Old Age and Digestion

If you are into your 60s and 70s, it would be a good idea to take a digestive enzyme pill with your primary meal, as these enzymes decrease with old age, so that without a supplement, you are getting much less value from the food that you eat because it doesn’t get thoroughly digested for lack of digestive enzymes.

Yet another problem with old age and digestion is that the hydrochloric acid produced by the stomach to breakdown food decreases with old age, so that food — and proteins in particular, which are more complex compounds — don’t get broken down as efficiently by digestion in the stomach for lack of this acid, which is another reason why the old should increase the amount of protein in their diet somewhat to compensate for this inefficient digestion. A sprinkle of lemon juice on your salad would help here with digestion in the stomach.

old age and digestion

Omega 3 Fat Hurdles

Food in general has to go through quite a thicket of hurdles before its nutrition can actually be used by the body. First, there’s digestion that begins in the mouth, accelerates with the acid in the stomach, and really takes off in the small intestines with digestive enzymes and all those critical bacteria doing their thing, but then the nutrition that the small intestines admits into the body must first pass muster with that filtration system of the body, the liver, before it finally gets admitted to the blood stream and can actually be used by the body. Any inefficiencies in any of these processes along the way and that means the food you think your body will take advantage of — because you did eat it — won’t actually be fully utilized by the body but, to the extent it was not properly “processed,” instead passes right through you with no benefit.

This brings us to what many nutritionist speak about constantly — the all-important ratio between the very valuable Omega 3 fat and the commonly overconsumed Omega 6 fat. Why is this ratio so important, you may ask? It’s important because both fats use the same digestive enzymes in the body, and therefore compete for their use. And there is a finite number of these specific digestive enzymes in the body at any given time, (although the healthier your diet, the greater the number). If the ratio between Omega 3 fat and Omega 6 fat becomes too skewed in favor of Omega 6 fat, then the Omega 6 fat utilizes a disproportionate amount of those limited number of digestive enzymes, and the Omega 3 fat gets left out in the cold, so of speak. So this skewed ratio, which is very common in the SAD diet, produces a huge inefficiency in digestive processes mentioned above relative to the Omega 3 fat you ate versus the Omega 3 fat that the body actually ends up using.

They think the modern contemporary diet can be become as skewed as 1:16 when our caveman ancestors had a diet that was 1:2. Exactly what ratio is the ideal ratio is a controversial subject, but there is no question that the SAD diet is hopeless skewed in favor of Omega 6 fat, and therefore those people who have this skewed ratio in their diet may think they are getting enough Omega 3 fat in their diet, but because of their warped Omega ratio, are in fact not fully utilizing the amount of Omega 3 fat they eat, perhaps to an alarming degree.

And so it is not enough to know how many grams of Omega 3 fat are in your daily diet — you have to also know your ratio.

Omega Ratio

My Almost-Vegan Diet

Enzymes

The book I’m reading about enzymes makes the argument that, if you supplement with a digestive enzyme pill, this relieves some of the pressure on the pancreas to create digestive enzymes, so that the body can then make a fuller complement of metabolic enzymes, which are critical to your health: Enzyme Nutrition by Dr. Edward Howells.

He argues that you should take a digestive enzyme supplement, but also eat more raw food because the enzymes in raw food have not been destroyed by heat. Again, the enzymes in raw food take the pressure off the pancreas to create digestive enzymes and so you get a boost to your metabolic enzymes.

In other words, he sees an inverse relationship between digestive enzymes and metabolic enzymes. Eat a lot of cooked and/or processed foods without any enzymes, and your pancreas will be doing double time, and your metabolic enzymes will be that much weaker, which leads to serious illnesses.

My Story

What do you get for a one dollar contribution? My gratitude.

If you enjoyed the post, you can help me keeping blogging along with just a one dollar contribution. You can contribute more by increasing the quantity — each increase by 1 is an additional dollar. Thanks for your support in this blog-eat-blog world.

$1.00