metabolism. Living Dietary Enzymes provide the body with a resource, enabling it to produce a whole series of metabolic enzymes, primarily the defensive frontline Antioxidant enzymes:

• Superoxide Dismutase

• Catalase

• Glutathione Peroxidase

• Methionine Reductase

These enzymes are critical in the fight against free-radical damage and in maintaining healthy cellular functioning. The cells are the building blocks of life, and key to health and vitality.

The reason it is so important to supplement with Dietary enzymes is that cooked and processed foods have these enzymes destroyed thru heat and during processing. Without an adequate supply, the body lacks the necessary resources to keep pace with the body's demands for daily restoration and repair. This scenario leads to a downward spiral in general health and wellness.

Contributing Factors to a Pet's Poor Health

A famous pet-nutritional study by Dr. Francis M. Pottenger reported that a life-long diet of processed or cooked foods as a contributing factor why animals develop chronic degenerative diseases, infections and other maladies. His decade-long study confirmed that the succeeding generations who remain on this type of enzyme-less diet will show progressively more illness and disease.

Even the best commercial pet foods have their enzymes destroyed through heat, processing, preservatives and other chemicals. These vital food enzymes are needed to help maintain a pet's immune system and protect all of their body's primary metabolic functions.

The fact that we continue to feed our pets such enzyme-less food over an entire lifetime may contribute to the growing list of animal health problems we witness today including; Osteoarthritis, Inflammation, Joint Pain, Hip Dysplasia, Pano, OCD, HOD, Shedding, Hair loss, Dry Skin, Itchy Skin, Digestive Disorders, Gastritis, Pet Food Allergies, Epilepsy, Fatigue, Hot Spots and many other stress related symptoms contributed to by a weakened immune system.

Remember, every pet needs more than processed foods!

There are all-natural pet health supplements on the market that provide 'live' ingredients, which give the perfect added nutrition both pets and people need for promoting good health and vitality. Enzymes support a healthy immune system. If there are NO enzymes in your pet's food then there is little else to protect their body.

Linda Arndt (Canine Nutrition Consultant - www.greatdanelady.com) starts her Great Dane pups on an eNzymes diet as soon as they are weaned to support them as they prepare for vaccinations and to help them with growth and conformation all life long. She feels that it is necessary to use these all-natural supplements as they help to replace what's missing in today's over-processed pet foods.

Digestive Enzymes- Are found within living foods. They are there to help our bodies process (break-down for absorption) the foods we consume each day. The pancreas is also involved in the body's own production of digestive enzymes. Each enzyme produced plays a specific role in breaking down the various components of the food that we consume. These digestive enzymes include the following:

• Amylase

• Cellulase

• Lipase

• Pectinase

• Phytase

• Protease

However, these digestive enzymes suffer the same forces as their dietary brothers when they are processed with heat or chemicals. This scenario leaves our bodies with limited resources to digest we eat each day. This enzyme deficit often leads to problematic nutritional deficiencies that play havoc with our bodies and health.

Article submitted by Tim Delaney. References include Nzymes and Nzymes EU