Enzymes and Obesity…..A substantial amount of lipase is found in raw animal tissue and raw plants. Lipase is the enzyme that aids the body in breaking down fats. Without lipase fat will stagnate and accumulate in the blood vessels as well in other organs of the body. The reason animals in hibernation lose weight is due to lipase activity.
It’s been reported that in obese individuals the lipase content of the fatty tissue is decreased. The reason for the deficiency is that when food is cooked the lipase is destroyed. The lipase can’t aid in fat digestion, the burning of fat for energy or in the storage and distribution of fat. Many experiments have been done to show this using cooked food but not raw food. The experiments show that cooked food puts on weight but because raw food wasn’t used no conclusion can be stated about raw food.
Foods like meat and potatoes that are high in calories have high enzyme content when raw, but when cooked have little or no enzymes. Most foods aren’t eaten in their raw state so the enzymes to digest them must be taken from the body. An overabundance of cooked calories in the diet will be stored as fat.
Eating a diet high in cooked or refined foods will cause drastic changes in the pituitary gland. It has been shown that removal of an animal’s glands will lead to a change in enzyme levels in the blood. Enzymes affect hormone-producing glands and hormones influence enzyme levels.
A cooked diet will cause glandular secretions of the pancreas and pituitary glands to become exhausted. The body will become sluggish and thyroid function will also become exhausted. Raw calories stabilize gland secretion and body weight. Farmers have shown that feeding raw potatoes to hogs will cause a decline in weight gain but cooking them will cause the opposite effect on the hogs.
Dr. G. E. Burch at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana showed that young over-fed animals develop more fat cells. Infants that are overfed can develop three times as many fat cells. When they become adults they have more fat cells to store fat and therefore will gain weight easier. Eating too much cooked or refined food will be stored as fat in these fat cells. Eating more raw food will help in weight loss.
Here’s an interesting theory. I have always heard you should eat 5 or 6 small meals throughout the day rather than 3 bigger meals. Two separate studies with rats showed that one group of rats that were fed only one meal as apposed to the second group of rats who were fed every 2 hours gained less weight. It’s proposed that it’s due to decreased enzyme activity in fat cells and the pancreas because frequent eating decreases enzyme levels in the body.
Enzyme deficiency in lipase could also lead to circulatory disease and high blood pressure because fat isn’t properly digested. One study showed that a group of people aged 77 only had half the amount of lipase as the group that was 27 years old. Another observation was that fat not properly digested could be absorbed in that undigested state leading to arteriosclerosis, high cholesterol and high blood pressure. The fatty deposits can clog arteries leading to heart attacks. The heart has to pump harder leading to high blood pressure. The big offenders are the trans-fats or polyunsaturated fats. Another thing they do is drive cholesterol into the colon. This might be one cause of colon cancer.
Another way to help in digestion of food is pre-digestion. This isn’t a new concept. Primitive Eskimos bury their fish until they decay and they then eat it in this predigested state. Asian people add enzymes to soybeans to predigest them. In Lebanon a dish containing raw crushed lamb and wheat is left to predigest by enzymes before it’s eaten.