ENZYMES AND FOOD INTOLERANCE: ENZYME DEFECTS
April 20th, 2009In some people, certain enzymes are either in short supply, or they fail to work properly because their structure is abnormal. Such people are said to have ‘enzyme deficiencies’. Some deficiencies have no obvious effects, because there are other enzymes that can ‘cover’ for the missing one – the body often has more than one option, especially when it comes to digestion and detoxification. Other deficiencies are far more damaging, because the enzyme is the only one that can do that particular job, and toxic substances build up in the body if it is ineffectual.
Enzyme deficiencies have been known for many years. The more serious ones become noticeable soon after a child is born, or after it is weaned, and can kill or severely disable the child unless treated. The usual treatment is a special diet, which excludes foods that the child cannot deal with. The most widespread enzyme deficiency of this type is phenylketonuria; all babies are tested for this soon after they are born. Another example of a major enzyme deficiency is a shortage of the enzyme lactase, which breaks down the sugar in milk. Both of these enzyme defects are very rare – phenylketonuria only affects one baby in 12,000.
In recent years, it has become clear that there may be other, less noticeable, forms of enzyme deficiency. Some of these have come to light when certain patients reacted very badly to particular medicinal drugs – it turned out that they were less able to detoxify them than most people. Special chemical ‘probes’ have been developed in an effort to detect such patients – these are non-toxic compounds that are processed by the same enzymes, and which can readily be measured. The ‘probe’ is given to the patient, and the level is later measured (in the blood or urine) to see how thoroughly well the drug has been broken down.
When these probes are tried out on people with food intolerance, they produce interesting results. Such people are much more likely to be deficient/or some enzymes than healthy people are – they do metabolize the drugs, but more slowly. However, there Js no single enzyme which is defective in all food-intolerant individuals – or if there is, it has yet to be found. With enzyme defects, as with everything else, it looks as if food intolerance is a ‘mixed bag’.
One interesting factor to emerge from these experiments concerns patients who are sensitive to man-made chemicals, as well as food. In this group, an even higher percentage are enzyme-deficient than among those with food intolerance alone. For one enzyme, 90 per cent of such patients were deficient, compared with 80 per cent of those with food intolerance, and 20 per cent of the population at large. Interestingly enough, a high proportion of those with food allergy – 64 per cent – also showed a deficiency.
The fact that some apparently healthy people are deficient for these same enzymes is revealing. This clearly shows that a single enzyme defect of this type could not be the sole cause of food intolerance. Those who suffer from food intolerance must have other underlying problems as well – perhaps a shortage of another enzyme, or a leaky gut wall, or some other problem entirely. It is tempting to speculate that people with multiple sensitivities (foods and chemicals) are defective for a whole range of enzymes, making them much more susceptible to environmental factors. But at present, there are too few studies of enzyme deficiency to know if this is likely.
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