The Enzyme Advantage, for Health Care Providers and People Who Care About Their Health, by Howard F. Loomis, Jr., D.C., F.I.A.C.A, with Arnold Mann (21st Century Nutrition Publishing, 2015)
Medicine will always be in search of the magic bullet—that pill or potion that will do exactly what it was intended to do, and only what it was intended to do, every time, in every patient. This is the Holy Grail of modern medicine.
The problem is, it doesn't exist.
It doesn't exist because no two individuals are identical, because biochemical circumstances will vary from time to time and over time, and because an individual's organs and organ systems other than those targeted by the medication will inevitably be affected.
Hence the growing interest in so-called alternative healthcare for ailments like back pain, digestive disorders, arthritis, sprains and strains, allergies, high blood pressure, headaches, insomnia, chronic immune problems, and anxiety and depression.
In such cases, instead of masking symptoms with medications, why not provide the body with the nutrition it needs to heal the underlying problem?
if you can identify the organ or organ system that is struggling to do its job, and if you can deliver the nutrition it needs via an enzyme formula that will digest those nutritional elements—carbohydrate, protein and/or fat—to an absorbable state, then you've given the body the ability to heal itself.
The key to this process is enzymes. And that's what this book is about.
Enzymes are Nature's workers, as Dr. Edward Howell called them back in the 1920s. The three enzymes that were central to Howell's work are amylase, protease and lipase, which digest carbohydrates, proteins and fats, respectively, so that they may be used effectively by the body.
There are also food enzymes, as Howell called them, that exist in all plants and animals to facilitate their own life functions, and which also assist in their digestion when they are consumed as food by another organism.
It's all part of Nature's cycle of life.
Unfortunately, as Dr. Howell discovered back in the 1920s, with the advent of cooking, processing, pasteurizing, and now genetic modification, the enzymes contained in our food have mostly been destroyed or neutralized, compromising our ability to completely digest these foods.
This incomplete digestion leads to nutritional and energy deficits, as body organs struggle to maintain health. Ultimately, the result may be a progression to the degenerative diseases such as arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.
The Enzyme Advantage charts this progression from health to disease and describes the beneficial effects of supplemental enzymes to reduce one's health risks.
For the health care provider, the key is to look closely at a person's symptoms, figure out which organ system is struggling, and then determine the right enzyme formulation to deliver the necessary nutrition to correct the problem.
Such is the enzyme advantage. And that is what this book is all about—maintaining health as Nature meant it to be maintained.